In-depth Analysis of the Stablecoin Payment Ecosystem

The global financial system is undergoing profound changes. Traditional payment networks are facing comprehensive challenges from stablecoins due to outdated infrastructure, lengthy settlement cycles, and high costs. Stablecoins are rapidly innovating the ways in which cross-border value flows, corporate transactions, and personal financial services are accessed.

In recent years, stablecoins have continued to develop and have become an important infrastructure for global payments. Large fintech companies, payment processors, and sovereign entities are integrating stablecoins into consumer-facing applications and corporate cash flows. At the same time, emerging financial tools such as payment gateways, deposit and withdrawal channels, and programmable yield products have greatly enhanced the convenience of using stablecoins.

This report provides a deep analysis of the stablecoin ecosystem from both technical and business perspectives, studying the key participants, core infrastructure, and dynamic demand drivers that shape this field. Additionally, it explores how stablecoins give rise to new financial application scenarios and the challenges they face in the process of being widely integrated into the global economy.

1. Why choose stablecoin payments?

To understand the influence of stablecoins, one must first examine traditional payment solutions. These traditional systems include cash, checks, debit cards, credit cards, international wire transfers ( SWIFT ), Automated Clearing Houses ( ACH ), and peer-to-peer payments. Although they have become integrated into daily life, many payment channels such as ACH and SWIFT have infrastructure that has existed since the 1970s. Most of these global payment infrastructures are now outdated and highly fragmented. Overall, traditional payment methods face issues such as high fees, high friction, processing times, inability to settle around the clock, and complex backend processes. Additionally, they often bundle unnecessary extra services such as authentication, lending, compliance, fraud protection, and bank integration.

Stablecoin payments are effectively addressing these pain points. Compared to traditional payment methods, using blockchain for payment settlement greatly simplifies the payment process, reduces intermediaries, and enables real-time visibility of cash flow, not only shortening settlement times but also lowering costs.

The main advantages of stablecoin payments include:

• Real-time settlement: Transactions are completed almost instantly, eliminating delays in traditional banking systems.
• Safe and Reliable: The immutable ledger of blockchain ensures the security and transparency of transactions, providing protection for users.
• Cost reduction: Eliminating intermediaries significantly lowers transaction fees, saving expenses for users.
• Global Coverage: Decentralized platforms can reach markets that are underserved by traditional financial services, achieving financial inclusion.

2. The Landscape of the Stablecoin Payment Industry

The stablecoin payment industry can be divided into four technical stack layers:

1. First Layer: Application Layer

The application layer is mainly composed of various payment service providers ( PSP ), which integrate multiple independent deposit and withdrawal payment institutions into a unified aggregation platform. These platforms provide users with convenient access methods for stablecoins, offer tools for developers developing on the application layer, and provide credit card services for Web3 users.

a. Payment Gateway

A payment gateway is a service that facilitates transactions between buyers and sellers by securely processing payments.

Well-known companies innovating in this field include:

• Stripe: A traditional payment provider that integrates stablecoins like USDC for global payments.
• MetaMask: does not provide direct fiat currency exchange functionality itself; users can perform deposit and withdrawal operations through integration with its third-party services.
• Helio: 450,000 active wallets and 6,000 merchants. With the Solana Pay plugin, millions of Shopify merchants can settle payments using cryptocurrency and instantly convert USDY to other stablecoins, such as USDC, EURC, and PYUSD.
• Web2 payment applications such as Apple Pay, PayPal, Cash App, Nubank, and Revolut also allow users to make payments using stablecoins, further expanding the application scenarios for stablecoins.

The field of payment gateway providers can be clearly divided into two categories ( with some overlap ).

1. developer-oriented payment gateway; 2) consumer-oriented payment gateway. Most payment gateway providers tend to focus more on one of these categories, thereby shaping their core products, user experience, and target market.

The developer-oriented payment gateway is designed to serve businesses, fintech companies, and enterprises that need to embed stablecoin infrastructure into their workflows. They typically provide application programming interfaces (API), software development kits (SDK), and developer tools for integration into existing payment systems to enable features such as automated payments, stablecoin wallets, virtual accounts, and real-time settlement. Some emerging projects focused on providing such developer tools include:

• BVNK: Provides enterprise-level payment infrastructure for easy integration of stablecoins. BVNK offers API solutions for seamless processes, has a payment platform for cross-border commercial payments, and allows enterprises to hold and trade multiple stablecoins and fiat currencies through enterprise accounts, as well as merchant services that provide the tools needed for businesses to accept customer stablecoin payments. Processing over $10 billion in annualized transaction volume, with a year-on-year growth rate of 200%, a valuation of $750 million, and clients including emerging regions such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
• Iron (in beta): Provides APIs to seamlessly integrate stablecoin trading into their existing business. It offers businesses global deposit and withdrawal channels, stablecoin payment infrastructure, wallets, and virtual accounts, supporting customized payment workflows( including recurring payments, invoicing, or on-demand payments).
• Juicyway: provides a range of corporate payment, salary distribution, and bulk payment APIs, supporting currencies including Nigerian Naira (NGN), Canadian Dollar (CAD), US Dollar (USD), Tether (USDT), and USD Coin (USDC). It mainly targets the African market and has no operational data yet.

