Stablecoin Use Cases: Who Uses Them, and for What?

Part III · Adding Stablecoins (Chapters 9–10) Builds on: Chapter 9 (three positions), Chapter 5 (four PSP forms), Chapter 8 (issuing); Payment Systems, Chapter 28 (CPN and network neutrality) New concepts in this chapter: six use cases, four stablecoin supply-chain layers, two decision criteria

(Company and product examples reflect public information available by mid-2026. This market changes quickly. Retain the position each company occupies, rather than memorizing the names.)

1. The question from the previous chapter¶

The previous chapter placed stablecoins in customer balances, on-chain endpoints or the PSP's treasury bridge. Which positions are companies using, and whose problem does each solve?

We will examine six customer situations, place the providers in the supply chain, then establish two criteria for evaluating a new entrant.

2. Six use cases, from emerging-market payments to institutional treasury¶

Each use case starts with a customer.

Use case 1: business payments in emerging-market corridors

A Chinese trading company buys from Mexico, or a European software company collects from Nigeria. The four sources of cross-border cost can be particularly heavy in these corridors: slow banks, several intermediaries and difficult FX where dollars are scarce.

The provider uses position 2 or 3. If the parties accept USDC, it can use on-chain endpoints. If both need fiat, a treasury bridge supports pools behind local collections and payouts. BVNK and Conduit focus on this need; Bridge also did so before Stripe acquired it.

Use case 2: users who want to hold dollars

Individuals and small businesses in countries such as Argentina, Türkiye and Nigeria may want dollar exposure when their home currency loses value, while local dollar accounts are unavailable or restricted.

This is position 1: the customer holds a USDC balance that the app presents as dollar value. Latin American products such as DolarApp, Littio and Lemon resemble neobanks but use stablecoins beneath the balance. Local fiat on/off-ramps, often instant-payment rails or local partners, connect the product to users' existing money.

Use case 3: paying global contractors and creators

A platform pays freelancers in 80 countries. Conventional payout endpoints require local pools or a payout network. Some recipients face slow, expensive banking, or prefer USDC themselves.

Position 2's payout endpoint lets the platform initiate from fiat, with the PSP converting and delivering USDC to the recipient's wallet. Stripe has added stablecoin payouts, and employment platforms such as Deel let eligible contractors choose stablecoin receipt. This removes the destination fiat off-ramp when the recipient wants to hold stablecoins.

Use case 4: merchants accepting stablecoins

A cross-border merchant wants crypto-native customers to pay in USDC or wants a method without card chargebacks.

This is position 2's pay-in endpoint, often with immediate fiat conversion so the merchant still sees dollars. Stripe's Pay with Crypto offering in 2025, Shopify's USDC acceptance on Base and Coinbase Commerce occupy this position. From the acceptance side, stablecoins become another checkout method with on-chain settlement and no card-style chargeback, integrated much like local payment methods.

Use case 5: cards that spend stablecoin balances

A user holds USDC but wants to pay an ordinary card-accepting merchant.

This combines position 1 with the issuing ecosystem. The customer balance is USDC; the provider converts to fiat for card-scheme settlement as the card is used. Rain and Baanx supply infrastructure for these programs. Bridge partnered with Visa in 2025 on such cards in Latin America; exchanges also offer card products. All six issuing roles remain. The asset backing the cardholder's balance changes.

Use case 6: institutional treasury transfers

A PSP with 30 pools, or a multinational with subsidiaries in 20 countries, wants to move funds over a weekend.

This is position 3, invisible to the end customer. Circle, BVNK and Fireblocks offer institutional capabilities in this area. Stablecoin settlement arrangements involving Visa and Mastercard also use stablecoins within the institutional settlement leg.

The six use cases can be compared as follows:

The position follows who holds the stablecoin and for how long. A lasting customer balance is position 1; payment-time handling is position 2; temporary institutional holdings for rebalancing are position 3.

3. Four layers: who supplies whom?¶

These companies are not all peers. Just as the end-to-end walkthrough distinguishes PSP forms, the stablecoin supply chain has four layers, with underlying layers supplying the customer product:

Stripe's acquisition of Bridge and Circle's CPN each span more than one layer.

