Author: Alice@foresightventures.com,Max@foresightventures.com

The global financial system is in a profound wave of change. Traditional payment networks are facing all-round challenges from emerging alternatives - stablecoins due to their outdated infrastructure, lengthy settlement cycles and high fees. These digital assets are rapidly revolutionizing the model of cross-border flow of value, paradigms of corporate transactions, and personal access to financial services.

In the past few years, stablecoins have continued to develop and have become an important underlying architecture for global payments. Large fintech companies, payment processors, and sovereign entities are gradually integrating stablecoins into consumer-facing applications and corporate capital flows. At the same time, a series of emerging financial tools, from payment gateways to inbound and outgoing channels, to programmable income products, has greatly improved the convenience of using stablecoins.

This report deeply analyzes the stablecoin ecosystem from the dual perspectives of technology and business. Research on shaping key players in this field, the core infrastructure that supports stablecoin trading, and the dynamic needs that drive their applications. In addition, it is also discussed how stablecoins can spawn new financial application scenarios and the challenges faced in the process of broad integration into the global economy.

1. Why choose stablecoin payment?

To explore the influence of stablecoins, we must first examine traditional payment solutions. These traditional systems cover cash, checks, debit cards, credit cards, international wire transfers (SWIFT), automatic clearing houses (ACH), and peer-to-peer payments. Although they have been integrated into daily life, the infrastructure of many payment channels, such as ACH, SWIFT, has existed since the 1970s. Despite its groundbreaking significance at the time, most of these global payment infrastructures are outdated and highly fragmented today. Overall, these payment methods are troubled by problems such as high fees, high friction, long processing time, inability to achieve 24/7 settlement, and complex back-end programs. In addition, they often (paid) bundle unnecessary additional services such as identity verification, lending, compliance, fraud protection, and banking integration.

Stablecoin payment is effectively solving these pain points. Compared with traditional payment methods, using blockchain for payment settlement has greatly simplified the payment process, reduced intermediate links, and achievedReal-time visibility of capital flow not only shortens settlement time, but also reduces costs.

The main advantages of stablecoin payment can be summarized as follows:

Real-time settlement: Transactions are completed almost instantly, eliminating delays in traditional banking systems.

Safety and reliable: The immutable ledger of the blockchain ensures the security and transparency of transactions and provides protection for users.

Cost reduction: removing intermediate links significantly reduces transaction costs and saves users' expenses.

Global coverage: Decentralized platforms can reach markets that are under-covered by traditional financial services (including unbanked people) and achieve financial inclusion.

2. Stablecoin payment industry structure

The stablecoin payment industry can be subdivided into four technical stack levels:

1. Layer 1: The application layer

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

a. Payment Gateway

Payment Gateway is a service that promotes transactions between buyers and sellers through secure processing of payments.

Highly renowned companies that innovate in this field include:

Stripe: Traditional payment providers, integrating USDC and other stablecoins for global payments.

MetaMask: It does not provide direct fiat currency exchange function, and users can implement deposit and withdrawal operations through integration with their third-party services.

Helio: 450,000 active wallets and 6,000 merchants. With the Solana Pay plug-in, millions of Shopify merchants can settle payments in cryptocurrency and instantly convert USDY into 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 complete payments using stablecoins, further broadening the application scenarios of stablecoins.

The fields of payment gateway providers can be clearly divided into two categories (there is a certain overlap)

left;">1. Developer-oriented payment gateway; 2. Consumer-oriented payment gateway. Most payment gateway providers tend to focus more on one category, thereby shaping their core products, user experience and target markets.

Developer-oriented payment gateways are designed to serve businesses, fintech companies and enterprises that need to embed stablecoin infrastructure into their workflows. They typically provide application programming interfaces (APIs), software development toolkits (SDKs), and developer tools for integration into existing payment systems to enable features such as automatic 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 provides API solutions that enable seamless processes, have a payment platform for cross-border commercial payments, and corporate accounts that allow businesses to hold and trade multiple stablecoins and fiat currencies, as well as corporateProvide merchant services that accept tools required to pay for customers' stablecoin. It handles annualized transaction volume of more than $10 billion, with an annual growth rate of 200%, and a valuation of 750 million US dollars. Its customers include emerging regions such as Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, etc.