Consumer-focused payment gateways prioritize the user, providing an easy-to-use interface for stablecoin payments, remittances, and financial services. They typically include mobile wallets, multi-currency support, fiat deposit and withdrawal channels, and seamless cross-border transactions. Some well-known projects that focus on providing this simple payment experience for users include:

• Decaf: An on-chain banking platform that enables personal consumption, remittances, and stablecoin transactions in over 184 countries; Decaf collaborates with local channels, including MoneyGram, in Latin America to achieve nearly zero withdrawal fees, with over 10,000 South American users and high ratings among Solana developers.
• Meso: Deposit and withdrawal solution, directly integrated with merchants, allowing users and businesses to easily convert between fiat currencies and stablecoins with minimal friction. Meso also supports Apple Pay to purchase USDC, simplifying the process for consumers to obtain stablecoins.
• Venmo: The stablecoin wallet feature of Venmo utilizes stablecoin technology, but its functionality is integrated into its existing consumer payment application, allowing users to easily send, receive, and use digital dollars without directly interacting with the blockchain infrastructure.

b. U Card

Cryptocurrency cards are payment cards that allow users to spend cryptocurrency or stablecoins at traditional merchants. These cards are typically integrated with traditional credit card networks like Visa or Mastercard(, enabling seamless transactions by automatically converting cryptocurrency assets to fiat currency at the point of sale.

The project includes:

• Reap: A card issuer in Asia, clients include over 40 companies such as Infini, Kast, Genosis pay, Redotpay, Ether.fi, etc., selling white-label solutions, mainly relying on transaction volume commission ) like Kast 85%-Reap 15% ( cooperating with Hong Kong banks, can cover most areas outside the United States, supports multi-chain deposit; by July 2024, the transaction volume reached $30M.
• Raincards: A card issuer in the Americas, supporting card issuance for companies like Avalanche, Offramp, takenos, etc. Its biggest feature is that it can serve users in the US and Latin America. I issued a USDC corporate card to pay for travel expenses, office supplies, and other daily business costs using on-chain assets ) such as USDC(.
• Fiat24: European card issuer + web3 bank, the business model is similar to the above two companies, supports card issuance for enterprises like ethsign, safepal; Swiss license, mainly serving European + Asian users, does not yet support full-chain transactions, only arbitrum recharge. Growth is slow with a total of 20,000 users, monthly revenue $100K-150K.
• Kast: The rapidly growing U card on Solana has currently issued over 10,000 cards, with 5-6k monthly active users, a transaction volume of $7m in December 2024, and revenue of $200k.
• 1Money: stablecoin ecosystem, recently launched a credit card that supports stablecoins, and provides a software development kit for easy L1 and L2 integration, currently in beta with no data.

There are many cryptocurrency card providers, and they mainly differ in terms of service areas and supported currencies, typically offering low-fee services to end users to enhance the enthusiasm for using cryptocurrency cards.

) 2. Layer 2: Payment Processor

As a key layer of the stablecoin technology stack, payment processors are the backbone of payment channels, primarily covering two categories: 1. Deposit and withdrawal service providers 2. Stablecoin issuance service providers. They act as a crucial intermediary layer in the payment lifecycle, connecting Web3 payments with traditional financial systems.

a. Deposit and Withdrawal Processor

• Moonpay: Supports over 80 cryptocurrencies, providing various deposit and withdrawal methods as well as token swap services to meet users' diverse cryptocurrency trading needs.
• Ramp Network: covers over 150 countries and provides deposit and withdrawal services for over 90 types of crypto assets. The network handles all KYC### identity verification(, AML) anti-money laundering(, and compliance requirements, ensuring the compliance and security of deposit and withdrawal services.
• Alchemy Pay: a hybrid payment gateway solution that supports two-way conversion and payment between fiat currencies and crypto assets, achieving the integration of traditional fiat currency and crypto asset payments.

b. Stablecoin Issuance & Coordination Processors

• Bridge: The core products of Bridge include the Coordination API and the Issuance API. The former helps businesses integrate various stablecoin payments and exchanges, while the latter supports businesses in quickly issuing stablecoins. The platform is currently licensed in the United States and Europe and has established significant partnerships with the U.S. State Department and the Treasury, possessing strong compliance operational capabilities and resource advantages.
• Brale ) in beta(: Similar to the Bridge product, it is a regulated stablecoin issuance platform that provides stablecoin coordination and reserve management APIs. It has compliance licenses in various states in the U.S., and partner companies are required to undergo KYB) corporate identity verification(, while users need to set up an account on Brale for KYC. Brale's clients are mostly on-chain OG) such as Etherfuse, Penera, etc., which are slightly less endorsed by investors and BD compared to Bridge.
• Perena ( in beta ): The Numeraire platform by Perena lowers the issuance threshold for niche stablecoins by encouraging users to provide centralized liquidity in a single pool. Numeraire adopts a "central hub-radiating" model, with USD* as the central reserve asset, acting as the "hub" for stablecoin issuance and exchange. This mechanism enables the efficient minting, redemption, and trading of multiple stablecoins pegged to different assets or jurisdictions, with each stablecoin serving as a similar "spoke" connected to USD*. Through this system architecture, Numeraire ensures deep liquidity and enhances capital efficiency, as smaller stablecoins can interoperate through USD* without requiring separate liquidity pools for each trading pair. The ultimate design goal of the system is not only to enhance price stability and reduce slippage but also to achieve seamless conversion between stablecoins.

( 3. Layer 3: Asset Issuer

Asset issuers are responsible for creating, maintaining, and redeeming stablecoins. Their business model typically centers around the balance sheet, similar to bank operations – accepting customers.