FXC Intelligence: The Current State of Cross-Border Payments for Stablecoins in 2025

2025 will be the "year of the stablecoin" for cross-border payments, with new announcements being released almost daily, and milestone regulatory documents officially pushing stablecoins towards traditional financial terminals. "We are reaching a 'critical point' where everyone realizes this is a completely upgraded payment technology, and real business and practical use cases are emerging. It is not some kind of cryptocurrency frenzy, but real applications," said Chris Harmse, co-founder of enterprise-grade stablecoin infrastructure BVNK.

But enthusiasm also brings bubbles. Eric Barbier, founder of Triple-A, reminds us: "On LinkedIn and at the conference, stablecoins seem to be treated as a panacea, as if they could end world hunger, poverty, and cure cancer tomorrow ------ this is clearly an exaggeration."

Stablecoins and blockchain technology are evolving rapidly, and the landscape of the financial payment market is changing in an instant, leading to a shift in the positioning of business collaborations. The FXC Intelligence report, a hundred-page document titled The State of Stablecoin in Cross Border Payments (The 2025 Industry Primer), serves as a valuable practical manual for stablecoin payments, integrating FXC Intelligence's cross-border payment data, extensive research, and insights from 14 frontline industry experts.

Therefore, we will compile this into a document, striving to provide the industry with a concise, solid, and actionable stablecoin payment guide, including the current status of cross-border payments using stablecoins, operational mechanisms, potential market size, application scenarios, challenges to be overcome, potential opportunities, and the future.

The full text is 27,000 words, enjoy below.

1. Stablecoin Ecosystem

Although stablecoins are still an emerging technology, they have completed the leap from marginal experiments to mainstream visibility in just a few years.

"The changes over the past 18 months have been particularly dramatic," said Chris Mason, co-founder and CEO of B2B stablecoin payment company Orbital. "The first to embrace stablecoins are often high-risk, high-growth players in emerging industries; now, the second wave has arrived—payment service providers and traditional banks are collectively awakening."

Iana Dimitrova, CEO of OpenPayd (a fiat financial infrastructure provider), added: "The current outbreak is not an overnight success, but rather the result of more than 15 years of trial and error and iteration. The market has finally reached a consensus on the practical value of stablecoins, and the technology itself has reached the tipping point for scalable commercial use."

The foundation of the industry started in the cryptocurrency trading field: that's where it began. Soon after, we started exploring new use cases for stablecoins. ------Nikhil Chandhok, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Circle

1.1 A Brief History of Stablecoins

Stablecoins originated with the launch of cryptocurrencies in 2008: a tokenized, decentralized, and immutable digital currency that operates on a blockchain based on distributed ledger technology. Stablecoins were initially born alongside Bitcoin, which was introduced to the world in October 2008 by an anonymous researcher (pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto) who published a paper titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System."

From the very beginning, Bitcoin was positioned as an online payment method that does not require financial intermediaries. Although early adopters conducted some limited payment experiments, it became widely popular among internet natives and tech-savvy individuals who speculated using cryptocurrencies. As interest in Bitcoin grew in the following years, some began to explore using its underlying technology for cross-border payments. However, due to the extreme volatility of cryptocurrency prices, lack of regulation, and some associations with black market activities, many found it difficult to view it as a payment technology.

With the emergence of stablecoins, the situation has changed: stablecoins are a key moment in the development of blockchain technology, and we are currently witnessing its transition from the early internet era to the beginning of the modern digital age.

Stablecoins are like the birth of the P2P file-sharing platform Napster. ------Teymour Farman-Farmaian, Co-founder & CEO of Higlobe, a company that provides dollar collection accounts for emerging market businesses.

The first digital currency issued in the form of a stablecoin is BitUSD, which introduced the concept of a 1:1 peg between cryptocurrency and fiat currency (referring to the US dollar) in 2014. However, since it is backed by cryptocurrency, it does not fully conform to the definition of stablecoins as we understand it today.

Other companies quickly followed suit, but it was Tether that truly introduced the concept of fiat currency reserves, launching USDT later that year. In the following years, USDT's popularity and attention continued to grow, but it also faced scrutiny regarding transparency and regulation, ultimately prompting Tether to take significant measures to address these issues.

In the early development of stablecoins, developers were gradually understanding the meaning of stablecoins and their usage. In 2018, more regulated stablecoins began to emerge, with Paxos launching the current Pax Dollar (USDP) and Circle launching USD Coin (USDC) through a partnership with Coinbase. These regulated, US-based stablecoins became increasingly popular, attracting interest not only from the cryptocurrency sector but also from the mainstream financial industry. Meanwhile, participants in the financial infrastructure built on stablecoins also began to emerge, including Fireblocks in 2018 and BVNK in 2021.

However, in 2022 and early 2023, stablecoins faced a significant trust crisis, marked by several shocking events in the industry. Firstly, the sudden collapse of TerraUSD (UST). This is an unconventional algorithmic stablecoin, whose support mechanism is not cash reserves but rather an algorithm-based mechanism. After its value significantly dropped from the pegged rate of 1 USD, panic trading triggered by the "death spiral" also caused the value of some other stablecoins to fluctuate briefly in major markets. Although UST is not a stablecoin in the traditional sense, and companies like Circle, Paxos, and others tried to distance themselves from algorithmic stablecoins, the damage to the reputation of the entire industry remains significant.

