Report • Q2 2026

Building Modern Rails
for Emerging Markets

A clear-eyed look at why money movement is broken, and how it gets fixed.

Summary

A thousand years ago, money was something hard and shiny: copper, iron, lead. Then it became paper. Today it is mostly numbers on a screen, it's data. And the good thing about data is that it moves fast, you can stream a 4K video or settle a domestic transaction in seconds.

And yet, despite this fact, international transactions still crawl. It takes days for most FX transactions to settle. Money cascades through foreign bank accounts, sometimes a dozen correspondents and intermediaries. Regulatory hurdles slow the flows even further. Money could move faster, but it’s burdened by ancient and outdated rails.

This slowness poisons the entire world, our progress, our economies, our people. Businesses are left in limbo with less operating capital. People in countries like Brazil and Mexico are hamstrung by slow, expensive barriers when transacting into or out of their own currencies.

This is an infrastructure problem. For international transactions to happen in minutes, someone needs to build the new rails for them to move on. We believe there is extraordinary value to be unlocked by the company that builds those rails, that sits at the center of global transactions, and improves the world. If we succeed, OpenFX will be that company.

A thousand years ago, money was something hard and shiny: copper, iron, lead. Then it became paper. Today it is mostly numbers on a screen, it's data. And the good thing about data is that it moves fast, you can stream a 4K video or settle a domestic transaction in seconds.

And yet, despite this fact, international transactions still crawl. It takes days for most FX transactions to settle. Money cascades through foreign bank accounts, sometimes a dozen correspondents and intermediaries. Regulatory hurdles slow the flows even further. Money could move faster, but it’s burdened by ancient and outdated rails.

This slowness poisons the entire world, our progress, our economies, our people. Businesses are left in limbo with less operating capital. People in countries like Brazil and Mexico are hamstrung by slow, expensive barriers when transacting into or out of their own currencies.

This is an infrastructure problem. For international transactions to happen in minutes, someone needs to build the new rails for them to move on. We believe there is extraordinary value to be unlocked by the company that builds those rails, that sits at the center of global transactions, and improves the world. If we succeed, OpenFX will be that company.

Spread of the Stablecoins and Cross-Border Payments Report, published in Q1 2026 showcasing a map of the world divided by regions and describing the diffrent use cases for stablecoins in each.

What You'll Find Inside

This report walks through how cross-border payments actually move today, the centuries-old infrastructure underneath them, and the real human cost of every delay, we’ve structured the analysis into six parts:

This report walks through how cross-border payments actually move today, the centuries-old infrastructure underneath them, and the real human cost of every delay, we’ve structured the analysis into six parts:

Chapter 1

Money is Data

If money is now just numbers on a screen, it should move like data. We examine why it doesn’t, and why cross-border money is still trapped on ancient, outdated rails.

Chapter 2

The Sheer Absurdity of Money Movement

A single payment between São Paulo and Bogotá can “travel” 7,000 miles. We trace the absurd path money takes, and the foundational infrastructure that drives it.

Chapter 3

What’s Under the Hood

643 years of engineering sit under every cross-border payment: Nostro/Vostro (c. 1383), Fedwire (1918), CHIPS (1970), SWIFT (1973). Great software, built on top of horrible hardware.

Chapter 4

While the Money Waits

The system isn’t just slow, it’s unpredictably slow. We show what happens on the ground while your money is sitting frozen.

Chapter 5

The New Rails

How OpenFX circumvents the correspondent-banking shuffle, settling the same transfer in minutes instead of days.

Conclusion

How We Win, and the World With Us

$195T crosses borders every year, almost all through one currency. Why now is the moment, why OpenFX is the team, and why winning here is good not just for us, but for the world.

The interface says 2026.
The infrastructure says 1383.

Our Point of View

This is an infrastructure problem, not a software one. There are flashy fintechs and banks with great platforms. But underneath the clean interfaces sits an achingly slow system. Real velocity only comes from fixing the underlying hardware, the rails themselves.

Slow money is dead capital. Money stuck in transit for five days is not helping anyone. A delayed payment has real economic costs, paid for by real people. 

Stablecoins are a tool. The “crypto” moniker sounds scary, but this isn’t about speculation. A USD-backed stablecoin is a useful tool for side-stepping many of the parts of traditional finance that cause delays. 

Real-time cross-border payments are finally possible. By shortcutting around the correspondent banking network, the same transfer that took 3 to 5 days can now settle in minutes. For the first time in history, cross-border payments can actually move as quickly as the rest of finance. 

Most of the world is forced through the dollar. 88% of all FX trades involve the USD. Every “exotic” pairing is really two transactions routed through dollars, a structural tax on emerging markets that better rails can partially ameliorate.

Money movement is upstream of everything. Whoever builds the new rails sits at the center of global commerce. Winning here unlocks trillions in value, and that value shows up not just on a balance sheet, but as prosperity for businesses and people.

This is an infrastructure problem, not a software one. There are flashy fintechs and banks with great platforms. But underneath the clean interfaces sits an achingly slow system. Real velocity only comes from fixing the underlying hardware, the rails themselves.

Slow money is dead capital. Money stuck in transit for five days is not helping anyone. A delayed payment has real economic costs, paid for by real people. 

Stablecoins are a tool. The “crypto” moniker sounds scary, but this isn’t about speculation. A USD-backed stablecoin is a useful tool for side-stepping many of the parts of traditional finance that cause delays. 

Real-time cross-border payments are finally possible. By shortcutting around the correspondent banking network, the same transfer that took 3 to 5 days can now settle in minutes. For the first time in history, cross-border payments can actually move as quickly as the rest of finance. 

Most of the world is forced through the dollar. 88% of all FX trades involve the USD. Every “exotic” pairing is really two transactions routed through dollars, a structural tax on emerging markets that better rails can partially ameliorate.

Money movement is upstream of everything. Whoever builds the new rails sits at the center of global commerce. Winning here unlocks trillions in value, and that value shows up not just on a balance sheet, but as prosperity for businesses and people.

Cover of the Building modern rails Report, published in Q2 2026 by OpenFX

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Report • Q2 2026

Report • Q2 2026

Building Modern Rails for Emerging Markets

Building Modern Rails for Emerging Markets

A clear-eyed look at why money movement is broken, and how it gets fixed.

A clear-eyed look at why money movement is broken, and how it gets fixed.

Get Report

Get Report

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