Iron (in beta): Provides an API to seamlessly integrate stablecoin transactions into its existing business. It provides enterprises with global deposit and withdrawal channels, stablecoin payment infrastructure, wallets and virtual accounts, and supports customized payment workflows (including regular payments, invoices or on-demand payments).

**Juicyway: **Provides a series of corporate payments, salary payments and bulk payment APIs, including Nigerian Naira (NGN), Canadian Dollar (CAD), USD (USD), Tether (USDT), and USD Coin (USDC). It is mainly facing the African market and has no operational data yet.

The consumer-oriented payment gateway focuses on users and provides a simple and easy-to-use interface to facilitate users to make stablecoin payments, remittances and financial services. They usually include mobile wallets, multi-currency support, fiat currency deposit and exit channels and seamless cross-border transactions. Some well-known projects focused on providing users with this simple payment experience include:

Decaf: an on-chain banking platform, enabling more than 184 personal consumption, remittance and stablecoin transactions; Decaf cooperates with local channels including MoneyGram in Latin America, achieving almost zero withdrawal fees, with more than 10,000 South American users, and is highly rated among solana developers.

Meso: deposit and withdrawal solution, directly integrated with merchants, allowing users and businesses to easily convert between fiat currency and stablecoins with minimal friction. Meso also supports Apple Pay to purchase USDC, simplifying the process for consumers to acquire stablecoins.

Venmo: Venmo's stablecoin wallet feature utilizes stablecoin technology, but its functionality is integrated into its existing consumer payments applications, allowing users to eliminate the need forInteract directly with the blockchain infrastructure to easily send, receive and use digital dollars.

b. U card

Cryptocurrency card is a payment card that allows users to spend on cryptocurrencies or stablecoins at traditional merchants. These cards are often integrated with traditional credit card networks such as Visa or Mastercard to enable seamless transactions by automatically converting cryptocurrency assets into fiat currencies at the point of sale.

Projects include:

Reap:Asian card issuers, customers include more than 40 companies including Infini, Kast, Genosis pay, Redotpay, Ether.fi, etc., selling white label solutions mainly rely on transaction volume commissions (such as Kast 85%-Reap15%) to cooperate with Hong Kong banks, which can cover most areas outside the United States and support multi-chain deposit; the transaction volume in July 2024 will reach $30M.

Raincards: American card issuer, supports card issuance by Avalanche, Offramp, takenos and other companies. The biggest feature is that it can serve American and Latin American users. I sent a USDC business card to pay for travel, office supplies and other daily business expenses using on-chain assets (such as USDC).

Fiat24: European card issuer + web3 banking, the business model is similar to the above two companies, and supports card issuance by ethsign, safepal and other companies; Swiss license, mainly serving European and Asian users, and does not yet support full-chain transactions, only arbitrum recharge. The growth is slower, the total number of users is 20,000 and the monthly income is $100K-150K.

**Kast: **The fastest growing U card on **Solana has currently issued more than 10,000 cards, 5-6k monthly active users, trading volume in December 2024 $7m, and revenue $200k.

1Money: Stablecoin ecosystem, recently launched a credit card that supports stablecoins and provides a software development toolkit to facilitate L1 and L2 integration, in beta has no data yet.

There are many providers of cryptocurrency card, which mainly differ in terms of serving regions and supporting currencies, and usually provide low-cost services to end users to increase users' enthusiasm for using cryptocurrency cards.

2. The second layer: payment processor

As the key level of the stablecoin technology stack, payment processors are the pillar of the payment channel, mainly covering two categories: 1. deposit and withdrawal service providers 2. Stablecoin issuance service providers. They act as a key middle layer in the payment life cycle, connecting Web3 payments to traditional financial systems.

a. deposit and withdrawal processing provider

Moonpay: supports more than 80 cryptocurrencies, provides a variety of deposit and withdrawal methods and token swap services, to meet users' diverse cryptocurrency trading needs.