Despite many participants claiming that their asset reserves could protect them from the issues mentioned above and provide them with peace of mind, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in early 2023 raised new concerns. At the time of the collapse, Circle's reserves at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) were approximately $3.3 billion, and there was uncertainty about whether these deposits would be guaranteed. This led to what is known as a "shadow bank run," as holders feared they would not be able to redeem the stablecoin at a 1:1 rate, causing its trading value to drop to an all-time low. Although the U.S. government ultimately did provide guarantees for Silicon Valley Bank's reserves, and Circle never faced the real risk of being unable to redeem its USDC, the damage to its reputation was more severe, especially for institutions that needed to have U.S. reserves and a strong backing for their stablecoins.

In this crisis, the adoption rate of USDT overseas continues to rise, while the circulating supply of USDC in the United States has steadily declined during 2023. Because of this, a streamlined and more robust industry version is slowly emerging from the ashes of this crisis. Driven by genuine demand in key channels and vertical industries, trading volumes and adoption rates of infrastructure companies are continuously increasing, leading to corresponding product improvements; while other companies are launching products focused on the true utility of their technology. In the second half of 2023, PayPal launched PayPal USD (PYUSD), casting a crucial vote of confidence for the industry; while other companies are dedicated to educating those who are uncertain about stablecoins to establish a regulatory framework and increase adoption rates. Orbital CEO Mason stated: "Education is indeed very challenging, but people are really starting to understand it."

Starting from early 2024, the circulating supply of USDC has risen again, and the number of newly issued tokens focused on payments continues to grow. Recently, Trump returned to the presidency, which has also increased institutional support for the technology, and regulatory measures such as the "GENIUS Act" have been introduced.

Since the change of the U.S. government, major financial institutions have been seeking help from companies like ours to understand where and with whom they can engage in stablecoin business in a compliant manner. ------Guillaume C, EMEA Business Development Director, stablecoin issuer Paxos

Today, as the adoption rate rapidly rises, the cross-border payment industry has also shown strong interest, and there is further growth potential in the future. However, the fundamental principles of stablecoins are roughly the same as the premises initially set by Satoshi Nakamoto in the Bitcoin whitepaper.

We are solving the cash problem on the internet. ------Nikhil Chandhok, Chief Product and Technology Officer of Circle

1.2 Growing Interest in Stablecoins in the Cross-Border Payment Sector

With the rise of stablecoin technology, its application cases in the field of cross-border payments are gradually increasing. As Kendall from Paxos explained, although the current use of stablecoins is still mainly concentrated in "crypto-native activities", interest in this area is continuously growing, largely driven by the fundamental needs of end users.

The development of stablecoins began in the trading and investment sectors, and then gradually established a foothold in the cross-border payment space during 2022 and 2023. ------Michael Shaulov, Co-founder & CEO, digital asset infrastructure provider Fireblocks

This experience is reflected in many companies in the field, including Conduit, which focuses on B2B inter-company payments. However, in the past year or two, things have started to change.

Initially, it was mainly the enterprises of those crypto-native payment companies that helped their terminal businesses transfer funds more efficiently between these channels. Today, I see a significant shift, with many companies, especially large multinational enterprises, beginning to venture into this field. They want to understand how to use stablecoins, particularly in challenging regions such as Africa, Latin America, and Asia. ------Kirill Gertman, Founder and CEO of Conduit, a B2B stablecoin payment company.

This has also prompted some cross-border payment infrastructure providers that previously focused on fiat currency to enter the market, such as OpenPayd, which added stablecoin functionality earlier this year.

"For us, this evolution is completely natural, as we already have some existing clients using us for cross-border fiat currency payments, who come to us saying, 'We are already accepting stablecoin payments through other providers. Can you integrate these assets into your platform?'" said Dimitrova from OpenPayd. "Over the past 18 months, we have been receiving such requests consistently. We realized that without providing this interoperability, we would not be able to meet the growing demands of these clients."

Such requests mainly come from businesses with global trade needs, but the adoption of stablecoins is also increasing in other aspects of cross-border payments, including MoneyGram, which has begun to offer stablecoin payment functions. In 2022, MoneyGram started sending remittances in USDC, and since then, its business capabilities in this field have continued to expand, including the launch of the white-label digital wallet's deposit and withdrawal solution MoneyGram Ramps, as well as meeting its own cross-border fund management needs.

MoneyGram is a financial technology company with a global digital and cash network. Stablecoins will play a very important role in the future of MoneyGram. They help in every aspect of our business, from B2B backend to B2C service delivery, and how we serve consumers. ------Anthony Soohoo, Chairman and CEO, MoneyGram

Today, although stablecoins hold a small share in the market, their attention has clearly increased. In the first half of 2025, the number of press releases related to stablecoins and payments increased by 186% compared to the same period last year, a growth rate that surpassed the previous overall growth rate of stablecoin press releases. Moreover, the number of press releases related to cross-border payments and stablecoins surged by over 1000%. And this is just for companies that have publicly launched stablecoin solutions.

According to BVNK Harmse, the vast majority of companies in the payment industry have seen the opportunities brought by this technology, even if they have not publicly discussed it. "I believe 95% of companies have seen this," he said, "From the conversations we're having and potential collaborations, there are indeed many.