DoraHacks 2026 Demonstrates the Innovation of Digital Finance's Economic Primitives

In 2026, the cryptocurrency industry is at a turning point. Transitioning from early chaos to a structured market, a new economic primitive is emerging. The former criticism of “casino” has now been replaced by the reality of a “global financial infrastructure.”

At the core of this change is the redefinition of stablecoins. Stablecoins are no longer just a means of payment; they become the TCP/IP protocol of money, providing AI agents with a new economic primitive.

Why the Meaning of Stablecoins Has Changed Now

In traditional financial order, the international remittance system has faced fundamental contradictions. Speed, low cost, regulatory transparency—no system has simultaneously satisfied these three elements.

However, in 2026, the Circle and Arc ecosystems have solved this problem. This is not just a technological innovation but the beginning of a reconstruction of the financial infrastructure itself.

• CPN (Circle Payments Network): Connects digital ledgers with the global banking network to eliminate the “last mile problem.”
• CCTP & Gateway: Integrates liquidity fragmentation across multiple blockchains.
• Arc: Delivers sub-second certainty and low latency demanded by Wall Street.

Global Payment Innovation: The Possibilities Opened by CPN, Arc, and StableFX

The first step toward a new economic primitive is shifting from traditional international remittance to “programmable payments.” In the face of conventional banking systems, innovative business models are emerging one after another.

Smart Trade Finance

Supply chain companies should focus on a new form of payment: “Funds are automatically deposited upon cargo arrival.”

Traditional international trade was fraught with friction. Exporters relied on 30-90 day payment delays or expensive, cumbersome letters of credit.

The improvements are as follows:

1. Escrow Stage: Importers lock USDC into a smart contract on Arc.
2. Trigger Stage: Oracles supply real-time logistics data on-chain, with “cargo received” = “payment triggered.”
3. Settlement Stage: The contract automatically releases USDC.
4. Withdrawal Stage: CPN exchanges USDC for local currency and transfers immediately.

The reason Arc makes this possible is its ability to economically realize trigger-based payments based on high-frequency logistics updates, with sub-second finality and nearly zero fees.

Internal Fund Management for Global Companies

Multinational corporations face complex fund flows between subsidiaries. Large companies like Toyota or Siemens operating in 50 countries incur significant losses due to FX fees and capital lock-up.

The new approach is “on-chain aggregation and netting”:

• Each subsidiary converts local cash to USDC via CPN.
• Executes netting algorithms on Arc to calculate actual debt relationships.
• Only the net difference is transferred.
• Converts back to local fiat if necessary.

This process shifts from traditional multi-layered remittances to efficient batch processing. Arc’s privacy tools protect internal financial data, and its high throughput supports real-time calculations.

Democratization of Multi-Currency Fund Management

For mid-sized cross-border e-commerce companies, managing multiple currencies is a major challenge. Earning in euros, paying server costs in dollars, and paying salaries in Japanese yen—these exchanges have traditionally involved high spreads with banking systems.

The new economic primitive is “automatic strategy implementation.” Companies can set rules on Arc:

“For example, if EURC balance exceeds 50,000 and the EUR/USD rate surpasses 1.08, automatically exchange 50% to USDC.”

Smart contracts monitor StableFX estimates via oracles, executing immediately when conditions are met. At month-end, USDC is automatically exchanged for JPYY at the best market rate and distributed to employee wallets—transforming fund management capabilities once exclusive to giants like Apple into accessible tools for small and medium enterprises.

Four Primitives Developers Should Start Working on Now

1. Programmable Trade Finance Protocol

Builder Profile: Supply chain ERP specialists and logistics data experts

On-chain linkage of logistics data establishes “payment certainty.”

2. Enterprise Fund Consolidation Engine

Builder Profile: Fintech architects and enterprise SaaS founders

Optimizes internal remittances within multinational corporations.

3. Global Payment Routing Platform

Builder Profile: Payment gateway engineers and platform aggregators

Platforms like Uber, Airbnb, Upwork struggled to pay a global workforce. Sending $50 to a freelancer in the Philippines was prohibitively expensive.

The new system works as follows:

• Platform loads a single USDC pool on Arc.
• Triggers thousands of payments with one API call.
• Smart contracts act as automatic routers: send to wallets for crypto-native users, or via CPN to local banks for traditional users.

Batch processing enables “micro-payments,” which were mathematically impossible with previous systems.

4. Corporate Cards Supported by AI Agents

Builder Profile: Expense management and B2B fintech teams

Giving AI agents credit cards with access control managed by code—this is a new form of access management.

Companies can instantly issue virtual Visa/Mastercard credentials from USDC vaults on Arc, embedding rules like “This card is for AWS only” or “Maximum $100 per day” into smart contracts. Transactions are settled on-chain via StableFX immediately. Financial management authority shifts from bank policy departments to the company’s codebase.

Implementation Strategy for Technical Infrastructure

For developers, the architecture has been standardized. The build process involves four stages:

Stage 1: Deposit — Generate a virtual IBAN via CPN API. Fiat currency flows in, and USDC is automatically minted to the Arc address.

Stage 2: Liquidity Aggregation — Use Gateway SDK to consolidate USDC across chains like Ethereum, Solana into a central Arc application.

Stage 3: Business Logic Deployment — Deploy Solidity contracts on Arc. Define logic for payroll, trade funding releases, etc.

Stage 4: Withdrawal — Burn USDC via CPN Payout API to trigger local bank transfers, or use Programmable Wallets for direct on-chain settlement.

The Next Meaning of Digital Finance

“Build a bank that operates via code”—this is the ultimate message to entrepreneurs in 2026.

Your real competitors are the friction and outdated systems of the 1970s banking era. By combining Arc’s speed and CPN’s coverage, you can reduce global payment costs by 80% and accelerate speed from “T+2 days” to “T+0 seconds.”

Only those who understand and implement this new economic primitive will gain access to the trillion-dollar markets. Now is the time to build.