Ramp Network: Covering more than 150 , providing deposit and withdrawal services for more than 90 crypto assets. The network handles all KYC (identity authentication), AML (anti-money laundering) and compliance requirements, ensuring compliance and security of deposit and withdrawal services.

Alchemy Pay: A hybrid payment gateway solution that supports two-way exchange and payment between fiat currency and crypto assets, realizing the integration of traditional fiat currency and crypto asset payment.

b. Stablecoin Issuance & Coordinated Processor

Bridge: BridgeCore products include coordination APIs and issuance APIs. The former helps enterprises integrate multiple stablecoins payments and exchanges, while the latter supports enterprises to issue stablecoins quickly. The platform is currently licensed in the United States and Europe and has established important partnerships with the U.S. House and the Treasury Department, with strong compliance operations and resource advantages.

Brale (in beta): Similar to Bridge products, it is a regulated stablecoin issuance platform, providing stablecoin coordination and reserve management API. Compliance licenses are available in all states in the United States. Partners need to pass KYB (enterprise identity verification), and users need to set up an account in Brale to perform KYC. Brale customers are more on-chain OG (such as Etherfuse, Penera, etc.) and Bridge are slightly worse than investors' endorsement and BD.

Perena (in beta): Perena's Numeraire platform lowers the issuance threshold for niche stablecoins by encouraging users to provide centralized liquidity in a single pool. Numeraire adopts a "central hub-radiation" model, where USD* acts as a central reserve asset and acts as a "hub" for stablecoin issuance and exchange. This mechanism enables a variety of stablecoins pegged to different assets or jurisdictions to be efficiently minted, redeemed and traded, each connected to USD* as a similar “spoke”. Through this system structure, Numeraire ensures deep liquidity and improves capital efficiency, as small stablecoins can be interoperated via USD* without the need to provide a decentralized liquidity pool 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. The third layer: Asset issuer

Asset issuer is responsible for creating, maintaining and redeeming stablecoins. Its business model is usually centered on the balance sheet, similar to bank operations—accepting customer deposits and investing funds in high-yield assets such as U.S. Treasuries to earn interest spreads. At the asset issuer level, stablecoin innovation can be divided into three levels: stablecoins supported by static reserves, interest-generating stablecoins and income-sharing stablecoins.

1. Stablecoins supported by static reserves

The first generation of stablecoins introduces the basic model of the digital dollar: centralized issuance of tokens supported by fiat reserves held by traditional financial institutions at a 1:1 ratio. The main players in this category include Tether and Circle.

Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC are the most widely used stablecoins, both supported by USD reserves in Tether and Circle's financial accounts at a 1:1 ratio. These stablecoins are currently integrated with multiple platforms and serve as a base currency pair for transactions and settlements of cryptocurrencies. It is worth noting that the value of these stablecoins is owned by the asset issuer itself. USDT and USDC Mainly through interest spreads to their issuing entities rather than sharing their income with users.

2. Interest-yielding stablecoins

The second evolution of stablecoins goes beyond simple fiat-backed tokens and embeds native income generation functions. Interest-yielding stablecoins provide holders with on-chain returns, usually derived from mechanisms such as short-term Treasury yields, decentralized finance (DeFi) lending strategies or pledge rewards. Unlike traditional static stablecoins that passively hold reserves, these assets actively generate returns while maintaining prices.

Well-known protocols that provide on-chain earnings for stablecoin holders include:

Ethena($6B): Stablecoin Protocol Issuance USDe-on-chain synthetic dollars supported by hedged Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL). Ethena's unique design enables USDe holders to obtain organic returns from the perpetual futures market capital rates (currently annualized yield is 6.00%) to attract users through unique collateral and earning mechanisms.

Mountain($152M): The current annualized interest-generating stablecoin with a 4.70% annualized rate of return. Mountain allows users to earn interest daily by simply depositing USDM into their wallet, which is attractive to users who seek passive returns without additional stakes or participating in complex DeFi, providing users with a simple and convenient interest-generatingWay.

