By Aaron Stanley,Contributor

Copyright forbes

(Original Caption) San Diego: The 987-foot, 30,000-ton supertanker Exxon Mediterranean formerly the Exxon Valdez famous for its part in the largest oil spill in U. S. history 3/24/89 when it ran into Bligh Reef near Valdez, Alaska, dwarfs a few sailboats as it leaves San Diego Bay 8/29 under its own power for several days of sea tests after $30 million in repairs. This is the first venture back into the Pacific Ocean since limping into San Diego Bay for repairs 7/89.
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Since their advent a decade ago stablecoins have primarily served two use cases: crypto trading and remittances.

But it was only a matter of time before payments companies and businesses looking to streamline international money movement operations took notice.

These digital, blockchain-native representations of fiat currency are quicker and cheaper to send, offer faster settlement and are accessible globally. They offer further benefits of programmability, transparency and growing integration with local fiat rails – making them much easier to use in the “real world”.

The result is that the last 12-18 months have seen an explosive rise in commercial stablecoin use cases: optimizing cross-border payments, managing treasuries and facilitating access to stronger currencies.

Nick Philpott, co-founder of Standard Chartered-backed Zodia Markets, explained during a panel at the recent Stablecoin Conference in Mexico City that the commercial growth of stablecoins has emerged due to their technological superiority and growing frictions in the incumbent correspondent banking system. This global network of banks that provide cross-border payments and settlement has retreated amid the de-risking movement that accelerated following the 2008 financial crisis.

“If I’m in Singapore and I’m trying to send dollars to Malaysia, I have to go to a bank in Singapore, then the dollars clear through the United States, and then it comes all the way around the world and gets to Malaysia,” he explained.

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“It’s faster to do that payment by putting cash in your car and driving it to Malaysia.”

Because of these frictions, more and more types of companies that function across borders are looking to stablecoins as practical tools.

Philpott explained that Zodia is now processing $30-40 billion annually in transactions involving USD-backed stablecoins. His clients include commodity traders and brokers who need liquidity for deals in the nine figures.

“We’re dealing with oil companies, iron ore traders, shipping companies, things like that. They’re using stablecoins to buy and sell different cargos,” he said.

The Stablecoin Trend is Your Friend

The trend is so pronounced that Bitso, a major crypto exchange operating across Latin America, has found itself pivoting heavily into payments and stablecoin services. It recently launched Bitso Business, a dedicated payments and FX arm, as well as Juno – a platform for issuing local stablecoins.

Bitso CEO Daniel Vogel explained that stablecoin usage by its client base as a percentage of total transaction volume doubled from between July 2024 and June 2025, 9% to 19.5%.

A new report from Bitso Business quantifies this, noting that its fastest growing verticals are payment aggregators and gaming platforms which are adopting stablecoins for instant pay-ins and payouts, improved cash flow management and lower transaction costs in international operations.

Volume from payment aggregators grew 68% over the 12 month period, while that from gaming companies was up more than 5x.

“This sharp rise underscores how stablecoins have moved beyond niche FX applications to become an integral part of broader payment and settlement processes in both traditional and digital sectors,” the report notes.

Onramps as the Lubricant

Explosive growth in stablecoin orchestrators, also known as on and off-ramps, have helped to eliminate the pain points of getting fiat money on and off chain. This has made it viable for businesses to transact using these assets with greater confidence that they will be able to offramp to fiat dollars whenever they need to.

Kevin Lehtiniitty, founder of Borderless.xyz, explained during an interview with Brazil Crypto Report that his company, which connects liquidity between stablecoin providers offering fiat onramps across different jurisdictions, has seen a huge surge in demand of new onramp providers looking to tap into his network.

“So when you think of the big orchestrators, you think of names like Bridge, BVNK, Bitso, Yellowcard, etc, that are all licensed in local markets and provide kind of these payments on- and off-ramp capabilities,” Lehtiniitty said, adding:

“What we’re seeing now is a whole new wave of companies that are adding to that list. It’s no longer five or six, now it’s 50-60 and quickly growing – especially across Latin America and Africa.”

Regulatory Clarity: the Final Boss

With the passage of the Genius Act in the US in July, the final obstacle to mainstream stablecoin adoption appears to have been overcome. The act provides a legal framework for stablecoin issuers and users, providing yet another layer of important confidence in addition to opening up the US market.

Visa, for example, supports USDC, EuroC, USDG and PYUSD as settlement currencies on its network across four different blockchains, seven days a week. It had not been offering this service in the US, however – something it expects to change soon.

“We’ve been doing this globally, but we had not been doing this in the US because there wasn’t that regulatory clarity, which has now come out,” said Peter Wexler, senior director for business development at Visa. “So we’ve been doing this across I think 14 countries to date. Obviously, the US is really the next on that list.”

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