Video | Weekly Market Analysis: The Battle for Stablecoins, Who is Laying the Next Generation of Financial Railway?

Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews

At a time when stablecoins are evolving rapidly but are constantly controversial, the real trends are often obscured by noisy market voices. In order to restore the true context of this field, PANONY and Web3.com Ventures jointly launched the English video program "The Round Trip". Co-hosted by John Scianna and Cassidy Huang, this episode focuses on the global trends of stablecoins - from Jack Zhang, co-founder of Airwallex, a fintech company with a valuation of US$6 billion, who bluntly stated that "stablecoins are meaningless", to Stripe investing more than US$1 billion to build stablecoin infrastructure; from Shopify integrating stablecoin payment solutions to Ant Group competing for stablecoin licenses in multiple jurisdictions.

Meanwhile, a Bitcoin sidechain attracted nearly 3,000 wallets to inject $1 billion in stablecoin funds in 30 minutes. Is this a short-lived speculative frenzy or a prelude to a new financial order?

This issue will analyze in depth the split around stablecoins: on one side, the calm wait-and-see attitude of financial technology giants, and on the other side, the rapid embrace of digital dollars by Web3 companies and global users. This is not only a route dispute within the crypto industry, but also a global game about the dominance of the next generation of financial infrastructure.

*Note: This video was released on June 13, and some data and dynamics may differ from the current situation.

Questions about stablecoins

Jack Zhang is the co-founder of Airwallex, which just raised $300 million in Series F funding at a valuation of $6.2 billion. However, he is highly skeptical of stablecoins, declaring on Twitter: “ In 15 years, I have not seen a single cryptocurrency use case that actually solves a real problem .”

He believes that in payments in major currencies such as the US dollar, euro, and yen, stablecoins have not only failed to reduce costs, but have increased transaction fees, especially in on-chain transactions and fiat currency exchange (such as exchanging USDT back to fiat currency on Kraken), and cannot bring substantial improvements to large-scale B2B payments.

Jack believes that the fintech sector has achieved near-instant, low-cost cross-border payments by building its own proprietary banking networks and foreign exchange bridges, and stablecoins have not brought significant advantages. It may have applications in emerging markets and people without bank accounts, but overall it is more of a "regulatory arbitrage" rather than a benefit to end users and businesses.

Rapid institutional embrace

In sharp contrast to Airwallex's cautious attitude, a number of technology giants and institutions are vigorously embracing stablecoins:

Stripe : Acquired wallet infrastructure startup Privy, and acquired stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge for $1.1 billion, committed to building a complete stablecoin and crypto wallet ecosystem. Stripe is launching stablecoin products for the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe, and plans to cover all their merchants by the end of the year. Shopify and Coinbase have also joined the camp, supporting merchants to directly accept USDC, and even incentivizing merchants to retain USDC instead of immediately converting it to local fiat currency through cashback, thereby reducing exchange rate conversion costs.
DTCC (Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation): As the clearing house behind almost all securities transactions in the United States, DTCC has an annual trading volume of up to 200 trillion US dollars and is piloting a stable currency backed by the US dollar to modernize settlement. This means the potential for settlement from T+2 to instant, taking the first step in putting stocks on the chain.
Societe Generale: Launched USDCV, a US dollar stablecoin that complies with MiCA standards and is hosted by Bank of New York Mellon (BNY). It is issued on Ethereum and Solana chains, marking the entry of traditional European financial institutions into the stablecoin field.
Ant Group (Alipay): It is preparing to apply for a stablecoin issuance license, aiming to cover frontier areas of digital asset supervision such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Luxembourg. In particular, Hong Kong will officially implement a stablecoin issuance license system in August, and Ant Group intends to seize the market with its first-mover advantage. As a highly influential payment giant in China and overseas, the launch of Ant's stablecoin will further promote innovation in cross-border payments, fund management, and settlement.

The explosion of market demand: the case of Plasma

While some fintech founders have reservations about the prospects of stablecoins, the other end of the market presents a completely different picture: retail investors and innovative experiments on emerging chains are advancing at an unprecedented pace.

In a token-related event recently held by Plasma, the deposit limit was as high as $1 billion (the initial deposit limit was only $500 million, but due to strong demand, Plasma had to double the original deposit limit to meet market demand.) It is reported that the event attracted about 3,000 wallets to participate, and the median deposits were $24,895 and $6,939 respectively. 58% of the funds came from USDC and 40% from USDT. In addition, some users paid up to $100,000 in fees to ensure transaction speed. It is worth noting that these deposits are not used directly for token sales, but to obtain priority access to future XPL token sales.

The high participation and quick sell-out of the event may be related to the support Plasma has previously received from institutions such as Founders Fund, but some people also believe that some investors may have misunderstandings about the actual situation of the project. Despite this, industry insiders still take a wait-and-see attitude towards the necessity of Plasma launching an independent chain, believing that there may be a certain degree of overheating in the current market.

The significance of stablecoins: the battle for control of financial infrastructure

We are currently witnessing an important change in the future of financial infrastructure. Although traditional fintech companies like Airwallex are still skeptical, more and more financial giants, from Stripe to Ant Group, from DTCC to Societe Generale, are actively deploying in the field of stablecoins. This is not just a debate about cryptocurrency, but also a key battle that will determine the direction of the next generation of financial infrastructure. In this transformation, stablecoins are gradually evolving from a controversial concept to the core infrastructure that reshapes the global payment system.