From Cross-Border to Local: The Evolution Path of Stablecoin Payments

In the past two years, stablecoins have shifted from speculative assets to practical tools, gradually becoming the new infrastructure for cross-border settlements. Whether it's USDC, USDT, or the emerging Regulated Stablecoin, enterprise-level cross-border payments and fund settlements are becoming the primary arena for stablecoins to take root.

At the same time, while applications in local retail and daily payment scenarios have emerged, the pace of adoption remains slow. The cross-border potential of stablecoins has been validated, but to truly enter daily consumption, infrastructure and ecosystems need to be gradually built.

1. Why Stablecoins Are Leading in Cross-Border Payments

The pain points of cross-border payments are highly concentrated: high exchange losses, slow arrival times, and complex processes. Traditional paths often involve multiple intermediaries, with settlement cycles measured in days; whereas stablecoins can achieve settlement in minutes and transparent cost structures. This difference in cost reduction and efficiency is particularly evident in enterprise-level scenarios.

Moreover, cross-border payments are often B2B scenarios, involving large amounts and professional participants, who can flexibly adopt new solutions under risk control and compliance systems. More importantly, stablecoin settlements can occur entirely in the background, with users and payees not needing to change their existing operational habits. Therefore, the implementation of stablecoins in the cross-border field does not mean "replacing banks," but rather bridging the efficiency gap in the banking system.

2. The Retail Payment of Stablecoins "Still Needs to Be Popularized"

In contrast, local retail and daily payments seem to have a larger volume but have yet to become a breakthrough for stablecoins. The issues are not singular but rather structural and involve multiple obstacles:

High Regulatory Uncertainty: Regulatory frameworks for stablecoins are still evolving in various regions, with high compliance costs and frequent changes.

• Low Merchant Acceptance: Merchants are more concerned about settlement arrival, refund mechanisms, and tax handling, lacking intuitive trust in "on-chain payments."
• Complex Liquidity and Pricing Mechanisms: Small, high-frequency transactions require instant redemption and stable exchange rates, lacking a mature liquidity support system.
• Difficult Consumer Habit Changes: Users are accustomed to payment methods like scanning codes, swiping cards, and using Apple Pay e-wallets, lacking motivation to learn new payment methods.
• Lack of Reconciliation and Refund Mechanisms: Card organizations have developed a comprehensive clearing and dispute system over decades, while stablecoin payments still lack such "basic financial tools."

Therefore, although stablecoin technology is mature, its presence in retail payments is still in the "waiting to be popularized" phase—unable to fully embed into the traditional financial network while also failing to establish its own merchant infrastructure.

3. The Rationality of the "Stablecoin Sandwich": Evolution Rather Than Replacement

In this context, the Stablecoin Sandwich becomes an indispensable form—funds are settled on-chain, but the starting and ending points of payments remain fiat accounts, i.e., Fiat → Stablecoin → Fiat. This model is not a compromise but rather a phase-optimized solution:

• For users, the front-end experience remains unchanged, with no need to understand blockchain or change payment habits;
• For merchants, upgrading the settlement layer to stablecoins can significantly enhance fund turnover efficiency and reduce exchange losses and fees;
• For regulators, fiat remains the primary anchor currency, with stablecoins existing solely as an efficiency layer, not undermining the sovereign currency system.

This model also provides a feasible path for local retail payments: users maintain familiar payment methods, while merchants can achieve rapid clearing, instant refunds, and exchange rate optimization through stablecoins in the backend. It can be understood as a "hybrid phase" of the payment system, serving as a bridge connecting traditional payments and digital assets before full-chain payment adoption.

The rationality of this structure lies in that it does not require the market to "leapfrog" reconstruction but allows stablecoins to gradually penetrate the clearing and backend processes, enabling regulators, merchants, and users to experience efficiency improvements within a familiar system.

4. Infrastructure is Key

To truly implement and scale this "hybrid" structure, the core depends on whether the backend infrastructure is sufficiently mature. Only when card issuance, clearing, compliance, and liquidity are smooth can stablecoins genuinely become part of the mainstream payment ecosystem. To extend stablecoins from cross-border settlements to daily payments, the following core aspects need to be addressed simultaneously:

• Settlement Efficiency: Achieving stable, low-latency fund clearing in a multi-chain and multi-currency environment;
• Currency Exchange: Supporting instant exchange and liquidity provision between fiat and stablecoins;
• Compliance and Risk Control: Meeting regulatory requirements such as KYB, KYC, and AML in different markets;
• Financial and Reconciliation Mechanisms: Building traceable financial management systems for refunds, reports, etc.

For instance, Interlace provides a comprehensive solution covering global accounts, card issuance, currency exchange, embedded compliance and risk control, and unified APIs, helping enterprises efficiently manage cash flow in multi-currency and multi-region environments. When these capabilities are combined with stablecoin settlements, a new foundational layer can be formed in the backend, achieving integrated support for unified settlement, compliance review, and financial reconciliation.

Such infrastructure not only fills the gaps in the "backend settlement layer" of stablecoin payments but also provides traditional financial institutions and card organizations with new avenues for extension in the era of stablecoins.

5. The Gradual Integration of Stablecoins

The popularization of stablecoins will not follow a path of "replacement," but rather through gradual integration. Starting with cross-border enterprise settlements, it will gradually extend to local merchants.

The next phase of payments is not about cryptocurrencies replacing fiat, but rather a seamless switch between fiat and stablecoins in the backend. When enterprises can freely choose settlement paths within the same API, stablecoins will no longer just be "crypto assets," but will become a new neutral layer in the global payment system.

In the foreseeable future, as infrastructure matures, local retail payments will gradually integrate stablecoin settlements: users will not need to change their payment habits, while merchants can enjoy efficient clearing, instant refunds, and financial transparency. This is precisely the maximum value that the next generation of payment infrastructure— including service providers like Interlace—can deliver.