With stablecoins being so popular, which Web3 business scenarios are suitable for introduction?

Written by: Josh Solesbury (ParaFi Investor)

Compiled by: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

Under the catalyst of Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge and the progress of the “GENIUS Act”, the past six months have seen an explosive growth in headlines related to stablecoins. From CEOs of major banks to product managers at payment companies, and up to senior government officials, key decision-makers are increasingly mentioning stablecoins and promoting their advantages.

Stablecoins are built on four core pillars:

• Instant settlement (T +0, significantly reduces working capital requirements);
• Extremely low transaction costs (especially compared to the SWIFT system);
• Global accessibility (available year-round, just need an internet connection);
• Programmability (through currency driven by extended coding logic).

These pillars perfectly illustrate the advantages of stablecoins as promoted in various headlines, blog articles, and interviews. Therefore, the argument of “why stablecoins are needed” is easy to understand, but “how to apply stablecoins” is much more complex — whether it’s a product manager at a fintech company or a bank CEO, there is currently very little content that specifically explains how to integrate stablecoins into existing business models.

Based on this, we have decided to write this advanced guide to provide a starting point for non-crypto businesses exploring the application of stablecoins. The text will be divided into four independent chapters, each corresponding to different business models. Each chapter will analyze in detail: in which areas stablecoins can create value, what the specific implementation path is, and a schematic diagram of the restructured product architecture.

Ultimately, while headlines are important, what we truly pursue is the large-scale application of stablecoins — enabling real business scenarios to achieve the widespread use of stablecoins. I hope this article can serve as a small cornerstone in realizing this vision. Now, let’s delve into how non-crypto enterprises can utilize stablecoins.

To C Financial Technology Bank

For consumer-facing (To C) digital banks, the key to enhancing enterprise value lies in optimizing the following three levers: user scale, average revenue per user (ARPU), and user churn rate. Stablecoins can currently directly support the first two metrics—by integrating partner infrastructures, digital banks can launch stablecoin-based remittance services, which can reach new user demographics while also providing existing customers with additional revenue streams.

Under the two major trends of digital connectivity and globalization that have persisted for decades, the target market of today’s financial technology often has a multinational characteristic. Some digital banks position cross-border financial services as their core offering (such as Revolut or DolarApp), while others treat it as a functional module to enhance ARPU (such as Nubank or Lemon). For fintech startups focusing on expatriates and specific ethnic groups (such as Felix Pago or Abound), remittance services are a necessity in their target market. All these types of digital banks will (or have already) benefited from stablecoin remittances.

Compared to traditional remittance services (such as Western Union), stablecoins can achieve faster (instant settlement vs 2-5 days or more) and cheaper (as low as 30 basis points vs over 300 basis points) settlements. For example, DolarApp charges only $3 to send dollars to Mexico with real-time settlement. This explains why in certain remittance corridors (such as the US-Mexico corridor), the penetration rate of stablecoin payments has reached 10-20%, with continued growth momentum.

In addition to creating new revenue, stablecoins can also optimize costs and user experience, especially as internal settlement tools. Many practitioners are well aware of the pain points of weekend settlements: bank closures lead to a two-day delay in settlements. Digital banks, which pursue real-time services and ultimate experience, have to fill the gap by providing working capital loans, which not only incurs opportunity costs of funds (especially heavy in the current interest rate environment) but may also force companies to seek additional financing. The instant settlement and global accessibility characteristics of stablecoins completely solve this problem. One typical case is Robinhood, one of the world’s largest fintech platforms, whose CEO Vlad Tenev clearly stated during the Q2 2025 earnings call: “We are using stablecoins to handle a large amount of weekend settlement business, and the scale of application continues to expand.”

Therefore, it is not surprising that consumer-oriented fintech companies like Revolut and Robinhood are investing in stablecoins. So, if you work in a consumer bank or fintech company, how should you utilize stablecoins?

The practical plan is as follows after introducing stablecoins to this business model.

Real-time 24/7 Settlement

Real-time settlement using stablecoins such as USDC, USDT, and USDG (including holidays);

Integrated wallet service provider / coordinator combinations (such as Fireblocks or Bridge) to connect the banking system with the dollar / stablecoin flow on the blockchain;

Connect fiat channel service providers (such as Yellow Card in Africa) in specific regions to achieve B2B/B2B2C exchange between stablecoins and fiat currencies;

Filling the Gap in Fiat Settlement

During the weekend, stablecoins will be used as a temporary substitute for fiat currency, and reconciliation will be completed after the banking system is restarted.

Can build an internal stablecoin settlement loop between customer accounts and enterprises in collaboration with suppliers such as Paxos;

Counterparty funds instantly available

By using the above plan or liquidity partners, funds can be quickly allocated to exchanges/partners, bypassing the ACH/wire transfer process;

Cross-border entity automatic rebalancing

When fiat channels are closed, fund allocation between business units / subsidiaries is achieved through on-chain stablecoin transfers.

