Stablecoins have crossed a symbolic frontier: on-chain volumes now edge past those handled by Visa and Mastercard, signalling that dollar-pegged tokens are morphing into the web’s preferred money rail. That conclusion comes from Noam Hurwitz, head of engineering at infrastructure firm Alchemy Pay, who told Cointelegraph that stablecoins are “becoming the stablecoins default settlement layer for the internet.”
Record flows eclipse legacy networks
According to Alchemy’s internal dashboards, combined stable-asset transfer value grew 7 % larger than the card duopoly’s settlement total during the first half of 2025. The milestone is powered by relentless growth in onchain payments for trading, gaming and microlending apps—use cases that bypass traditional processors entirely. Fintechs PayPal and Stripe have seized the momentum: each now routes portions of checkout traffic through PayPal stablecoin(PYUSD) and the newly announced Stripe stablecoin pilot, respectively, in a bid to cut charge-back risk and weekend clearing delays.
Regulation adds tail-wind
Momentum is coinciding with fresh clarity from Washington. On 18 June the U.S. Senate passed the GENIUS Act, the first federal framework to set reserve and disclosure rules for issuers. Law-makers hope the statute will accelerate corporate experimentation, a stance echoed by Reuters analysts who see a “key catalyst for more companies across sectors to adopt stablecoins.” Parallel drafts in the House suggest that comprehensive stablecoin regulation could reach President Donald Trump’s desk before recess, giving global treasurers a rulebook that mitigates counter-party anxiety.
Powering a tokenised Treasury boom
Clearer guardrails also sharpen demand for short-dated U.S. debt. A June Reuters report projects the sector swelling to two trillion dollars by 2028, implying that issuers will hold an ever-larger slice of Treasury bills. Here the numbers already impress: Tether USDT’s portfolio of government securities surpassed Germany’s national stash this spring, while Circle USDC tops sixty-one billion dollars in circulation after its IPO. With yields north of four per cent, token operators earned an estimated thirteen billion dollars in interest last year, turning reserves into profit engines that dwarf many fintech balance sheets.
Real-world rails go crypto-native
Cross-border commerce remains the largest addressable prize. Unlike card networks, stablecoins close in minutes, 24/7, without correspondent-bank mark-ups—an advantage lighting up remittance corridors from Latin America to Southeast Asia. Hurwitz points to cross-border payments desks at Robinhood Wallet and Polymarket that now default to dollar tokens rather than volatile majors such as Ether.
The institutional side is evolving just as quickly. In May, JP Morgan Kinexys debuted a permissioned, tokenized bank deposit on a public blockchain, offering same-day liquidity on cash that traditionally idled in omnibus accounts. Hurwitz calls it the “most visible evidence that Wall Street sees tokenised money as the base layer of the next financial stack.”
Bottlenecks: liquidity fragmentation and UX
Yet challenges loom. The very richness of the ecosystem—spanning Ethereum, Solana, Tron and dozens of layer-2 networks—creates friction for treasury desks that need predictable liquidity. Alchemy’s engineering chief warns that businesses “want to decouple the user experience from the underlying chain,” a feat requiring unified account abstraction and seamless bridges. Consumer-facing apps, meanwhile, must hide gas fees, key-management headaches and chain-select menus before rivaling the near-frictionless feel of mobile wallets.
Policy debate not over
Skeptics also gained ammunition this week when the Bank for International Settlements argued that stablecoins “fail tests of singleness and elasticity” because redemption always depends on the health of a private issuer. The BIS worries a run on tokens could force rapid Treasury liquidations, echoing Moody’s June note warning of knock-on volatility in America’s short-term funding markets. Supporters counter that transparency mandates inside the GENIUS Act, including monthly reserve attestations, will keep redemption risk manageable.
Corporate playbook for 2025
Legal uncertainty has not stopped blue-chip brands from experimenting. Reuters lists Walmart, Amazon and Societe Generale among names evaluating native stablecoins for loyalty, logistics and wholesale settlement workflows. Industry lawyers say any corporate token will likely follow PayPal’s model: ring-fenced reserves, audited disclosures and chain-agnostic issuance. Behind the scenes, startups provide the plumbing: Alchemy routes developer calls, Fireblocks co-signs custodial keys, and Chainlink oracles attest to dollar parity.
What it means for everyday users
For consumers, the shift is subtle but profound. When a CreatorDAO pays a freelance developer in USDC on a Saturday, or a gamer unloads points for dollars in seconds, they interact with an invisible lattice of permissible, high-velocity dollars. In border economies like Argentina or Nigeria, holding digital dollars that settle faster than SWIFT offers a hedge against inflation and capital controls. Such utility, analysts argue, is the cornerstone of stablecoin adoption 2025—and a reminder that the ultimate killer app may be simple, instant internet payments rather than yield farming or speculative memecoins.
Outlook
Hurwitz envisions a future where most fintechs spin up bespoke layer-2 networks, all stitched together by lightning-fast interoperability protocols. If that materialises, the event of stablecoins leaping past card giants will seem less like a headline and more like an early waypoint on the journey toward a natively digital monetary standard.