Stablecoins are no longer just “plumbing” for crypto trading. They’re increasingly being evaluated as a settlement instrument for cross-border payments, treasury operations, and tokenised asset flows – driven by a mix of scale, regulatory perimeter-building, and improving infrastructure.
In 2025, reporting and market trackers frequently placed stablecoin supply in the ~$250B range, and some research outlets cited the market moving beyond $300B later in the year – despite differences in methodology and definitions across data providers.
What’s changed is not just the technology. It’s the strategic context: regulators are codifying rules; institutions are exploring tokenised settlement and programmability; and corporates are looking for ways to reduce trapped liquidity and improve cash conversion cycles in global flows.
Executive takeaways
- Adoption is most likely first in “wholesale-like” use cases (B2B, intercompany settlement, cross-border treasury), where speed, cutoffs, and reconciliation pain are most acute.
- Mainstream use depends on three gating factors: regulatory clarity, operational integration, and a value proposition that remains compelling after compliance, FX, and fraud controls.
- Stablecoins face structural constraints as “money.” Central-bank research argues they fall short against core tests such as singleness, elasticity, and integrity – issues that become more material as scale grows.
- Currency denomination matters. Research and supervisors have flagged risks of effective “digital dollarisation” where dollar-linked stablecoins dominate usage outside the US.
- The winning strategies will be role-based: issue, distribute, custody, orchestrate, or provide compliance/controls – rather than trying to “do everything” immediately.
Why stablecoins are crossing into board-level agendas
1) Scale has reached macro-relevant levels
Stablecoins now sit at a size where they intersect with broader financial markets and policy conversations (notably through reserve composition and demand for short-dated safe assets).
2) Regulation is moving from principles to enforceable regimes
Regulators have converged on a direction of travel: redeemability, reserve quality/liquidity, governance, risk management, operational resilience, disclosures, and AML/CFT controls.
In the EU, the crypto-assets framework started applying in phases, with stablecoin-related titles applying earlier and the broader framework later, pushing issuers and service providers toward authorisation, governance, and conduct expectations.
3) The “always-on” economy is colliding with batch-based money movement
Traditional rails still depend on cutoffs, correspondent chains, and delayed reconciliation. Stablecoin rails can settle near-real-time and 24/7, which is strategically attractive – but only if controls, dispute handling, and integration reach enterprise-grade maturity.
Where the value is most likely to concentrate
Stablecoins tend to win where the cost of friction is highest – and where the benefits are measurable in working capital and operational efficiency.
Value pool A: Cross-border treasury and intercompany settlement
For multinational groups, cross-border flows often create:
- trapped balances,
- intraday liquidity buffers,
- FX and intermediary fees,
- reconciliation delays.
Stablecoin settlement can compress cycle time and reduce operational drag – particularly for repeatable corridors and high-frequency supplier/partner payouts. The practical constraint is that compliance and controls don’t disappear; they shift earlier into onboarding, wallet governance, transaction monitoring, and policy enforcement.
Value pool B: Wholesale settlement for tokenised assets
Tokenised collateral, funds, and securities increase the need for delivery-versus-payment, intraday liquidity, and programmable settlement conditions. This is one reason central-bank and market-infrastructure communities focus on standards for stablecoin arrangements that behave like systemically important FMIs.
Value pool C: Programmable payments (conditional settlement)
“Programmability” is less about novelty and more about reducing failure points:
- automated invoice matching,
- conditional release (escrow-like),
- policy-enforced treasury rules.
But programmability increases the premium on operational resilience and governance: smart contract risks, key management, and change control become financial control issues, not just technical ones.
Value pool D: FX access in constrained environments
Stablecoins can provide access to foreign currency exposure where local systems are weak or restricted – one factor cited in central-bank analysis as a driver of demand.
This is also where policymakers raise the strongest sovereignty concerns: at scale, foreign-currency stablecoin usage can alter monetary transmission and amplify “digital dollarisation.”
The hard constraints: why scale changes the risk equation
As stablecoins move toward mainstream use, three risk categories dominate board discussions.
1) “Money-ness” is not guaranteed
Central-bank research has been explicit: stablecoins may offer useful features, but they fall short as the backbone of a monetary system when assessed against:
- singleness (unquestioned acceptance at par),
- elasticity (ability to expand/contract liquidity when needed),
- integrity (resistance to illicit finance and abuse).
A practical implication: if multiple stablecoins circulate widely, fragmentation and price deviations become more than a trading issue – they become a payments issue.
2) AML/CFT scaling is a structural challenge, not a feature request
Some users can access stablecoins through unhosted wallets without standard onboarding checks, which supervisors identify as a core integrity risk. Central-bank analysis also notes a scaling problem: retroactive “seek-and-stop” approaches to illicit flows don’t translate cleanly to everyday payments at massive volume.
3) Regulation is converging, but global consistency is not guaranteed
International bodies have pushed for consistent outcomes (“same activity, same risk, same regulatory outcome”), with emphasis on redemption rights, reserve quality, and cross-border cooperation. Yet differences in national regimes can create regulatory arbitrage, fragmentation, and uncertain supervisory handoffs for globally distributed arrangements.
A practical playbook: choosing the right role (and sequencing the build)
For most institutions, the winning move is not “launch a coin tomorrow.” It’s to decide where you will win in the value chain and build capabilities in a staged way.
Step 1: Pick your role
Common, defensible roles include:
- Issuer (high regulatory load, reserve management, redemption operations)
- Distributor (customer acquisition + compliance + wallet UX)
- Custodian / safeguarding provider (risk management and controls as the product)
- Orchestrator (routing, FX, compliance tooling, reconciliation, integration APIs)
- Compliance & monitoring layer (transaction monitoring, policy controls, reporting)
Step 2: Build “enterprise rails,” not pilots
The capability stack tends to include:
- wallet governance and key management,
- sanctions screening + transaction monitoring,
- segregation of duties and audit trails,
- dispute and error handling (the “operating reality” retail systems already solve),
- reserve transparency / reporting expectations (where applicable),
- integration with ERP/TMS/core banking systems.
Standards bodies and regulators are increasingly explicit that stablecoin arrangements should meet high bars on governance, risk, and resilience – especially when systemically important.
Step 3: Start with corridors where the economics are provable
A useful sequencing heuristic:
- internal treasury/intercompany flows
- B2B supplier payouts and repetitive cross-border corridors
- tokenised settlement for specific asset classes/collateral workflows
- broader merchant/consumer use cases (last, not first)
The signposts that matter over the next 12–18 months
If you want to track whether stablecoins are truly moving from niche to utility, monitor:
- Regulatory milestones and enforcement patterns (authorisations, redemption rules, reserve standards, marketing/consumer protections).
- Share of activity tied to real-economy flows vs. exchange/DeFi recycling (the “quality” of volume matters as much as quantity).
- Currency mix (USD dominance vs. growth of local-currency stablecoins; implications for sovereignty and adoption in Europe).
- Operational incidents (outages, freezes, de-pegs, governance failures) as leading indicators of maturity gaps.
Closing perspective
Stablecoins are best understood as an emerging settlement format competing with – and sometimes complementing – traditional money movement. Their mainstream trajectory will be shaped less by hype and more by whether they can deliver measurable cash-flow and operational benefits while satisfying increasingly explicit standards on redeemability, governance, resilience, and integrity
