Six years of a silent revolution: how stablecoins are transforming the paradigm of global payments

If we speak frankly, the history of cryptocurrency payment development is a story about how the industry gradually realized: it’s not about technology, but about real financial problems. And it all started at the moment when giants of traditional finance first seriously looked at blockchain.

When traditional finance decided to listen

The turning point was 2019. By then, Facebook’s Libra became a shock to the entire industry — the first large-scale coalition of major corporations around a cryptocurrency. Although the project ultimately failed under regulatory pressure, it performed a critically important function: it forced traditional financial institutions to recognize that cryptocurrencies are no longer a marginal game for enthusiasts, but a potential foundation for the future financial order.

Visa was one of the first to publicly join the Libra coalition. It was then that the company began systematically building its crypto team, which was engaged not just in theoretical research, but in finding real practical applications. The main idea was straightforward: if blockchain truly allows value to be transferred at internet speed, how exactly would this help the Visa payment network?

Team specialists began analyzing traditional settlement processes. T+1, T+2 delays seemed completely archaic in a world where technology can enable instant transactions. Even more paradoxical was the fact that banks close at 5:00 PM, settlements are not made on weekends, and treasury services are unable to initiate operations outside working hours. This meant that large sums of money were literally “paralyzed” in the system, not generating income.

The first real test: USDC on Ethereum

The breakthrough came unexpectedly. Visa decided to conduct an experiment using USDC as a new settlement mechanism. Crypto.com customers regularly converted crypto assets into fiat, then transferred funds via SWIFT to Visa. The process was painfully slow: money was held in reserves as protection against possible default during settlement delays. All this inertia cost the customer real money.

When USDC first arrived from Crypto.com to Visa’s address via Anchorage Digital (a licensed digital bank) and the settlement was completed in a few seconds, it looked like a miracle. Unexpected, but entirely logical.

However, the experience of stablecoin settlements revealed a painful truth: the crypto ecosystem infrastructure is still too immature.

From abstraction to reality: the birth of Portal

One of the key insights was that users should not feel the complexity of blockchain. When you buy coffee at a café — you simply pay with a card, get your drink, and the seller receives the money. No one thinks about bank connections, verification, or settlements. It’s a complete abstraction.

Similarly, a crypto payment should be arranged: the developer should be able to connect stablecoin payments via a simple API, without delving into Ethereum or Solana details. That’s why Platform Portal was created — middleware for fintech companies that wanted to integrate cryptocurrency transactions into their systems.

Among Portal’s clients were both giants like WorldRemit and young Neobanks. But during scaling, an unresolved problem emerged: no matter how well-optimized the software part is, the bottleneck always remains at the fundamental level. Solana is fast but has a fragmented ecosystem. Ethereum has the strongest network effect but is slow and expensive. No existing platform combined both advantages.

Monad: searching for the perfect solution

The logic was clear: if there were a system compatible with the EVM standard, but with ultra-high performance and confirmation times of less than a second, it would be an ideal solution for payments. This was the guiding idea behind the acquisition of Portal by Monad Foundation. A new player on the scene, but with a very specific goal: to change the very nature of settlement systems.

Many skeptics asked: isn’t the public chain already enough? The simple answer: it’s not about the number of chains, but whether they solve key practical payment tasks. What is the transaction cost? Is the confirmation time sufficient for real business? Is there liquidity in various currency corridors?

These are very practical calculations, far from financial theory.

Evolution of the business model: from margin to ecosystem

This year, the US signed the GENIUS Act, which launched a new wave of changes in the stablecoin industry. The first issuers like Tether and Circle had a very simple model: users deposit money, which is invested in US government bonds, and all interest income remains with the issuer. These were the rules of the first game.

But new players — Paxos, M0, and others — began transferring income from underlying assets directly to users. This is not just profit sharing. It creates an entirely new financial primitive.

In traditional banks, money earns interest only when it is idle. As soon as you start transferring, paying, or trading — income stops. But in blockchain, underlying assets continue generating income even during continuous circulation. This opens up the possibility of earning not on deposit margins, but on related products and services.

Some teams are even experimenting with more radical approaches: transferring 100% of interest to users. Their logic — earning on volumes, administrative services, and integrations.

Crypto fintech: changing geographical boundaries

The first generation of fintech companies (Nubank, Chime) was built on local banking infrastructure. They serve only residents of their country because they depend on local regulatory restrictions.

But when you build a product on stablecoins and blockchain, this changes dramatically. You are effectively creating a product on global payment rails. It’s not just an improvement — it’s a revolution. From day one, you can be a global bank for many countries without needing separate licenses for each jurisdiction.

This may be the greatest unlock effect in the entire history of fintech: the first generation of founders who are oriented toward the global market from the very first line of code.

AI Agent and microsecond operations: the next frontier

If you ask about the most exciting directions for 3-5 years ahead, the answer is unequivocal: the combination of AI Agent (Agentic Payments) and High Frequency Finance.

At a recent hackathon in San Francisco, developers already demonstrated prototypes: DoorDash integrated with on-chain payments, where the agent automatically processes transactions faster than the human brain can comprehend.

It’s not just about speed. It’s a fundamental shift from “human efficiency” to “algorithmic efficiency” and further to “Agent efficiency.” When a CFO manages international funds distributed across different banks and currencies, the system can automatically execute large-scale deals and optimize every penny of the company with ultra-high speed.

Email for money

A common analogy is that we are experiencing the “email moment” for money. Email not only accelerated correspondence — it allowed information to cross continents in seconds, forever changing human communication.

Stablecoins and blockchain are set to do the same for money: transfer value at internet speed, something humanity has never seen before. The future brain of such systems is still being formed, but it’s clear: this is a rebuild of global supply chains, zero-cost transfers, and integration of payments into every app on your phone.

We don’t even fully understand what this will produce. But one thing is clear: when users do not feel the presence of blockchain but use money flows at internet speed — that’s when the true revolution will begin.