The headquarters can leverage this to establish an automated, scalable global fund management system;

In addition to these basic functions, a new generation of banks can be envisioned that is entirely based on the concept of “24/7, instant, and composable finance.” Remittances and settlements are just the starting point, with subsequent scenarios including programmable payments, cross-border asset management, and tokenization of stocks. Such enterprises will win the market by offering an exceptional user experience, a rich product matrix, and a lower cost structure.

Commercial Banks and Enterprise Services (B2B)

Currently, business owners in markets such as Nigeria, Indonesia, and Brazil face numerous obstacles if they wish to open US dollar accounts with local banks. Typically, only those businesses with substantial trading volumes or special relationships can qualify — and this is contingent upon the bank having sufficient US dollar liquidity. Local currency accounts force entrepreneurs to bear both banking risks and government credit risks, compelling them to constantly monitor exchange rate fluctuations to maintain operating capital. When making payments to overseas suppliers, business owners also have to pay high fees for converting local currency into US dollars and other mainstream currencies.

Stablecoins can significantly alleviate these frictions, and forward-looking commercial banks will play a key role in their application process. Through bank-custodied compliant digital dollar platforms (such as USDC or USDG), businesses can achieve:

• Hold multiple currency balances without the need to establish multiple banking relationships;
• Cross-border invoice settlement in seconds (bypassing traditional agency networks);
• Stablecoin deposits earn interest;

Commercial banks can use this to upgrade their basic checking accounts to a global multi-currency fund management solution, providing speed, transparency, and financial resilience that traditional accounts cannot match.

The practical solution after introducing stablecoins into this business model is as follows.

Global USD / Multi-Currency Account Service

Banks custody stablecoins for enterprises through partners such as Fireblocks or Stripe-Bridge.

Reduce startup and operating costs (such as reducing license requirements, exempting FBO accounts);

High-yield products supported by high-quality U.S. Treasury bonds

Banks can provide returns at the federal funds rate level (about 4%), with credit risk significantly lower than local banks (US regulated money market funds vs local banks);

Need to connect with interest-bearing stablecoin providers (such as Paxos) or tokenized government bond partners (such as Superstate/Securitize).

Real-time 24/7 Settlement

See the previous section on the consumer finance sector plan.

Global application scenarios we are optimistic about (stablecoin platforms / commercial banks can solve)

Importers make USD payments in seconds, and overseas exporters release goods instantly;

CFOs can transfer funds in real-time across multiple countries, eliminating delays in the correspondent banking system, making bank services for large multinational corporations possible.

Business owners in high-inflation countries use the dollar to anchor their balance sheets.

Product Architecture Example (Stablecoin-based Commercial Banking Services)

Payroll Service Provider

For payroll platforms, the greatest value of stablecoins lies in serving employers who need to pay salaries to employees in emerging markets. Cross-border payments, or making payments in countries with underdeveloped financial infrastructure, can impose significant costs on payroll platforms—these costs may be absorbed by the platform itself, passed on to employers, or reluctantly deducted from contractor payments. For payroll service providers, the most achievable opportunity is to open stablecoin payment channels.

As mentioned in previous chapters, cross-border stablecoin transfers from the U.S. financial system to contractors’ digital wallets are almost costless and instant (depending on the fiat entry configuration). Although contractors may still need to complete fiat exchanges themselves (which incurs costs), they can receive payments anchored to the world’s strongest fiat currencies instantly. Multiple pieces of evidence indicate that the demand for stablecoins is surging in emerging markets:

• Users are willing to pay an average premium of about 4.7% to acquire USD stablecoins;
• In countries like Argentina, this premium can be as high as 30%;
• Stablecoins are becoming increasingly popular among contractors and freelancers in regions such as Latin America;
• Applications focused on freelancers, such as Airtm, are experiencing exponential growth in stablecoin usage and user acquisition;
• More importantly, the user base has already formed: over 250 million digital wallets have actively used stablecoins in the past 12 months, and more and more people are willing to accept stablecoin payments.

In addition to speed and cost savings for end users, stablecoins offer numerous benefits to enterprise clients using payroll services (i.e., paying clients). First, stablecoins are significantly more transparent and customizable. According to a recent fintech survey, 66% of payroll professionals lack the tools to understand their actual costs with banks and payment partners. Fees are often opaque, and the processes can be confusing. Second, the current process of executing payroll payments often involves a lot of manual operations, consuming resources from the finance department. In addition to the execution of payments itself, there is a range of other matters to consider, from accounting to tax to bank reconciliation, and stablecoins are programmable, with built-in ledgers (blockchain), which significantly enhances automation capabilities (such as batch scheduled payments) and accounting capabilities (such as automatic smart contract calculations, withholding and payment systems, and record-keeping).