Stripe and Bridge: Stripe acquired Bridge in early 2025 for approximately $1.1 billion. In this framework, it bought infrastructure and used it beneath customer products in three positions: stablecoin financial accounts for holdings, Pay with Crypto for merchant pay-ins, and stablecoin payouts for platforms. Bridge also continues supplying infrastructure to other companies. The combination occupies infrastructure and customer-product layers.

Circle and CPN: the chapter on where CPN sits compares its network role with Visa and emphasizes neutrality. Circle occupies issuance and network layers: it issues USDC and sets rules for institutional payment relationships. That raises a question already explored there: will other issuers and PSPs join a network if they suspect its rules favor the network operator's own token?

4. Two decision criteria: fiat-rail costs and the recipient's preference¶

When a new company claims to use stablecoins for cross-border payments, ask two questions.

First, how costly are the existing fiat arrangements in the corridor? Stablecoins change the middle leg while fiat entry and exit remain. Between efficient markets such as the euro area and UK, the existing route may already be cheap and fast. Where banking is slow, intermediaries numerous and dollar liquidity constrained, changing the middle leg can offer more value. The worse the existing route, the larger the potential improvement — provided conversion at the ends is available at a reasonable cost.

Second, does the recipient want to hold stablecoins? If yes, delivery can end on-chain and omit the destination fiat off-ramp. If no, the provider must convert locally and use the bank payout endpoint. Stablecoins then mainly serve the treasury bridge. The recipient's preference determines where the payment must return to fiat.

Emerging-market friction combined with willingness to receive stablecoins offers the clearest fit for the first three use cases. Efficient developed-market rails combined with a fiat-only recipient often leave much less value to capture, explaining weaker incentives for many domestic PSPs in Europe and North America.

5. Remaining costs and added risks¶

What stablecoins solve retains FX spreads and compliance as unresolved costs. A PSP also faces issuer and liquidity risks:

Stablecoins therefore add an asset and endpoints to the model. For many PSPs, the treasury bridge is the most directly useful position because it changes internal funding while retaining the customer's existing product. Customer balances and on-chain endpoints depend more heavily on where customers are and what recipients want.

6. The questions this raises¶

The model now supports fiat and stablecoin assets. So far, a person still initiates each payment: StarMap's finance employee clicks Pay, an employee uses a card, or a user confirms checkout.

From 2025, AI agents increasingly began attempting these tasks: procurement, travel booking and paid API calls. Should an agent receive StarMap's card number or access to its balance? How much may it spend, and who is responsible for a mistake?

The next chapter examines the problem Agentic Pay addresses and where it fits in the architecture.

7. Self-check questions¶

1. A provider offers European merchants same-day stablecoin settlement, while merchants still receive euros. Which position is involved, and what benefit does the merchant actually receive?
2. Apply the two criteria to a German-to-Polish business payment where the supplier wants only zloty. Does a stablecoin route have a clear advantage?
3. Compare Stripe/Bridge and Circle/CPN using the four layers. Which layers does each occupy, and what tension follows?

8. Answers¶

Try answering before reading on.

1. Position 3. Stablecoins appear within institutional settlement or the acquirer's own treasury transfers, while the merchant receives euros. The potential benefit is a shorter settlement cycle, including weekend funding where supported, if the acquirer passes that improvement through. The merchant need not hold stablecoins merely because its provider uses them internally.

2. Under the assumptions here, there is no clear advantage. Germany has SEPA access and Poland has domestic instant rails, so an efficient existing bank route leaves little middle-leg cost to remove. The supplier wants zloty, requiring a Polish fiat off-ramp. Stablecoins would mainly serve treasury while potentially adding two conversion spreads. Actual route pricing and availability would be needed to overturn that conclusion.

3. Stripe spans infrastructure through Bridge and customer products through its own offerings in this comparison. It can be both supplier and competitor to PSP customers, raising concerns about competitive use of data. Circle spans issuance and the network, raising the neutrality question in where CPN sits: other issuers and PSPs may hesitate if rules appear to favor USDC. Both tensions arise from occupying more than one layer.

Previous: Chapter 9 · Stablecoins: Customer Balances, On-Chain Endpoints or a Treasury Bridge? Next: Chapter 11 · Agentic Pay: What Problem Does It Solve?