Level($25M): A stablecoin composed of liquid re-staked US dollars. Level explores a new method of stablecoin income generation; it uses lvlUSD to provide security for multiple decentralized networks, collecting additional income from these networks, and then passing it to lvlUSD holders, innovating the stablecoin income model.

CAP Labs(Beta): Built on the highly anticipated megaETH blockchain, CAP is developing the next generation of stablecoin engines aimed at providing new sources of income for stablecoin holders. CAP stablecoins generate scalable and adaptable returns by leveraging external sources of income such as arbitrage, maximum withdrawable value (MEV) and real-world assets (RWA) – these earnings streams have traditionally been reserved for complex institutional participants, opening up new directions for stablecoin earnings.

3. Income Sharing Stablecoins

Earning Sharing Stablecoins integrate built-in monetization mechanisms that distribute part of transaction fees, interest income or other earnings streams directly to users, issuers, terminal apps and ecosystem participants. This model aligns incentives among stablecoin issuers, distributors and end users, further transforming stablecoins from passive payment tools to active financial assets.

Paxos($72m): As an ever-evolving stablecoin issuer, Paxos announced the launch of USDG in November 2024, which is regulated by the upcoming stablecoin framework of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Paxos shares stablecoin income and interest income generated from reserve assets with partners helping to expand network utility, including Robinhood, Anchorage Digital and Galaxy, etc., to expand revenue sharing mode through cooperation.

M^0($106m): The M^0 team consists of former MakerDAO and former Circle veterans, M^0The vision is to act as a simple, trustworthy neutral settlement layer that enables any financial institution to mint and redeem M^0's income-sharing stablecoin "M". The M^0 Agreement shares most of the interest income with approved distributors known as beneficiaries. However, one of the differences between "M" and other income-sharing stablecoins is that "M" can also be used as a "raw material" for other stablecoins such as Noble's USDN

Agora($76m): Similar to USDG and "M", Agora's AUSD also shares revenue with applications and market makers that integrate AUSD. Agora has received strategic support from some market makers and applications including Wintermute, Galaxy, Consensys and Kraken Ventures. Agora's Rev-sharing ratio is not fixed, but most of it will be returned to partners.

4. Layer 4: Settlement Layer

The settlement layer of the stablecoin technology stack is the foundation of the stablecoin ecosystem, ensuring the finality and security of transactions. It consists of payment channels (blockchain network) that process and verify stablecoin transactions in real time. Today, many well-known L1L2 networks serve as the key settlement layer for stablecoin transactions:

Solana: A high-performance blockchain known for its excellent throughput, fast finality and low fees has become the key settlement layer for stablecoin transactions, especially in consumer payments and remittances. The Solana Foundation is actively encouraging developers to build on Solana Pay and holds PayFi Conference/Hacksong to strongly support off-chain PayFi innovation to promote the application of stablecoins in actual payment scenarios.

Tron: The first layer of blockchain that occupies an important market share in the stablecoin payment field; USDT on Tron is widely used in cross-border payments and peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions due to its efficiency and deep liquidity. Tron pays great attention to B2C transactions, but the current support for B2B scenarios is insufficient

Codex (beta): Cross-border B2B paymentOP L2, Codex aggregates deposit and withdrawal service providers, market makers, exchanges and stablecoin issuers to provide enterprises with one-stop stablecoin financial services. Codex has a strong distribution channel, sharing 50% of its sorter fees with Circle to get traffic to its deposits and withdrawals.

Noble: A USDC native asset issuance chain designed for the Cosmos and IBC ecosystems, Cosmos is the fourth largest USDC issuance chain that has been integrated with Coinbase. Projects integrating Noble can store USDC in more than 90 IBC modular chains (dYdX, Osmosis, Celestia, SEI, Injective) in one click to realize the native casting and circulation of USDC in a multi-chain ecosystem.