In that case, how should the salary platform enable stablecoin payment functionality?

Real-time 24/7 Settlement

The previous text has covered relevant content.

Closed-loop payment

Collaborate with stablecoin-based card issuance platforms (such as Rain) to allow end users to directly spend stablecoins, thereby fully inheriting their speed and cost advantages;

Collaborate with wallet providers to offer stablecoin savings and yield opportunities.

Accounting and Tax Reconciliation

Utilizing the immutable ledger characteristics of blockchain, automatically synchronize transaction records to accounting and tax systems through API data interfaces, achieving automation of withholding, bookkeeping, and reconciliation processes.

Programmable Payments and Embedded Finance

Utilize smart contracts to achieve automatic batch payments and programmable payments based on specific conditions (such as bonuses). Can collaborate with platforms like Airtm or directly use smart contracts.

Connect DeFi foundational protocols to provide salary-based financing services in an affordable and globally accessible manner. In certain countries/regions, it can circumvent the typically cumbersome, closed, and expensive local banking partners. Applications like Glim (and indirectly Lemon) are working to offer these features.

Based on the above plan, let’s further elaborate on the specific implementation methods:

The payroll processing platform supporting stablecoins collaborates with fiat entry points in the US (such as Bridge, Circle, Beam) to connect bank accounts with stablecoins. Before the payment date, funds are transferred from the client company account to a blockchain stablecoin account (these accounts can be hosted by the aforementioned companies or institutions like Fireblocks). Payments are fully automated and broadcast in bulk to all contractors worldwide. Contractors instantly receive USD stablecoins, which can be spent using Visa cards that support stablecoins (such as Rain), or saved through tokenized government bonds in on-chain accounts (such as USTB or BUIDL). With this new architecture, the overall cost of the system has significantly decreased, the coverage of contractors has greatly expanded, and the level of system automation has been greatly enhanced.

Issuer

Many enterprises are currently generating core revenue through card issuance. For example, Chime, which just launched on June 12, achieved over $1 billion in annual revenue in the U.S. market through transaction fees alone. Although Chime has established a large business in the U.S., its partnerships with Visa, banking relationships, and technological infrastructure are almost unable to assist in expanding into overseas markets.

Traditional card issuance requires direct licenses from organizations like Visa, or collaboration with local banks for each country. This cumbersome process severely hinders companies’ cross-regional expansion. Taking the listed company Nubank as an example, after over 10 years of operation, it only began expanding overseas in the last 3 years.

In addition, issuing institutions need to pay a deposit to card organizations such as Visa to guard against default risks. The card organizations thereby promise merchants like Walmart that even if banks or fintech companies go bankrupt, cardholders’ payments will still be honored. The card organizations will review the transaction volume from the last 4-7 days to calculate the amount of deposit that the issuer needs to pay. This poses a heavy burden on banks/fintech companies, creating a significant barrier to entry in the industry.

Stablecoins have fundamentally changed the possibilities of issuing cards. Firstly, stablecoins are fostering a new type of issuing platform, such as Rain, which allows companies to leverage their primary membership with Visa to offer global issuance services using stablecoins. Examples include enabling fintech companies to issue cards simultaneously in Colombia, Mexico, the United States, Bolivia, and many other countries. Moreover, due to the 24/7 settlement capability of stablecoins, a new class of issuing partners can now settle on weekends. Weekend settlements significantly reduce the risk for partners, effectively lowering collateral requirements and freeing up funds. Finally, the on-chain verifiability and composability of stablecoins create a more efficient collateral management system, reducing the working capital requirements for issuing institutions.

The practical solution after introducing stablecoins into this business model is as follows.

Launch a global card issuance program denominated in US dollars in collaboration with Visa and card issuers;

1. Flexible card network settlement options;

2. Directly settle using stablecoins (achieving weekend and overnight settlements);

• The card network generates settlement reports daily, containing bank account and routing numbers, and will display the stablecoin address after using stablecoins;
• You can also choose to exchange stablecoins back to fiat currency before settling with the card network;
• Reduce collateral requirements (thanks to 24/7 settlement capabilities).

3. The following is an example process of a global card product architecture that supports stablecoins:

Conclusion

Today, stablecoins are no longer a future promise that requires strenuous imagination — they have become a practical technology with exponential growth in usage. The question now is not “whether” to adopt, but “when” and “how” to adopt. From banks to fintech companies to payment processors, developing a stablecoin strategy has become inevitable.

Companies that have moved beyond the proof-of-concept stage and have truly integrated and deployed stablecoin solutions will far exceed their competitors in terms of cost savings, revenue enhancement, and market expansion. It is worth mentioning that the aforementioned actual benefits are supported by numerous existing integration partners and upcoming legislative support, both of which will significantly reduce execution risks. Now is the best time to build stablecoin solutions.