Category Archives: Stablecoin

Genius Law – What to Expect?

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Yesterday President Trump signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act into law, clearing the path for dollar-backed stablecoins. As I’ve argued before, the future of money is a new model of trust, and this legislation provides the regulatory certainty needed for that trust. 

The GENIUS Act is a landmark piece of legislation. It establishes a dual charter system, enabling both federal and state-regulated stablecoin issuers. The key provisions are precisely what the industry needed: a mandate for 1:1 reserves with high-quality liquid assets like cash and short-term treasuries, a prohibition on reusing those reserves, and the designation of issuers as financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act. This isn’t just about compliance; it’s about building a foundation of trust that can be exported globally.

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Stablecoin Plays and Players – Issuers, Infrastructure, and Innovators

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Today’s blog is focused on private companies, business models, and competitive dynamics shaping the stablecoin “industry”. Note Google Gemini was used in discerning company performance and focus.

No we are not going to drill into every company in Block’s DeFi market overview, Stablecoin Liquidity, or the 172 companies in CB Insights Stabllecoin industry map…  but rather some highlights and how the market is likely to evolve in near term. Even though I”m focusing on just a few of the companies below, this is still a rather long 25 pages.

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Retail Banking and Stablecoins

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Friction, Float, and the Future

As a Banker, Founder and Payment Historian who has spent too long watching icebergs melt, I’ve seen many technologies promise to upend the banking industry. Most have been evolutionary, not revolutionary. But the advent of digital dollars, particularly consumer-facing stablecoins, are unique. Payments are the core of retail banking and profitability. Payments are a networked business, not just in card but in every consortium and association. As I outlined in The Power of Bank Networks, these networks are the engines that drive economies and how banks connect to the environment. For my colleagues in banking and payments, understanding how (or if) stablecoins impact payments is very important.

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Stablecoin Winners and Losers

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Summary

Winners:

  • Card Networks (Mostly Insulated): Their core business as ubiquitous real-time messaging networks for authorization and value-added services is largely unaffected. They are the top on=ramp (Visa Direct) and the top off-ramp (linked card). Networks will expand services to support issuer demand for stablecoin settlement and services. Within OECD 20 markets, there is no merchant demand for stablecoin in eCommerce.  
  • Emerging Markets: Stablecoins provide crucial financial access, inflation hedging, and efficient remittances where traditional banking is broken or local currencies are unstable, especially in Africa.  
  • Edge and Non-Card UCs. Low value payments, remittances, … 
  • Corporate Treasury and Treasury Platforms: Fortune 100 enterprises gain significant efficiencies in cash management through real-time liquidity, reduced costs, and enhanced transparency.  
  • Dollarization – US Treasury: The growth of USD-pegged stablecoins, driven by regulations like the Genius Act, creates substantial demand for US Treasuries, reinforcing dollar dominance. Tether is already a top buyer.  
  • Existing Banks: Despite some fee pressure, banks are adapting by integrating stablecoins into their services, leveraging their customer relationships and regulatory expertise to remain central players.  
  • Fintech Enablers (Stripe, Shopify): These platforms expand their global reach by making stablecoin acceptance and payouts easier for merchants, particularly in cross-border commerce.  
  • KYC/AML Service Providers: Increased regulatory clarity and stablecoin adoption drive demand for robust identity verification and anti-money laundering services.
  • Wallets/Consumer Champion? PayPal? Enabling wallets in non-carded markets and a new model in eCom and POS (this is Stripe Privy).
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Amazon’s Stablecoin Strategy (and other Channel Masters)

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It’s not about Consumer 

My best guess

Recent media reports have ignited speculation about the entry of Amazon and Walmart into the stablecoin. The dominant narrative surrounds consumer use and the desire to endrun card processing fees. IMHO this perspective represents a fundamental misreading of the strategic calculus for a global supply chain “masters” and overlooks the far larger, more complex lucrative prize: the radical optimization of its global treasury operations. An “On Us” that spans the globe and encompasses all of amazon’s marketplaces, AWS services, Advertising,… and everything else.  A proprietary, closed-loop financial rail that serves as the financial backbone for its vast network. 

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B2B Payments: Cards, RTP, and Stablecoins 

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Exec Summary

  • B2B payments are a great source of growth for card and RTP networks, with 90% of volume remaining on check and ACH. But investors and innovators hoping to flip volume must assess the market with a great deal of skepticism. No one wants to pay a bill more quickly. There are 2 key factors to look at when assessing B2B payments: 1) Who holds the power in the relationship (ex Supply Chain Channel Master) and 2) How is it sold and bundled with other services (ex Quickbooks/SAP procurement).

  • I don’t see this as an impact to any current GDV flows in next 3 yrs, only growth impairment. It takes time to change contracts.

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Stablecoins – A New Model of Trust enabled by Technology?

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Part 1 – Programmable Settlement

Summary

The defining innovation of stablecoins is not the technology itself, but the trust architecture they enable. While today’s business architecture will NOT be turned upside down, the stablecoin frame does enable new models for managing legal contracts, systems interaction,  operational governance, all within a new regulatory superstructure.

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Stripe Acquires Privy – Link expands as Does Stripe’s “Gatekeeper” Position

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Stripe’s announcedits acquisition of Privy yesterday, web3 wallet infrastructure platform that enables developers to easily build and integrate secure, self-custodial wallets into their applications with well defined APIs (consistent with everything Stripe does). 

IMHO this signals an acceleration of Stripe’s strategy to dominate the intersection of eCom, wallets, Finance and stablecoin, with a likely product focus on embedding user-friendly stablecoin wallets directly into merchant checkouts and developer platforms. This will greatly expand and “juice” stablecoin adoption in eCom, particularly when combined with LINK. While it COULD present a slight challenge to cards, I don’t see near term impact there (per blog last week). US and EU consumers prefer card, merchants do as well (due to governance and customer support), ROW, micro payments, cross-border, small merchant acquiring/payfacs (and other edge UCs are a different story). 

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