In-depth Analysis of the Stablecoin Ecosystem: From Technology to Business

The global financial system is undergoing profound changes. Traditional payment networks are facing comprehensive challenges from stablecoins due to outdated infrastructure, lengthy settlement periods, and high costs. Stablecoins are innovating the way value flows across borders, the business transaction model, and how individuals access financial services.

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

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the stablecoin ecosystem from both technical and business perspectives. It examines the key players shaping this field, the core infrastructure supporting stablecoin transactions, and the dynamic demand driving their applications. Additionally, it explores how stablecoins are giving rise to new financial application scenarios and the challenges they face in being widely integrated into the global economic process.

1. Why choose stablecoin payment?

To explore the influence of stablecoins, we must first examine traditional payment solutions. These traditional systems include cash, checks, debit cards, credit cards, international wire transfers (SWIFT), Automated Clearing House (ACH), and peer-to-peer payments. Although they have become part of daily life, many payment channels, such as the infrastructure of ACH and SWIFT, have existed since the 1970s. While they were groundbreaking at the time, much of this global payment infrastructure is now outdated and highly fragmented. Overall, these payment methods are plagued by high fees, high friction, long processing times, inability to achieve round-the-clock settlement, and complex backend processes. Additionally, they often require payment for unnecessary extra services such as bundled identity verification, lending, compliance, fraud protection, and banking 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 achieves real-time visibility of fund flows, which not only shortens settlement time but also lowers costs.

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

• Real-time settlement: Transactions are completed almost instantaneously, eliminating delays found 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 where traditional financial services are insufficient, including unbanked populations, achieving financial inclusion.

2. Stablecoin Payment Industry Landscape

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

( 1. First layer: Application layer

The application layer is primarily 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 to stablecoin and offer tools for developers working in the application layer, as well as credit card services for Web3 users.

a. Payment Gateway

The payment gateway is a service that securely processes payments and facilitates transactions between buyers and sellers.

Well-known companies that are 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 in cryptocurrency and instantly convert USDY to other stablecoins, such as USDC, EURC, and PYUSD.
• Some Web2 payment applications also allow users to make payments using stablecoins, further expanding the application scenarios of stablecoins.

The field of payment gateway providers can be clearly divided into two categories with certain overlaps ).

1### Developer-oriented payment gateway; 2( Consumer-oriented payment gateway. Most payment gateway providers tend to focus more on one type, thereby shaping their core products, user experience, and target market.

The developer-focused payment gateway is designed to serve businesses, fintech companies, and enterprises that need to embed stablecoin infrastructure into their workflows. They typically offer application programming interfaces )API(, software development kits )SDK), and developer tools for integration into existing payment systems, enabling features such as automated payments, stablecoin wallets, virtual accounts, and real-time settlements. 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 that ensure seamless processes, a payment platform for cross-border commercial payments, and corporate accounts that allow businesses to hold and trade various stablecoins and fiat currencies, as well as merchant services that provide the tools necessary for businesses to accept customer payments in stablecoins. Processing over $10 billion in annualized transaction volume, with a growth rate of 200%, and a valuation of $750 million, clients include emerging regions such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
• Iron ) in beta(: Provides an API to seamlessly integrate stablecoin transactions into existing businesses. It offers enterprises 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 enterprise 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(. Mainly targeting the African market, there is currently no operational data.

Consumer-oriented payment gateways focus on 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 almost 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 currency and stablecoin with minimal friction. Meso also supports purchasing USDC with certain payments, simplifying the process for consumers to acquire stablecoin.
• 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 cryptocurrencies or stablecoins at traditional merchants. These cards are typically integrated with traditional credit card networks, enabling seamless transactions by automatically converting cryptocurrency assets to fiat currency at the point of sale.

The project includes:

• Reap: Asian card issuer, clients include over 40 companies such as Infini, Kast, Genosis pay, Redotpay, etc., selling white-label solutions, primarily relying on transaction volume commissions in cooperation with Hong Kong banks, covering most regions outside the United States, supporting multi-chain deposits; transaction volume reached $30M in July 2024.
• Raincards: A card issuer in the Americas, supporting card issuance for multiple companies such as Avalanche, Offramp, and takenos, with the main feature being its ability to 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 expenses using on-chain assets.
• Fiat24: European card issuer + web3 bank, business model similar to the above two, supports card issuance for companies like ethsign, safepal; Swiss license, primarily serves users in Europe + Asia, does not yet support full-chain transactions, only allows deposits on Arbitrum. Growth is slow with a total of 20,000 users and monthly revenue of $100K-150K.
• Kast: The U card on Solana is growing rapidly, with over 10,000 cards issued, 5-6k monthly active users, a transaction volume of $7m in December 2024, and revenue of $200k.
• 1Money: The stablecoin ecosystem recently launched a credit card supporting stablecoins and provides a software development kit for easy L1 and L2 integration, currently in beta with no data available.

There are numerous cryptocurrency card providers, which mainly differ in service regions and supported currencies, and they usually offer low fees to end users to enhance the enthusiasm of users in using cryptocurrency cards.

) 2. Layer 2: Payment Processor

As a key layer of the stablecoin tech 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 types of 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, providing deposit and withdrawal services for more than 90 types of crypto assets. The network handles all KYC, AML, and compliance requirements, ensuring the 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, achieving the integration of traditional fiat currency and crypto asset payments.

b. Stablecoin Issuance & Coordinating Processors

• Bridge: The core products of Bridge include the Coordination API and the Issuance API. The former helps enterprises integrate various stablecoin payments and exchanges, while the latter supports enterprises 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 operation 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 across the U.S., and partner enterprises must pass KYB, while users need to create an account on Brale for KYC. Brale's clients are mainly on-chain OGs, and compared to Bridge, its investment backing and business development are slightly weaker.
• Perena ( in beta ): Perena's Numeraire platform reduces the issuance threshold for niche stablecoins by encouraging users to provide concentrated liquidity in a single pool. Numeraire adopts a "central hub-radiating" model, where USD* serves as the central reserve asset, acting as the "hub" for stablecoin issuance and exchange. This mechanism allows for the efficient minting, redeeming, and trading of various stablecoins tied to different assets or jurisdictions, with each stablecoin connected to USD* as a similar "spoke." Through this system structure, Numeraire ensures depth liquidity and enhances capital efficiency, as smaller stablecoins can interoperate via USD* without needing to provide 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.

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) 3. Layer Three: Asset Issuer

Asset issuers are responsible for creating, maintaining, and redeeming stablecoins. Their business model is typically centered around the balance sheet, similar to bank operations - accepting customer deposits and investing the funds in high-quality assets such as U.S. Treasury securities.