Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Stablecoin Payments Have Wings – Are You Ready?
Stablecoins | April 17, 2025
Image: Freepik/creativeart
With 40M+ Active Wallets and Stripe Joining In, Stablecoins Are the New Rails
Stablecoins are gaining traction and are no longer a niche bet. According to Stripe’s 2024 Annual Letter, the number of monthly active stablecoin wallets tripled to 40 million over the past year. Stripe has now successfully integrated stablecoin capabilities into its core platform by the acquisition of Bridge, an enterprise grade stablecoin infrastructure provider (like Swift but on blockchain and faster) focused on real-time treasury and cross-border flows.
See: Stablecoins Are Growing Faster Than You Think
Stripe co-founders, Patrick and John Collison see stablecoins as improving the usability of money that can lead to more prosperous economies by enabling faster, cheaper, and more accessible transactions. An evolutionary and historical shift like the move from gold to fiat currency.
“Improvements to the basic usability of money make economies more prosperous. Consider the transitions from coins to banknotes, from the gold standard to fiat currency, and from paper instruments to electronic payments. Stablecoins are a new branch of the money tree. Such transitions occur with some regularity over the centuries, and the effects tend to be large.”
a16z just shared 'Stablecoins are payments without intermediaries', highlighting that stablecoins managed over $15.6 trillion of on-chain volume in 2024, which is essentially the same as Visa's annual volume, but it's growing and accelerating.
Stablecoins are no longer an experiment and have become part of core infrastructure. Stripe uses them for real time settlements and lower cross border costs. Over 78% of the Forbes AI 50 use Stripe products, so stablecoin transactions could scale massively quickly.
The Case for Enterprise Adoption Is Now Clear
For any fintechs or financial institutions still relying on multi-day SWIFT transfers or batch ACH systems - it's time to take notice. Stablecoins offer instant settlement, programmable logic, and almost zero fees.
There's no waiting for banking hours or regional cutoffs. Stablecoin availability is open 24/7. The average transaction costs on networks like Solana are less than $0.01. Stablecoin transactions can finalize in under 5 seconds.
Stablecoins like USDC are designed to be composable, so they integrate seamlessly with numerous smart contracts and decentralized applications. Financial tools can now be built directly on-chain using smart contracts and stablecoin flows.
See: GPR 2025 Shows Rise of Wallets BNPL and Real-Time Payments
That's why stablecoins are already being used for payroll (e.g., pay overseas contractors), international business payments, and even on-chain stable yield strategies.
Stripe’s 2024 update, reports that stablecoin integration is already being used in many practical ways, such as SpaceX uses Stripe's stablecoin infrastructure to repatriate funds from Starlink sales in countries like Argentina and Nigeria. The U.S. government uses Stripe's stablecoin solutions to improve efficiencies of financial operations.
Growing Global Impact
There are several real world economic cases where countries are relying on stablecoins.
Argentina for example, experienced a massive spike in annual inflation of 211.4% in 2023, which pushed many to hedge against inflation by moving funds to stablecoins like USDT and USDC.
Nigeria uses stablecoins to send funds across borders due to the inefficiencies and high costs involved with traditional remittance methods, making global transfers more affordable.
In the Philippines, a stablecoin called PHPC (pegged to the Philippine peso) is used to reduce exchange rates and transfer costs for Filipino expats sending money home to families.
Why This Matters for Canada’s Fintech Ecosystem
If Canada wants to compete in global finance, we can’t ignore what’s happening at the infrastructure level. Major tech platforms like Stripe are integrating stablecoins into programmable finance. Startups are now choosing stablecoin rails to access global markets from day one. Canada has been working to modernize it's payment infrastructure and real time rails for years but the tech overhaul has been delayed over years, and even the Bank of Canada is disappointed by the progress rate.
See: 2024 Global Payments Growth, Trends, and Fintech’s Edge
Fintechs and financial institutions should be evaluating the growing use cases of stablecoins such as cross border treasury flows, global payroll, and embedded payments. They should track the developments in upcoming stablecoin regulations, such as Canada's Retail Payment Activities Act, the U.S. efforts, the UK, and European crypto guidelines. They can begin compliance planning and readiness efforts for stablecoin transaction and consider partnering with infrastructure providers offering compliant stablecoin APIs.
Conclusion
Stablecoins have gone mainstream and are now core infrastructure settling in seconds for less than a penny, and running 24/7. Stripe, SpaceX, governments, and individuals and companies globally are using them for faster, cheaper payments. If you're still relying only on traditional payment rails, it's time to evaluate stablecoin use cases and get ready to plug into the new financial internet.
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