## Six Years of Underlying Currents in Stablecoins: From Payment Margins to Financial Infrastructure Transformation

The "deep water bomb" in 2019 changed everything. When tech giants announced stablecoin plans, traditional financial institutions shifted from spectators to participants. And beneath the surface of this transformation, the real story was just beginning.

Veterans in the payments industry have witnessed the limitations of the traditional financial system. Bank transfers require T+2 settlement cycles, cross-border remittances involve multiple intermediaries, and funds are in complete "dead time" during circulation—these seemingly standard operations appear inefficient from a blockchain perspective.

The emergence of stablecoins has rewritten the rules of the game. No longer just a toy for new technology, they are now tools capable of solving real business problems.

## Reverse Engineering from Problems, Not Technology-Driven

Many people's understanding of blockchain begins with technology, but innovators in the payments field are taking the opposite approach—identifying problems first, then choosing the technology.

Traditional payment networks face an unavoidable dilemma: the efficiency ceiling of fund circulation. Take giants like Visa, for example—the entire system relies on banking infrastructure and decades-old tech stacks. When customers need cross-border settlements, lengthy processes mean companies must hold large pre-funded deposits at banks, funds that could otherwise generate returns.

It has been calculated that achieving real-time settlement instead of T+2 delays could significantly improve the efficiency of financial operations. Bank closing times at 5 pm are no longer an excuse; settlements could happen on weekends too—these seemingly simple improvements could unlock billions of dollars in efficiency gains.

As a result, some practitioners began experimenting on blockchain. In the first USDC settlement test on Ethereum, funds were transferred and finalized within seconds. At that moment, people realized stablecoins are not just crypto assets—they are a completely new payment and clearing mechanism.

## Infrastructure Dilemmas and Ecosystem Fragmentation

But as applications deepen, new problems emerge—immature infrastructure.

An ideal payment experience should be fully transparent. When users swipe their cards for coffee, they shouldn’t need to know how many interactions, verifications, or clearing steps happen behind the scenes. Similarly, blockchain should be thoroughly abstracted, allowing developers to use stablecoin payments as easily as calling an API.

To this end, some teams have built infrastructure platforms for developers. But as their client base expands from traditional remittance giants to emerging neobanks, a paradox arises:

While chains like Solana and Polygon are fast, their ecosystems are fragmented; Ethereum’s ecosystem is the strongest (most developers and liquidity), but network congestion leads to high costs. No single chain can perfectly solve the challenge of "performance versus ecosystem."

This is why high-performance, EVM-compatible new chains are becoming inevitable—not to add options, but to fill a genuine market need. The most critical factors for payment businesses are not grand narratives but cold economics: transaction costs, confirmation times, and liquidity depth.

## Fundamental Changes in Business Models

The 2024 update to US regulations has led to a divergence among stablecoin issuers.

The first-generation stablecoin issuers operated on a simple logic: users deposit funds, the issuer uses them to buy US Treasuries, and all interest accrues to the issuer. This model created enough competitive barriers within two years.

But the new generation of players is changing the rules. They are directly passing on the interest income generated by underlying assets to users and recipients. This is not just profit redistribution but the creation of an unprecedented financial language.

In traditional banks, deposits generate interest, but funds are in "dead time" during transfers. Mute coins break this limitation—funds are in payments, high-speed transactions, and circulation, while the underlying assets continue to generate returns. The simple concept of "circulating and earning" implies a reshaping of the entire financial infrastructure.

Some teams are even exploring more radical models: fully transparent management of US Treasuries, promising 100% interest transfer, and profiting from value-added services around stablecoins. Transactions that seem unprofitable are actually investments in the entire ecosystem.

## Dissolving Global Banking and Geographic Barriers

The gene of traditional fintech companies determines their fate: Nubank serves Brazil, Chime focuses on the US, and each is bound by local banking infrastructure, unable to cross borders.

But products built on stablecoins and blockchain erase these boundaries. Founders can start with a single line of code and target a global user base. No longer "a version of fintech for a certain country," but a native, globalized new banking model.

This is an unprecedented step in financial history. Traditional fintech needs to expand into each market, constrained by regulation, infrastructure, and banking partnerships. New stablecoin banks bypass all these barriers and start directly on the global payment track.

As large tech companies begin integrating investment, deposits, payments, and lending into a unified account experience, product-level integration drives the necessity for infrastructure innovation. DeFi transactions, stablecoin transfers, yield farming—all should be seamless within a unified, frictionless interface.

## Agent Payments and the Algorithmic Finance Era

The next three to five years will see the most exciting developments in the combination of AI agents and stablecoins.

AI has already begun autonomously managing on-chain funds—some projects integrate food delivery platforms with on-chain payments, where agents execute payments at speeds incomprehensible to the human brain. This is not just "faster," but a fundamental evolution of workflows: upgrading from human efficiency to algorithmic efficiency, ultimately leading to agent efficiency.

Milliseconds become microseconds, requiring underlying public chains to possess absolute performance advantages.

Meanwhile, user account models are converging. The boundaries between investment and payment accounts are blurring—since both manage funds, why separate? Major tech platforms are building "universal applications," unifying all financial activities within a single ecosystem.

What’s truly exciting is that the engineering rigor of high-frequency trading is migrating into real-world commercial scenarios. Imagine CFOs managing vast, dispersed funds across multiple banks and complex forex pairs—once requiring extensive manual coordination, future AI combined with high-performance blockchains can automatically execute scaled transactions and fund reallocations, optimizing every cent of profit.

The capabilities of high-frequency trading are no longer exclusive to Wall Street but are abstracted as universal tools to help enterprises optimize fund management at microsecond levels.

## Stablecoins’ "Email Moment"

The future of payments is shaping a familiar scene—the value flow at internet speeds.

When email appeared, writing a letter was no longer just faster; information moved from days to seconds, transforming human communication. Stablecoins and blockchain are reenacting this history in finance: transporting value at internet speed—an unprecedented capability in human civilization.

Global supply chain finance is being reshaped, remittance costs are approaching zero, real-time fund flows are emerging—all still in their infancy. But the true beginning will arrive the moment this technology becomes seamlessly integrated—when users don’t feel the presence of blockchain but enjoy the flow of funds at internet speed.

At that point, stablecoins will no longer be just crypto assets but the foundational infrastructure of everyday finance.