The future of payments transitioning to stablecoins: 6 years of field reports

This year is expected to be a turning point where stablecoins are fully integrated into the financial infrastructure. Six years of changes flowing beneath the surface are now surfacing.

Since Facebook announced its Libra project in 2019, the attitude of traditional finance has dramatically shifted. This event was not just a simple news story but a watershed moment that made major financial institutions perceive blockchain technology as a “battlefield they have no choice but to participate in.” At the time, Raj Parekh, who was leading the digital assets division at Visa, witnessed firsthand the gap between traditional finance and the crypto ecosystem amid this upheaval.

Starting from the fundamental issues of payments

Raj’s perspective was problem-first, not technology-first. What he discovered within Visa was simple: why do international payments still have to endure delays of T+1, T+2?

If a bank closes at 5 PM, transactions after that must wait until the next day. On weekends, the payment system itself halts. This structural inefficiency imposes enormous opportunity costs on corporate finance teams. The case of crypto exchanges like Crypto.com clearly illustrates this. They need to convert crypto assets into fiat currency daily and send funds to Visa via SWIFT or ACH wire transfers, which results in payment delays of at least two days. As a consequence, companies must deposit large guarantees with banks to prepare for these delays. This is the reality of “pre-funding.”

What if direct payments could be made with stablecoins like USDC? Raj and the Visa team collaborated with Anchorage Digital, a federally licensed digital asset bank, to explore this question. When they ran the first test on Ethereum, the moment USDC arrived within seconds from Crypto.com’s address to Visa’s Anchorage address was revolutionary. This is internet-speed payments.

Recognizing the immaturity of the infrastructure layer

Through his experience at Visa, Raj realized a more fundamental constraint: while blockchain technology itself was excellent, the infrastructure layer capable of abstracting it to the level of ordinary users was insufficient.

When a user swipes a card at a coffee shop, the complex transaction process happening behind the scenes is completely hidden. Similarly, blockchain-based payments should operate without requiring users to understand the complexities of the chain. There is an urgent need for middleware that can enable this abstraction.

This is why Raj left Visa to establish Portal. The goal was simple: to build an open-source payment system that allows all fintech companies to easily use stablecoin payments via a single API.

However, as the business progressed, another limitation emerged. They supported various blockchains like Solana, Polygon, and Tron, but the results were always the same: the network effects of the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) ecosystem were overwhelmingly strong. Developers operate within the EVM, and liquidity is concentrated there. Paradoxically, the EVM ecosystem is both the most powerful and the slowest, most expensive chain.

The core question was clear: if a system existed that was compatible with the EVM standard and could provide transaction finality within milliseconds at internet speed?

This concern led to Monad Foundation’s acquisition of Portal in July 2024, and Raj took the lead in shaping the payment ecosystem at Monad.

The real problems blockchain needs to solve

The question “Why do we need a new chain?” is itself flawed. The right question is: “Are existing chains truly solving the core issues of payments?”

Ask those handling large fund transfers, and you’ll find that what matters most to them is not how new or compelling the story of a chain is. They ask:

• What is the cost per transaction?
• Does the payment finality meet commercial requirements?
• Is liquidity deep enough across different foreign exchange corridors?

Millisecond finality sounds like a technical metric, but behind it, real capital moves. Waiting 15 minutes for payment confirmation makes a system commercially unusable. Performance alone is not enough. The entire payment ecosystem—stablecoin issuers, deposit and withdrawal services, market makers, liquidity providers—must be built together.

Entering the “email era” of currency

Raj sees the current situation as a special moment in the history of money. When email first appeared, it was not just a tool for sending letters faster. It fundamentally changed human communication by enabling information to be transmitted across the globe at internet speed.

Stablecoins and blockchain will work in exactly the same way. This is the first time in human history that value can be moved at internet speed. We have yet to fully imagine the changes this will trigger.

It could be a reorganization of global supply chain finance or the elimination of international remittance costs. But the true turning point will come when this technology is unconsciously integrated into all daily apps like YouTube or smartphones. When users experience the flow of funds at internet speed without even noticing the presence of blockchain—that will be the moment we truly begin.

The business model of stablecoins is being reshaped

As regulations like the US FIT21(Finish the Job Act) come into effect in July 2024, the business structure of stablecoin issuers is undergoing fundamental change.

Early stablecoin issuers like Tether and Circle had simple business logic: they purchased US Treasuries with user deposits and retained all the interest income generated.

But new projects like Paxos and M0 are changing the game. They started directly transferring interest income from underlying assets to users and recipients. This is not just a redistribution of profits but a completely new currency issuance mechanism.

In traditional finance, interest only accrues when money is deposited in a bank. Once remittance or payment begins, funds lose their interest-generating capability. But stablecoins break this constraint. Funds flow, are paid, and are traded at high speed while the underlying assets continue to generate interest. This opens up a completely new possibility called “yield in motion.”

More advanced teams are even planning to transfer 100% of the income generated from underlying asset management directly to users. Where do they get the profits? From value-added services built around stablecoins—DeFi trading, payment services, asset management, and other surrounding ecosystems.

New possibilities created by blockchain-based finance

The key difference between crypto-based new banks and traditional fintech lies here.

First-generation fintech like Nubank(Brazil)Nubank(USA)was built on regional banking infrastructure, which inevitably limited their service scope to local users.

But building products on stablecoins and blockchain changes everything. It’s effectively developing products on a global payment platform—an unprecedented situation in financial history.

This brings disruptive change. There’s no need to be a fintech company in a single country anymore. From day one, you can build a global new bank targeting multinational users, or even users worldwide. This is the biggest innovation point. Such a global start at this level of scale is rare in the history of financial technology.

New founders and builders are awakening to this potential, and they can aim for global markets from the very first line of code without geographical barriers.

The era of AI agents and high-frequency finance is coming

Over the next 3–5 years, the most exciting development will be the combination of AI agent payments(Agentic Payments) and high-frequency finance(High Frequency Finance).

Recent hackathons in San Francisco combining AI and crypto have showcased innovative projects, such as integrating delivery platform DoorDash with blockchain payments.

Agents are no longer limited by human processing speeds. In high-throughput systems, the speed at which agents move funds and complete transactions is beyond what the human brain can follow in real time. This is not just a speed issue but a fundamental shift in workflow: we are upgrading from “human efficiency” to “algorithm efficiency,” ultimately to “agent efficiency.”

Supporting this microsecond-level leap in efficiency requires blockchain performance to be sufficiently powerful. At the same time, account structures are also converging. In the past, investment accounts and payment accounts were separate, but now the boundary is blurring. Large companies like Coinbase are implementing an “everything app” strategy that exemplifies this.

All financial activities—deposits, crypto purchases, stock trading, participation in prediction markets—can be handled within the same account. This tightly binds user data and liquidity within the platform.

This is why infrastructure remains crucial. Truly abstracting the core components of crypto enables an integrated experience of DeFi trading, payments, and revenue generation. Users will experience internet-speed financial services without noticing the underlying complexity.