1Money (beta): L1 specially built for stablecoin payments. Transactions are processed in parallel with equal priority and fixed fees, meaning no transactions are reordered and no users can "cut the queue" by paying higher fees. The network also provides gas-free transactions through ecosystem partners to enhance user experience and provides a fair and efficient network environment for stablecoin payments.

3. Expand the application of stablecoins: serving non-crypto-native users 1. Current bottlenecks

Regulatory uncertainty: Before banks, enterprises and financial technology companies fully adopt stablecoins, regulatory authorities urgently need to provide clearer guidance to effectively control risks.

User side: The lack of stablecoin usage scenarios has restricted its popularity among ordinary consumers. The payment scenarios used by consumers in daily life are relatively fixed, and stablecoins have not yet been deeply integrated into them. Many consumers lack the actual demand and motivation to use stablecoins.

**Company side: **The acceptance of stablecoin payments by enterprises has greatly affected the promotion process of stablecoin. Currently, when companies accept stablecoin payments, they face the double test of willingness and ability. On the one hand, some companies have limited understanding of the emerging payment method of stablecoins, and their security and stability areSexual doubts lead to low willingness to accept. On the other hand, even if companies have the idea of ​​accepting stablecoin payments, in actual operations, they may face many difficulties such as technical docking, financial accounting, and compliance supervision, which limits their acceptance ability.

Despite many bottlenecks, we believe that as the US regulation gradually becomes clear, more traditional users and enterprises will inevitably encourage more traditional users and enterprises to adopt compliant stablecoins. Although both parties may face potential frictions such as KYC (customer identity verification) and KYB (enterprise identity verification), the market potential is huge in the long run.

If you segment the market into 1. Encrypted native users 2. Non-encrypted native users. Most of the project parties interviewed were targeted at the on-chain market, serving encrypted native users, rather than encrypted native markets, to a large extent, are still in an undeveloped state. This market gap provides significant opportunities for innovative companies to establish a first-mover advantage in guiding new users into the crypto space.

On-chain, the competition in the stablecoin market has become fierce. Many participants are committed to increasing use cases, locking in total value locking (TVL) through higher yields, and incentivizing users to hold stablecoins. As the ecosystem develops, future project success will depend on expanding real-world applications, promoting interoperability between different stablecoins, and reducing frictions faced by businesses and consumers.

2. Enterprise side: How to increase the adoption rate of stablecoin payment?

Stablecoins are integrated into mainstream payment applications: mainstream payment platforms such as Apple Payment, PayPal, and Stripe have been included in stablecoin transactions. This move not only greatly expands the use scenarios of stablecoin, but also significantly reduces foreign exchange fees in the international payment process, bringing a more cost-effective cross-border payment experience to enterprises and users.

Incentive to enterprises with Revenue-sharing stablecoin: Revenue-sharing stablecoin prioritizes distribution channels, and builds a strong network effect by cleverly coordinating the incentive mechanism between stablecoins and applications. It is not directly targeted at C-end users, but is aimed at distribution channels such as financial apps. "Revenue Sharing" stablecoins such as Paxos' USDG, M0 Foundation's M and Agoda's AUSD are typical examples.

Companies and organizations can issue their own stablecoins more easily: ordinary companies can issue and manage their own stablecoins more easily, which has become a key trend in promoting enterprises to adopt stablecoins. For example, Perena Bridge, Brale is a pioneer in this field. With the continued improvement of the overall infrastructure, the trend of enterprises or issuing proprietary stablecoins is expected to further strengthen.

B2B stablecoin liquidity and capital management solutions: Help companies properly hold and manage stablecoin assets to meet the needs of working capital and income generation. For example, the on-chain income platform of the Mountain protocol provides enterprises with professional fund management solutions, effectively improving the efficiency of corporate fund operation.

