Oleksii (Alex) Pavlov is a fintech entrepreneur since 2017, founder of XONO, Kauri Finance, co-founder of Ready to Pay.
We are entering the era of private digital money. Recently, I joined a live roundtable (“The Future of Stablecoins”) on how stablecoin technology is changing the way we move money. While their share of global settlement remains modest, adoption in Europe is growing faster than the global average, according to Chainalysis. I’ve observed institutional players and payment providers launching their own stablecoins on regulated rails. This shift is happening quietly but decisively—as often in finance.
(Full disclosure: My company provides financial infrastructure and payment solutions that support stablecoin transactions alongside traditional banking rails. Neither I nor my company have received any compensation from any stablecoin issuer in connection with this article.)
Stablecoins’ Role In Payment Processing
Stablecoins are digital tokens tied to real currencies like the dollar, but they run on blockchain tech, which makes them decentralized and efficient. Once used mainly inside crypto markets, they now reach far beyond. In addition to speed and cost, stablecoins bring something legacy systems were never designed for: programmability. They enable conditional, automated and multi-recipient transfers, options legacy rails can’t support.
At Kauri Finance and Ready to Pay, stablecoins are part of daily operations. People use them for groceries, subscriptions and travel by linking a card to Apple Pay and tapping. For users it’s seamless, but behind the scenes are the rails we built to make stablecoins reliable for daily payments. We use stablecoins like USDC to enable fast, compliant and cost-efficient payments across borders.
This momentum is no longer fueled solely by crypto enthusiasts; it’s increasingly driven by businesses and institutions looking for scalable payment solutions. Big names are jumping in: PayPal has PYUSD, and JPMorgan is building blockchain settlement networks and exploring crypto-tied rewards. Citigroup is also considering launching a stablecoin. In Europe, a consortium of nine major banks, including ING and UniCredit, has announced plans to launch a MiCA-regulated euro stablecoin designed for instant, low-cost settlement. Even Wyoming has launched a stablecoin. These are moves to weave stablecoins into the backbone of modern finance. At this point, I believe stablecoins are becoming the payment rails of the future, and their slice of global transactions is only going to grow.
As I shared during the roundtable, this shift is not just theory; I’ve seen it in action. In 2024, Ukrainian boxing icon Oleksandr Usyk rewarded Olympic winner Oleksandr Khizhnyak with $100,000 in stablecoins through RTP, my company’s Telegram-based cryptocard platform. Conventional banking couldn’t process it as wartime restrictions blocked foreign currency transfers. Yet the payment cleared instantly after a brief compliance check.
These cases show the real potential of stablecoins: fast, secure, compliant transfers when traditional systems are restricted. They won’t replace national currencies, but they could provide a practical alternative for transactions.
Risks And Barriers To Adoption
Speed and simplicity aren’t enough. Four hurdles remain: trust, usability, regulation and fraud prevention.
Trust comes first. Users must know a stablecoin is fully backed and independently audited. Past failures have shown that without disclosure and accountability, consumer confidence will remain limited.
Usability is another barrier. Setting up wallets and managing keys still feels complicated. Most people just want payments that are instant and simple. Until stablecoins are as easy as online banking, mass adoption will remain unlikely.
Regulation is advancing—MiCA in Europe, the GENIUS Act in the U.S.—but rules remain inconsistent. In many markets, their legal status is still a gray area.
At the roundtable, our conversation kept coming back to one issue: fraud. All panelists agreed that illicit money still flows through parts of the crypto ecosystem. In traditional banking, suspicious activity can be frozen and investigated with clear points of contact for the customer. But there is no universal protocol or procedures for stablecoins, and in many jurisdictions, no clear legal basis for blocking a questionable transfer at all.
Fixing this will require industrywide alignment. Issuers need shared standards of trust, a kind of TrustBase, with clear rules for intervention. Such coordination would protect users and build confidence, helping stablecoins enter the financial mainstream.
Adapting The Old Rails To The Speed Of New Money
I firmly believe that the future of payments will be built on infrastructure where stablecoins operate as part of the settlement layer. Such integration—essential yet invisible, like Swift today—will drive mass adoption. Users won’t consciously choose stablecoins; they will experience instant, low-cost payments with options to set conditions or automate transfers. The same architecture could support loyalty programs, payroll and real-time cross-border trade.
And once those challenges are addressed, a new question will arise: What happens to old rails like Swift? Right now, Swift still handles most interbank transfers, but its batch processes and intermediaries no longer match the demand for instant, 24/7 payments.
By 2030, the question will be whether systems like Swift can adapt quickly enough to compete—or risk being replaced by programmable alternatives.
The Road Ahead: Governance, Compliance And Safety
I believe I’ve made the case that stablecoins have the potential to become a structural pillar of the future financial system. But to reach that potential requires governance, compliance and safety.
Even as stablecoins gain traction and the technology is ready to support it, there’s still a lot of work ahead on the institutional and regulatory sides. Confidence still hinges on what stands behind each token: the quality of reserves, the credibility of issuers, the clarity of regulation, security and AML risks. The recent history of crypto shows how quickly trust can erode when disclosure falls short or oversight lags. True stability, in the end, depends as much on governance as on code. I truly believe that the market should be governed through well-established traditional banking mechanisms along with clear regulations; that’s what makes it credible and stable by default.
Trust remains the foundation of money. For banks and payment providers, this means a choice: Integrate stablecoin infrastructure or risk being outpaced by faster, more adaptable players. With oversight and strong standards, stablecoins can become the benchmark for modern finance.
Forbes Finance Council is an invitation-only organization for executives in successful accounting, financial planning and wealth management firms. Do I qualify?
