Web 3.0 is Dead, Long Live Stablecoins

We spent a week at Money20/20 in Las Vegas, and if there was one thing we learned above all else, it's that the industry is finally starting to grow up.

The Web3 hype is gone, replaced by serious boardroom-level talk focused on real-world utility. Treasury teams that ignored crypto two years ago now lead internal working groups. The biggest banks in the world are actively building a stablecoin strategy.

The conversation has shifted.

This should surprise no one:

• Crypto transaction volume in the U.S. has risen by approximately 50% since 2024 to over $1 trillion.

• Major regulatory frameworks like the GENIUS Act in the United States, MiCA in Europe, and the Stablecoin Ordinance in Hong Kong are providing much needed clarity to the industry.

• Even Western Union is getting in on the action, launching their own stablecoin (USDPT) in partnership with Solana.

We've known for a long time that modern FX needs modern rails, systems that can move money like data, can settle transactions in near real-time (86% of our transaction settle in < 10 minutes), and can provide reliable liquidity no matter where in the world you are.

Everyone agrees, in theory, that this is what the future looks like, but walking the floor and sitting in on side-meetings revealed a critical disconnect: a massive gap between "the talk" and "the walk."

Operationalizing this stuff is hard. Beneath the cheerleading, the market remains full of vapor. Dozens of players pitched “end-to-end liquidity” and “global treasury” solutions that have yet to move a dollar. New companies wax poetic about the pain points in the remittance industry that they plan to solve, only to later admit that they’re still pre-volume.

Even among incumbents, the gap between marketing and reality was wide. Everyone says “instant,” few can settle fiat-to-fiat in less than an hour.

This capability gap is a problem because the demand for efficient cross-border settlement isn't theoretical, it's genuine and urgent. Corridors like Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina are crying out for speed. Multi-hop settlements and 300-bps spreads still define the region, and the appetite for direct, stablecoin-based rails is massive.

LATAM remains the crucible for payments innovation because it exposes every weakness in the old system -- fragmented liquidity, complex regulatory regimes, and banking bottlenecks. Whoever solves those wins the next decade of FX.

The questions being asked have changed as well. We have moved from "who is the cheapest?" to "who can I trust?"

Multiple firms emphasized uptime and settlement consistency as their primary decision criteria, even as spreads tighten industry-wide. A low price is useless if the transaction fails.

This shift intensifies as traditional banking players enter the market. GSIBs are moving past pilots, and they evaluate partners differently than crypto-native fintechs. They expect banking-grade operational standards, regulatory compliance and top-tier data governance. The bar is rising.

The market is entering a clarifying phase. Infrastructure companies that can demonstrate consistent performance at production scale are separating from those still building MVPs. Conversations at Money20/20 focused on 2026 volume projections and multi-corridor expansion timelines, not proof-of-concept. The race is on, and those firms that can prove operational maturity will collect all the prizes as the rest get left behind.

FAQs

Is price still the main factor clients care about when choosing a stablecoin liquidity provider?

Not anymore. Settlement speed and reliability consistently topped pricing in initial conversations. We heard from multiple firms that they're willing to trade margin for dependability, especially in complex corridors where multi-hop settlements introduce operational risk.

Why is everyone talking about Latin America?

Because LATAM exposes every weakness in traditional cross-border infrastructure—fragmented liquidity, multi-hop requirements, volatile currencies, and complex regulatory environments. It's where stablecoin rails deliver immediate, measurable value. We saw accelerating demand for BRL and MXN, with serious interest in COP and ARS.

How are sophisticated fintechs actually benchmarking their FX rates?

Poorly. We learned that many businesses, even established fintechs, are operating in an "opaque world" when it comes to FX. They often have no way to know if they're getting a good institutional price. Many default to public consumer sites (like XE) to benchmark their enterprise-grade FX, creating a major opportunity for providers who can offer genuine, mid-market transparency.

How many companies claiming to offer stablecoin infrastructure are actually moving real volume?

Far fewer than you'd think. We encountered dozens of providers pitching "end-to-end liquidity" solutions who haven't moved meaningful money. Startups delivered impressive decks while still at the LOI stage. Even established players showed a wide gap between marketing claims and operational reality. The market is full of announcements, but actual payment flows remain concentrated among a small number of providers who can demonstrate consistent uptime and multi-corridor capability.

What operational capabilities actually matter for winning in this market?

After-hours settlement reliability. Multi-corridor capacity with consistent performance. The ability to handle volume spikes without degrading service. Regulatory compliance across multiple jurisdictions. We heard one client call out a 90-95% after-hours settlement success rate as table stakes. Another explicitly chose a provider because they were "faster and more secure than competitors." The market is separating infrastructure companies that can demonstrate production-scale consistency from those still building MVPs.

What surprised you most about the conference conversations?

The transparency gap. Multiple conversations revealed that even high-profile players show significant distance between public descriptions of their stablecoin initiatives and actual payment volumes. The other surprise: how quickly "pricing as differentiator" is giving way to "reliability as moat." In corridors with real operational complexity, clients are explicitly choosing dependable partners over cheaper alternatives. The race to the bottom on spreads has hit a floor—now it's about who can actually deliver.