**Payment infrastructure for developers (enterprises): **It is not difficult to find that some of the most successful platforms currently position themselves as encrypted native versions of traditional financial services, committed to providing innovative financial solutions for enterprises. For example, many companies currently have to manually coordinate liquidity providers, exchange partners and local payment channels to make large-scale adoption of stablecoins inefficient, and BVNK solves this problem by automating the entire payment workflow. The protocol also introduces a multi-track solution that combines local banks, crypto liquidity providers and fiat currency downlinks into a single payment engine. Instead of requiring businesses to manage multiple intermediaries, BVNK automatically routes funds through the “fastest, cheapest, and most reliable channel” to optimize every transaction in real time. As stablecoin enterprise adoption continues to accelerate, solutions like BVNK will play a key role in making stablecoin payments frictionless, scalable and fully integrated with global commerce. By addressing the inefficiency problem that hinders the large-scale adoption of stablecoins by enterprises.

A settlement network designed for cross-border payments: a proprietary L1L2 covering scenarios such as enterprise-to-business cross-border payments or enterprise-to-consumer retail transfers. It has the significant advantages of easy integration and comprehensive supervision, and can effectively meet the payment needs of enterprises in complex business scenarios. For example, Codex, as a L2 specially built for cross-border transactions, provides enterprises with one-stop stablecoin financial services through aggregation of deposit and withdrawal service providers, market makers, exchanges and stablecoin issuers; Solana fully supports PayFi, in addition to its own technological stack advantages;In addition, it actively promotes products to partners and local companies, and guides Shopify, Paypal companies and offline merchants to use Solana pay to collect and pay (especially in areas with relatively weak banking services such as Latin America and Southeast Asia). A major trend is that the competition between L1L2 settlement networks is not only about technology, but will also involve multi-level competition such as developer ecology, BD merchants, and traditional enterprise cooperation in the future.

3. Consumer side: How to expand non-encrypted native users?

As stablecoins are more accessible and integrated into traditional financial applications, non-cryptographic native users will start using them without perception. Just as today's users can use digital payments without understanding the underlying banking system, stablecoins will increasingly become invisible infrastructure, providing industries with faster, lower-cost and efficient transaction support.

Embedded stablecoin payments in e-commerce and remittances

Applying stablecoins to daily transactions is a key driving force for their popularity, especially in the areas of e-commerce and cross-border remittances where traditional payment systems are inefficient, costly and rely on outdated banking networks. Embedded stablecoin payment provides the following value for these scenarios:

Faster and low-cost payment experience: Stablecoins significantly reduce transaction fees and settlement time between merchants and consumers by eliminating intermediate links. When integrated into mainstream e-commerce platforms, it can replace the credit card network, achieve immediate finality of transactions and save payment processing costs.

Giu economy, cross-border freelancer salary payment, Latin America and Southeast Asia currency preservation demand: These specific scenarios have created the need for barrier-free cross-border payments. Compared with traditional banking and remittance services, stablecoins can enable gig workers and freelancers to receive funds in seconds at a lower cost, which is destined to make them the preferred payment solution for the global labor market.

As the stablecoin payment channel is deeply embedded in mainstream platforms, its application scope will break through the native user circle of cryptocurrencies. In the future, consumers will use blockchain-driven transaction services in their daily financial activities without any sense.

On-chain income products for non-crypto users

Getting income through digital dollars is another core value proposition of stablecoins, and this function has not been fully developed in the traditional financial field. Although native DeFi users have long been exposed to on-chain revenue, emerging products are bringing these opportunities to mainstream consumers through a simplified and compliant interface.

The key is to introduce traditional financial users into the on-chain revenue field in a seamless and intuitive way. In the past, obtaining DeFi revenue required technical knowledge, self-hosting ability and experience in operating complex protocols. Today, compliance platforms provide an intuitive interface by abstracting technical complexity, allowing users to earn money by holding stablecoins without delving into cryptographic knowledge.

As a leading protocol in this field, Mountain Protocol deeply understands the inclusive value of on-chain revenue. Unlike traditional stablecoins that serve as a medium of transactions, the USDM, the stablecoin of Mountain, directly distributes income to coin holders every day by default. Its current annualized yield of 4.70% comes from short-term low-risk US Treasury bonds, making it a dual alternative to traditional bank deposits and DeFi pledge mechanisms. Mountain attracts non-encrypted native users through the following methods:

Frictionless passive income: Users only need to hold USDM to automatically accumulate income without additional staking, participation in complex DeFi strategies or active management.

