The 3 Waves of Stablecoin Payments, Which Projects Are Worth Watching? The more I study stablecoin payments, the less I think regulation will be the main adoption driver. Regulation can permit adoption, but competition will force it. A company that settles international payments faster and with lower costs has better margins, needs less working capital and can offer better prices. Companies that remain on slower infra will not disappear immediately. They will gradually become less competitive. I see stablecoin adoption developing through 3 waves. [1] First wave: belief and necessity The first users did not need a detailed financial model. Crypto exchanges, OTC desks, freelancers and merchants in markets such as Argentina, Nigeria and Turkey adopted stablecoins because existing options were slow, expensive or unavailable. A bank account could be difficult to access. A SWIFT transfer could take several days. Correspondent fees reduced the amount received. Local currencies could lose value before the payment arrived. USDT on Tron solved a real problem. This demand did not depend on token incentives or crypto market conditions. People needed a liquid dollar that could move globally at any time. That first wave proved that public blockchains could process payment activity at scale. Projects I associate with this wave: – @tether + @trondao: still one of the strongest combinations for dollar settlement in emerging markets. – @Plasma: building low-cost USDT transfers, accounts and card access around demand that already exists. – @Polygon and @BNBCHAIN: gaining share in payment activity through low fees and broad wallet support. I watch these networks for actual transfer demand, not DeFi TVL or temporary incentives. [2] Second wave: economic interest The second wave started when companies stopped viewing stablecoins as a crypto product and began treating them as payment infrastructure. Stripe acquired Bridge and added stablecoin accounts, acceptance and payouts. Visa expanded stablecoin settlement and reached a $7B annualized settlement run rate in 2026. Mastercard is connecting stablecoins with its payment and payout network. PayPal launched PYUSD. Shopify merchants gained access to USDC payments. Payroll and marketplace platforms began offering stablecoin payouts. These companies are not adopting stablecoins because they support decentralization. They are doing it because the economics are becoming attractive. A payroll platform can pay contractors across many countries without waiting for each local banking system. A marketplace can settle with international merchants faster and reduce the amount of capital held between payment and delivery. A payment processor can operate during weekends without prefunding accounts in every market. Each benefit can be measured through cost, settlement time and working-capital efficiency. Artemis data shows B2B stablecoin payments reached roughly $235B in 2025, up more than sevenfold year over year. That is strong growth, but it remains below 1% of global B2B payment flows. I think this gap is the main opportunity. Projects I am watching in this wave: – @Stablecoin: provides the connection between fiat accounts, stablecoins, issuance and global payouts. Stripe gives it immediate distribution. – @tempo: a payments-focused L1 developed by Stripe and Paradigm. It already has companies bringing real payment operations into production. – @circle + @arc: combines USDC distribution with a network designed for payments, FX and institutional settlement. – @BVNKFinance: connects fiat and stablecoin payments for enterprises and is now integrated with both Visa Direct and Mastercard. – @raincards: lets companies launch stablecoin-backed card and payment programs without building the full compliance and settlement stack themselves. I am especially interested in infrastructure that lets companies use stablecoins without managing wallets, gas tokens or blockchain operations directly. That is what corporate adoption requires. [3] Third wave: competitive pressure The third wave begins when stablecoin adoption is no longer optional. Imagine two companies bidding for the same international contract. One settles with suppliers at T+0, operates seven days a week and pays lower FX and correspondent fees. The other settles at T+3, keeps extra cash in several bank accounts and pays more for each cross-border transfer. The first company can accept a lower margin while remaining profitable. Eventually, the second company loses the contract. At that point, its decision to adopt stablecoins is not based on belief. It is based on survival. I expect new companies to create the strongest pressure. They will use stablecoins from day one instead of migrating from bank infrastructure later. They can operate with smaller treasury teams, less prefunding and fewer FX intermediaries. Incumbents will first ignore them. Then they will reduce prices and accept lower margins. Finally, they will connect to stablecoin infra because keeping the old system becomes more expensive. This is similar to what happened with e-commerce. Regulation did not force every retailer to sell online. Competitors with better distribution and lower operating costs did. [4] The missing layer: payment financing Faster settlement does not remove the need for liquidity. Companies still need capital between invoicing, payment and final settlement. As stablecoin payment volume grows, financing these flows becomes a separate market. This is why I am also watching Huma Finance. Huma uses stablecoin liquidity to finance cross-border settlement, marketplace payouts and trade activity. It reports more than $8B processed, with short-duration credit linked to real payment flows. I think PayFi becomes more important during the third wave because faster payments create demand for equally fast working capital. What this means for stablecoin supply Stablecoin supply is now above $300B, but most companies still do not hold meaningful working balances onchain. That can change quickly. Once a company regularly pays suppliers in stablecoins, converting between bank deposits and stablecoins for every transaction becomes inefficient. It becomes easier to keep part of its operating capital in stablecoins. More corporate working balances increase stablecoin supply. More supply improves liquidity. Better liquidity makes stablecoin payments easier for the next group of companies. I therefore do not expect adoption to grow at a constant rate. Each new group of companies increases the pressure on the next group. The strongest counterargument Banks are also improving. SWIFT gpi, instant-payment systems and tokenized deposits from JPMorgan and Citi can reduce settlement time and cost. I think these systems will remain competitive in domestic payments and within closed banking networks. Cross-border payments are different. A tokenized deposit issued by one bank remains a claim inside that bank’s system. It does not automatically provide a shared settlement asset for companies, wallets and financial institutions across multiple jurisdictions. Stablecoins already provide that common asset. Banks can improve their own systems, but coordinating many banks, currencies and jurisdictions remains difficult. That is why I expect stablecoins and bank infrastructure to coexist, with stablecoins gaining the most share in fragmented cross-border markets. My current watchlist If my three-wave framework is correct, I would focus on projects controlling one of five important functions. Stablecoins will not reach mass adoption because every company becomes interested in crypto. They will reach mass adoption when paying internationally without stablecoins becomes more expensive than using them.