Are Stablecoins the Future of B2B Payments?

"Are stablecoins the future?" people ask me, which is really a way of asking "Why does it take three business days and a small fortune in fees to pay my overseas supplier when I can instantly send them a cat meme for free?" It's a reasonable question!

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The answer has something to do with the fact that while the internet revolutionized information transfer, our money still travels on rails built in the disco era.

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Stablecoins—those peculiar crypto tokens designed to be boring by maintaining a steady $1 value—sit at an interesting intersection. They're blockchain-based, which gives them all the speed and programmability crypto enthusiasts rave about, but they're explicitly designed not to make you rich overnight (or poor overnight). Their entire value proposition is stability, predictability, and utility—which, coincidentally, are exactly the qualities businesses look for in payment systems.

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So if stablecoins have so many good qualities going for them, why aren’t we living in the future today?

To answer that, we need to understand both where we've been and where we're going. The story of payment rails isn't just about technology—it's about regulation, institutional inertia, and the complex dance of infrastructure building and adoption that transforms promising technology into everyday business reality. Let's start with how we got here, and why the systems built for the telegram era are struggling to serve the needs of the digital age.

From SWIFT to Blockchain: A Timeline

Financial infrastructure isn't like consumer tech—it doesn't get completely reinvented every few years. It evolves slowly, with each layer built cautiously on top of what came before.

1970s: The SWIFT network emerges as the revolutionary solution to standardize international payments. Before this, banks communicated through Telex machines—essentially fancy typewriters connected to telephone lines. SWIFT was cutting-edge technology... for the era of bell bottoms and platform shoes. What's important to understand is that SWIFT isn't actually a payment system—it's a messaging system. The actual money still moves through a patchwork of correspondent banking relationships.

1980s-1990s: While consumers got ATMs and credit cards, business payments saw modest improvements through electronic funds transfers and automated clearing houses (ACH). These were digitizations of existing processes rather than fundamental reimaginings of how money could move.

2000s: Online banking arrives! Now you can initiate wire transfers from your computer instead of visiting a branch. But the underlying plumbing remained largely the same—like putting a shiny new faucet on rusty pipes.

2009: Bitcoin introduces the world to blockchain technology. For the first time, we see how value could be transferred digitally without intermediaries. But Bitcoin's volatility makes it more like digital gold than digital cash—great for speculation, terrible for paying suppliers.

2014-2018: The first stablecoins appear, initially as trading pairs on crypto exchanges. These early versions reveal a tantalizing possibility: the efficiency of blockchain without the wild price swings.

2020-Present: Institutional interest in stablecoins explodes. Major payment processors begin integrating with stablecoin networks. Regulators start paying serious attention, which is both a challenge and a validation.

This evolution reveals something important: we've spent decades optimizing the user interface of payments without fundamentally changing how value actually moves. It's like we've been putting increasingly better paint jobs on a Model T Ford instead of building a Tesla. Blockchain and specifically stablecoins represent the first real reimagining of the underlying infrastructure since the 1970s.

Signs That Stablecoins Are Winning the Future

Changes in financial infrastructure move at a glacial pace because money requires trust, and trust takes time to build.

But here's the thing about stablecoins: they've been quietly gaining that trust at a speed that's surprising even the skeptics. While the crypto world has been obsessed with Bitcoin's price swings, stablecoins have been winning over the suit-and-tie crowd—the people who actually control the financial plumbing.

Institutional Adoption is Accelerating

Major financial players are no longer just observing from the sidelines. Stripe's $1.1 billion acquisition of stablecoin startup Bridge, along with Visa and PayPal's integration of stablecoins into their core services, signals that the financial establishment sees stablecoins as a strategic necessity, not just an experiment.

Regulators Are Coming Around

When Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller states that "stablecoins are effectively 'synthetic' dollars that can bring benefits to the financial system" and "could have a lot of potential benefits and eliminate inefficiencies," it's a clear indicator that the regulatory climate is warming. This shift is crucial because regulatory clarity reduces adoption friction for businesses concerned about compliance.

The Numbers Are Getting Serious

Stablecoin transaction volumes have grown from billions to trillions annually in just a few years. This isn't niche activity anymore—it's mainstream financial volume.

The Business Model Works

The stablecoin formula has proven remarkably profitable: 1) Issue a regulated stablecoin, 2) partner with exchanges for distribution, and 3) earn consistent yields by investing the fiat reserves. Tether reported profits of $5.2 billion in just the first half of 2024 from placing their reserves in US Treasury bonds. This model is too attractive for traditional financial institutions to ignore, which is why we're seeing increasing institutional participation.

Global Expansion Beyond the Dollar

While USD-backed stablecoins like USDT and USDC dominate the market, we're seeing expansion into other currencies. The UAE's central bank approved the dirham-backed AE Coin, and European institutions are exploring euro-based stablecoins under the new MiCA regulations. This diversification makes stablecoins relevant to an even broader global market.

Real-World Use Cases Are Multiplying

Companies like SAP are testing cross-border USDC payments, while startups like Agrotoken are enabling farmers to convert physical commodities (like soybeans) into stablecoins that can be spent with merchants. These practical applications solve real business problems around liquidity, cross-border payments, and access to stable value in volatile economies.

Of course, if the future were this clear-cut, we'd already be there. One of the main challenges preventing wider adoption is that using stablecoins requires bridging the gap between traditional financial systems and blockchain technology.

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The good news is that, as William Gibson put it, "the future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed."

How Companies are Bridging the Gap to the Stablecoin Future

Multiple Fortune 100 CFOs have already bridged the gap, and they're doing it with Bitwave. For businesses ready to step into the future of B2B payments, Bitwave connects your existing accounting and ERP systems with blockchain payment rails, so you don't have to rebuild your entire finance stack. Your accountants can keep using the tools they're familiar with while tapping into the benefits of stablecoins.

Ready to stop sending money via systems designed when Star Wars first came out? Schedule a demo today and learn how your business can leverage stablecoins to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and expand global reach in your B2B payment operations. The future of payments is already here—it's just waiting for you to embrace it.