Compliance Guarantee: USDM accepts a comprehensive audit, fully mortgaged, and through the quarantined bankruptcy and quarantine account structure design, ensuring that users receive the same level of transparency and investor protection as off-chain money market tools.

On-chain income risk control: Mountain minimizes the risk of bank bankruptcy and stablecoins decoupling, eliminating common concerns about digital assets by strictly limiting reserve assets to US Treasury bonds and simultaneously establishing credit lines denominated in USDC.

Mountain brings paradigm for non-encrypted usersTransformation: For individual users, USDM provides a low-risk digital asset return portal without DeFi knowledge; for institutions and corporate fund management departments, USDM is a compliant, stable and interest-bearing alternative to traditional bank products. Mountain Protocol's long-term strategy includes deepening USDM's integration of DeFi and TradFi ecosystem, expanding multi-chain support, and expanding institutional cooperation (such as existing cooperation with BlackRock). These measures will further simplify the on-chain earnings acquisition path and promote the adoption of stablecoins by non-crypto users.

Optimize the KYC process to achieve seamless user access

To achieve large-scale consumer-level adoption, the KYC (know your customers) process must be extremely simplified under the premise of compliance. One of the key pain points that hinder non-encrypted users’ entry is the cumbersome identity verification process. To this end, the leading stablecoin payment service provider is embedding KYC directly into the platform to achieve smooth user access.

Modern platforms no longer require users to complete verification separately, but integrate KYC into the payment process. For example: Ramp and MoonPay allow users to complete KYC in real time when purchasing stablecoins through debit cards, reducing manual review delays; BVNK provides enterprises with embedded KYC solutions to quickly and securely complete customer certification without interrupting the payment experience.

The fragmentation of cross-jurisdictional regulatory frameworks remains a challenge in simplifying the KYC process. Leading service providers respond to regional compliance differences through modular KYC framework. For example:

Circle's USDC platform adopts a hierarchical verification mechanism, where users can complete small transactions through basic KYC and unlock higher limits through advanced verification.

In the future, converting KYC into a senseless link through automation and process optimization will become a stablecoin payment service provider to break the mainThe key to streaming users’ entry barriers and accelerating on-chain.

4. Stablecoin native economy: Will consumers skip fiat currency?

Although stablecoins have greatly accelerated the global payment process and saved a lot of time and capital costs, real-world transactions currently rely on the deposit and exit channels of fiat currency. This forms the metaphorical "stablecoin sandwich" framework, where stablecoins act only as a bridge between fiat currencies during the transaction life cycle. Many stablecoin payment providers focus on the interoperability of fiat currencies, essentially making stablecoins a temporary transfer layer between fiat currencies. However, a more forward-looking idea is that stablecoin native payment service providers (PSPs) may appear in the future to realize the native operation of stablecoin payment. This means fundamentally rebuilding the payment system, assuming transactions, settlements and fund management functions are entirely on-chain.

Companies like Iron are actively exploring innovation in this field, committed to building a stablecoin that is not only a bridge between the fiat currency system, but also the future of the foundation of the entire on-chain financial ecosystem. Unlike other payment solutions that usually use stablecoins to copy traditional financial tracks, Iron is focusing on developing an on-chain-first payment and fund management stack, hoping that funds can remain on-chain throughout the entire chain, financial markets can achieve true interoperability, and real-time settlement on shared public ledgers.

As for whether the future of funds staying on the chain is feasible, it depends entirely on the consumer's choice: whether to convert stablecoins into fiat currency, settle through traditional tracks, or leave funds on the chain. There are several key factors that may drive this shift: 1. On-chain earnings and capital efficiency

A highly convincing reason for consumers to retain funds on the stablecoins is to obtain passive, risk-adjusted returns directly on the chain. In a stablecoin native economy, consumers will have stronger control over the use of funds and can almost instantly obtain returns that are better than traditional savings accounts. But to truly achieve this, users must be able to discover attractive returns opportunities in the future, and agreements that provide such returns must reach a mature level where there is almost no risk to the opponent.

