Stablecoins are used for payments, settlement and money transfers. How payment companies and banks are putting them to use.
A stablecoin can be sent to anyone in the world in seconds, around the clock and at low cost. Traditional international transfers can take several days and cost a lot.
That makes stablecoins especially useful for money transfers between countries and for companies with customers and suppliers abroad.
Major payment players such as Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and PayPal have brought stablecoins into their services. Some use them for settlement between banks, others let customers pay or receive money in stablecoins.
For ordinary users, much of this happens in the background, without them noticing a blockchain is involved.
Banks are developing their own alternatives, such as tokenized bank deposits and bank-issued stablecoins. Several European banks are working together on a shared euro stablecoin.
The goal is to keep customers' money and offer the same speed that stablecoins provide.
A new use is payments between AI agents, software that acts on behalf of users. Stablecoins are well suited because they can be used automatically, in small amounts and without a bank account.
The challenges are regulation across countries, exchange to and from local currencies, and ease of use. The dollar dominates, and euro stablecoins are still small.