Stablecoins Gain Traction With Visa Mastercard Stripe Circle IPO

Stablecoins are increasingly becoming a mainstream financial tool, with major companies like Visa and Mastercard announcing stablecoin-linked cards and Stripe acquiring Bridge to facilitate online spending of stablecoins. The impending regulation in the U.S. and Circle’s $1.15 billion IPO further solidify 2025 as the year of the stablecoin. However, the current momentum seems to be more about attaching a stablecoin label to traditional financial tools rather than focusing on the real-world utility for end-users.

For instance, stablecoin-linked cards do not offer any tangible benefits to the average consumer compared to using traditional currency. The end result is the same—money is deducted electronically from their account. This approach only perpetuates the existing financial system and risks missing the true value of stablecoins. Stablecoins present a unique opportunity to rethink next-generation finance, particularly for the unbanked population who are often let down by the legacy banking system.

Stablecoins and blockchain technology offer a chance to address the problems in payments and finance today. Globally, 1.4 billion people are unbanked, with 57% of Africans and 6% of U.S. adults lacking any kind of bank account. Stablecoins are designed to provide financial access to these unbanked populations, allowing anyone with a smartphone and internet connection to store value, send money, and access global financial networks without needing a traditional bank account. This is where stablecoin adoption should be growing, as evidenced by the increasing use of cryptocurrency for financial transactions among unbanked adults in the U.S.

If stablecoin adoption simply mirrors traditional finance, we risk recreating the same problems we set out to solve. We need to see more innovation happening outside of traditional finance to help those who could benefit the most from stablecoins. For example, wallets like MiniPay enable people to pay bills, send money internationally, and subscribe to services using stablecoins, without touching the traditional financial system. These solutions are often developed by individuals experiencing financial pain points firsthand, meaning stablecoins are directly solving real-world problems.

Companies like Strike are also using stablecoins to overhaul the remittance market in regions like Latin America, offering a cheaper, quicker, and superior alternative to the outdated legacy system. While these solutions might originate as tools to help those underserved by traditional finance, their impact and utility can potentially be felt by all, wherever they are in the world. What might start out as a stablecoin wallet to help users bypass the high fees and slow speeds of traditional remittance services could end up being used en masse as a travel wallet.

Stablecoins give us a unique opportunity to solve payment problems from the bottom up, creating real-world utility from which everyone can benefit. Instead of focusing on how to integrate stablecoins into our current payment rails, we should focus our collective efforts on stablecoin solutions that deliver on the core premise of crypto—to help those let down by the legacy financial system. This means delivering user-friendly ways to help underbanked populations globally access and spend stablecoins in a frictionless way.

We have the potential to upend how we think about payments and create lasting solutions that can benefit everyone, wherever they are in the world and whatever their banking status. We just need to stay focused on the destination, not just the journey.