Stablecoins: The New Financial Rails of the World

Crypto is famously complicated. But the best products are hiding that complexity.

Platforms like Shopify, Stripe, and Visa now allow merchants to settle payments in USDC and users don’t even realize they’re using blockchain. The crypto layer has gone invisible.

Just like you don’t think about how WiFi works, future financial products won’t mention “blockchain” at all. Stablecoins are making that possible.

Stablecoins have been filling the cracks in the global financial system.

In countries hit by hyperinflation, banking collapse, or currency controls like Venezuela, Nigeria, Turkey, and Ukraine people are using USDT to preserve value, get paid, and transact across borders. No bank account is required.

We’re witnessing new payments trend with programmable money at its center.

1. What are stablecoins and why do they matter?

Stablecoins, as the name suggests, are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value, most often pegged 1:1 to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar or the Euro. They blend the predictability of traditional money with the speed, efficiency, and programmability of blockchain. Unlike volatile assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum, stablecoins are meant to be spendable and reliable. And today, they’re becoming the infrastructure that’s bridging traditional and decentralized finance.

They offer the best of both worlds:

• Stability of traditional fiat currencies
• Speed and transparency of blockchain networks
• Programmability for automated payments, lending, and more
  
  What makes stablecoins so powerful is that they work “under the hood.” For everyday users, there’s often no need to interact with wallets, seed phrases, or gas fees. The best implementations make crypto disappear entirely from the user experience. Shopify, Stripe, and other mainstream platforms now allow merchants to settle transactions in USDC without ever touching the blockchain directly. This design shift - from exposing crypto to hiding it - signals a broader UX evolution. Just like nobody talks about TCP/IP when using the internet, the future of payments won’t be about “crypto” - it will simply be about fast, trusted, seamless value transfer.

2. The surge: how stablecoins surpassed Visa

In the first quarter of 2025, stablecoin transaction volume surpassed that of Visa for the first time - a symbolic but deeply meaningful milestone. According to Bitwise, the total assets under management (AUM) in stablecoins reached $237 billion, with Tether (USDT) maintaining dominance at over 60% market share and USDC, issued by Circle, steadily gaining ground. PayPal’s own stablecoin, PYUSD, continues to grow, with recent integrations offering 3.7% APY yields and seamless merchant settlements. Across the board, the use of stablecoins is rising not because users want “crypto,” but because they want better, faster, and more reliable money.

The numbers tell the full story. In just the past few months, stablecoins have surged in both usage and acceptance:

• $237B total stablecoin AUM (Assets Under Management)
• 13.5% growth in Q1 2025 alone
• USDT dominates with ~62% market share
• USDC gaining ground, used by fintech and institutions
• PYUSD (PayPal’s stablecoin) is growing fast with 3.7% APY for U.S. users
• Stablecoin transactions surpassed Visa volume for the first time in history
  
  Stablecoins have extended well beyond the crypto sector to become a means of payment for real-world goods, salaries, settlements, and savings. And it’s happening at scale.

3. Why emerging markets are leading the charge

Stablecoins are thriving where traditional finance is broken or absent. In countries plagued by inflation, capital controls, or political instability, stablecoins offer a way out.

In emerging markets and conflict zones, stablecoins are filling urgent financial gaps. In countries like Venezuela, Nigeria, and Lebanon where inflation erodes local currency value by the hour - people are turning to stablecoins to store wealth, receive remittances, and conduct daily transactions. In Ukraine and Syria, stablecoins have become vital tools for aid delivery and merchant transactions. Even in the absence of reliable banking, citizens are accessing global money through smartphone wallets, bypassing the limitations of local financial institutions entirely.

This is why startups across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia are building on stablecoin rails. Companies like Yellow Card and Moss are enabling freelancers, remote workers, and creators to get paid in dollars—instantly and with minimal fees. Stablecoins are becoming the financial stack for the underbanked and the unbanked, allowing billions of people to plug into the global economy without waiting for their banking system to catch up.

Real-world examples include:

• Venezuela & Turkey: Stablecoins used to hedge against inflation
• Nigeria: Freelancers get paid in USDC through platforms like Yellow Card
• Ukraine & Syria: USDT used for aid delivery and merchant transactions
• Latin America & Africa: Mobile-first users access stablecoins without a bank account
  
  This trend isn't limited to compliance or finance—it’s geopolitical too. Russia, responding to wallet freezes involving USDT, is exploring a new non-USD-pegged national stablecoin for oil trade with China and India. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank has committed over €1 billion to the development and launch of a digital euro by October 2025. Across the world, governments are waking up to the strategic implications of programmable, borderless money.

4. The compliance race: who gets to issue money?

As the U.S. Congress debates competing stablecoin bills—the STABLE Act (strict) vs. the GENIUS Act (more flexible)—compliance is becoming a strategic moat.

• Banks are trying to adapt to tokenized money
• Crypto-native firms already have the rails and the users
• The real winners will be those who can scale while staying compliant
  
  Companies like Circle and PayPal are racing to define the next generation of financial infrastructure. Circle’s newly launched Circle Payment Network (CPN) enables real-time cross-border settlements using its USDC and EURC stablecoins. The CPN aims to eliminate the settlement delays and reconciliation issues that traditional card networks like Visa were built to solve - effectively offering a better version of the same service. Visa, for its part, is fighting back by launching VTAP (Visa Token Asset Platform), which allows banks to issue and manage their own digital currencies with built-in cross-chain capabilities.
  
  As the race intensifies, infrastructure is evolving to match. Ripple’s RLUSD has launched with advanced reclaimable mechanics aimed at institutional compliance. Lightspark and Brale are bringing stablecoin settlements to the Bitcoin ecosystem via the Lightning Network. New projects like Resolv Labs’ USR aim to introduce yield-bearing stablecoins using delta-neutral strategies, while others such as WLFI’s USD1, backed by Trump-aligned investors are exploring politically motivated tokenization models. Each of these approaches requires new layers of tooling, governance, and technical infrastructure and Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS) providers are increasingly expected to support diverse, programmable, and compliant deployments.

5. The quiet revolution already underway

Stablecoins are doing something that most blockchain products only dream of: achieving mass adoption without friction.

In the end, stablecoins are not about crypto hype. They’re about financial utility. They’re bridging the gap between traditional finance and Web3, offering speed, stability, and programmability in a way that legacy systems simply can’t compete with. Whether it's enabling microtransactions in gaming, real-time payroll for global teams, or disaster relief in war zones, stablecoins are quietly redefining what money can do and how fast it can move.

For builders, investors, regulators, and users alike, the message is clear: if you’re still thinking of stablecoins as an offshoot of crypto, you’re missing the point. They are becoming the rails, runtime, and real-world interface for programmable money.

Disclaimer: This article is intended for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to trade. Cryptocurrency trading involves risk, and users should conduct their own research or seek independent advice before making trading decisions.