2. Reducing dependence on custodial intermediaries

Holding stablecoins greatly reduces the necessity of traditional bank relationships. Today, users are highly dependent on banks in terms of account custody, payment and access to financial services. Stablecoins realize self-custodial wallets and programmable finance, and users do not need third-party intermediaries.，即可自主持有和管理资金。这在银行系统不稳定或金融服务获取受限的地区，具有尤为重要的价值。尽管自我托管模式的吸引力与日俱增，但大多数非加密原生用户要么对其缺乏了解，要么对以这种方式管理资金持谨慎态度。为进一步推动这种自我托管模式的发展，消费者可能会要求更多的监管保障和功能强大的应用。

3. Maturity of regulation and institutional adoption

As the supervision of stablecoins becomes increasingly clear and its acceptance continues to increase, consumers' confidence in the long-term preservation ability of stablecoins will continue to increase.倘若大型企业、薪资发放机构和金融机构开始原生地用稳定币结算交易，用户转换回法定货币的需求将大幅减少。这就如同消费者逐渐从现金过渡到数字银行的过程，一旦新的基础设施被广泛采用，对传统系统的需求自然会下降。

值得注意的是，向稳定币原生经济的转变，最终可能会对许多现有的支付轨道造成冲击。如果消费者和企业越来越倾向于将价值存储在稳定币中，而非传统银行账户中的法定货币，这将对现有支付系统产生重大影响。信用卡网络、汇款公司和银行主要依赖交易费用和外汇价差作为收入来源，而稳定币在区块链网络上能够即时结算，成本几乎为零。若稳定币在一个 的经济中能够像法定货币一样自由流通，这些传统支付参与者很可能会被排除在中间环节之外。

此外，稳定币原生经济还将对以法定货币为基础的银行业务模式构成挑战。在传统模式下，存款是贷款和信贷创造的基础。若资金留在链上，银行可能面临存款流失，放贷能力和从客户资金中获取收益的能力也将随之降低。这可能会加速金融系统的变革，促使去中心化和链上金融服务逐步取代银行的传统角色。

显然，只要激励措施有利于资金留在链上，理论上的稳定币原生经济就具备成为现实的可能。 This shift will be gradual. With the increasing opportunities for on-chain earnings, the continued existence of bank frictions, and the continued maturity of the stablecoin payment network, consumers may increasingly choose stablecoins over fiat currencies, resulting in some traditional financial tracks gradually becoming obsolete.

五、结论：我们如何加速稳定币采用？

Payment processor layer: Focus on building enterprise-friendly, out-of-the-box infrastructure middleware. Due to its business characteristics, different licenses and compliance requirements are required to serve different regions, and the competitive landscape of payment processors is still relatively scattered.

Asset issuer layer: actively passes stablecoin income to non-crypto-native companies and ordinary users to incentivize users to hold stablecoins instead of fiat currency.

Clearing Network Layer: The competition between L1L2 settlement networks is not only at the technical level, but will also involve multi-level competition such as developer ecology, BD merchants, and traditional enterprise cooperation, accelerating stablecoin payment into real life.

Of course, the large-scale adoption of stablecoins not only depends on emerging startups, but also on the collaborative cooperation of mature financial giants. Four major financial giants have announced their entry into the stablecoin space in recent months: Robinhood and Revolut are launching stablecoins, Stripe recently acquired Bridge for faster and cheaper global payments, and Visa is also helping banks launch stablecoins despite its own interests.

In addition, we observe that Web3 startups are using these mature distribution channels to integrate crypto payment products into existing mature companies through the Software Development Toolkit (SDK), providing users with multiple options such as fiat currencies and cryptocurrency payments. This strategy helps solve cold start issues, building trust with businesses and users from the outset.

Stablecoins have the potential to reshape the global financial transaction landscape, but the key to large-scale adoption is to bridge the gap between the on-chain ecosystem and the wider economy.