Dollar

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The financial world is splitting between those who wait for permission and those who mint their own destiny.

The last crypto cycle was about memecoins, degenerate yields, and wild volatility. Where does crypto go from here? It has to be about stability, liquidity, and real-world utility. As the world enters a phase of economic instability and AI automation, on-chain dollars are going to become the backbone of commerce, coordination, and capital flows.

In times of global economic uncertainty, the U.S. dollar remains the world’s reserve asset. But now, people want access to dollars without banks. Stablecoins like USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT) have become the de facto savings and spending tools in emerging markets and crisis zones. We’ve entered a new era of money, where the dollar isn’t just printed by the Fed but minted on-chain, powered by borderless and frictionless infrastructure.

Stablecoins like USDC, USDT, PayPal USD (PYUSD), and now yield-bearing alternatives like Ethena USDe (USDE) are processing billions daily, not as speculative assets but as functional currency. In places like Nigeria, they’re already replacing failing local money. Nigerian web3 startups have raised over $130m to date as stablecoin use is on the rise.

Argentinians are ditching pesos for USDT and USDC at record rates as they’re facing inflation at 200%. When fiat currencies become unstable, as is the case with hyperinflation, for example, people look for alternatives. Bitcoin was an alternative. However, digital dollars or stablecoins are now the primary choice.

The signs are all there that the dollar is migrating on-chain, and the institutions that don’t adapt will be left behind.

Expanded support for PYUSD by a $70 billion fintech giant PayPal was a big validation that stablecoins are here to stay, with millions of users now able to move dollars on-chain without even realizing it. On regulatory advancement, the U.S. Congress is proceeding with the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act. The UK and EU are also finalizing their own frameworks.

Base, Solana and Celo are all aggressively deploying USDC across new chains because they understand that stablecoins are the bridges between TradFi and DeFi. The more chains they’re on, the more unstoppable they become. Ignore these trends, and you’re ignoring the financial infrastructure of the next decade.

The next wave of adoption won’t just come from humans and platforms. AI agents will need programmable money that doesn’t fluctuate wildly. Human traders might chase speculative swings, but AI operates on cold, hard logic. It prioritizes efficiency, minimizes risk, and demands certainty in its inputs, especially when those inputs are money.

Traditional fiat money has several limitations that make it prohibitive as a currency of settlement, including physical logistics, lack of interoperability, and centralization. Stablecoins solve this problem because of their on-chain existence. Blockchains are immutable, composable, and decentralized.

Take USDC as an example. Once Circle mints USDC on the blockchain, its existence or value cannot be tampered with. It is also not held by institutions bound by borders; it is easily moved across wallets globally. These inherent traits of stablecoins make them ideal for a future where numerous agents conduct high-speed transactions with each other.

This is why stablecoins will become the backbone of AI-driven finance. An autonomous supply-chain agent won’t hedge against Bitcoin’s (BTC) 5% daily swings, it needs a currency as stable as its code. A decentralized trading bot can’t afford slippage from erratic fiat settlement times, but requires real-time, on-chain verifiability.

For businesses, it’s time to start considering the adoption of stablecoins for payments. As the popularity of blockchains and Bitcoin increases, so does the adoption of stablecoins. Institutions and consumers are increasingly becoming aware of stablecoins as a more efficient and convenient alternative to fiat, faster than ever.

The dollar is going on-chain because it has to. Hyperinflation, capital controls, and inefficient payment rails are breaking the old system. Stablecoins are the patch, and eventually, the upgrade.

Ian Estrada

Ian Estrada is a product builder by trade, memecoin and stablecoin enjoyer by passion. Currently advancing the development of DefAI infrastructure as the CEO of Maitrix, creating the DeFi layer for AI tokens. Former VP at GCash (over 100M users), over 10 years of product experience in payments, lending, and credit risk. Crypto since 2020.

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It’s early days for the global dollar (USDG), a stablecoin that debuted in November, but a thousand firms could join the group that helps popularize the token in return for a share of the yield earned on reserve assets, according to crypto exchange Kraken, one of the founding partners.

USDG, whose other backers include trading platform Robinhood (HOOD), stablecoin issuer Paxos, crypto investor Galaxy Digital and crypto bank Anchorage Digital, recently welcomed 19 new joiners, many of them crypto native firms. Banks and large traditional finance firms are also lining up, Kraken’s consumer business lead Mark Greenberg said.

“There are 25-plus partners now, and I hope in another month, we’ll be announcing the next 25, and then the next 25. So from 25 to 50 to 1,000,” Greenberg said in an interview. “I’m very excited about some of the partners coming up in traditional finance and in crypto — big names on both sides. We’re talking to a lot of banks and I think a few will be coming online soon.”

The changing dollar stablecoin landscape has been dominated by two big players: Tether’s USDT, far and away the largest at a market cap of over $150 billion, and Circle’s USDC which commands a circulation of just over $60 billion. USDG has just $276 million, making it the 24th-largest stablecoin in a CoinGecko ranking.

Paxos, the New York-regulated stablecoin specialist underpinning USDG, originally offered a contender to USDC and USDT in the form of tie-up with exchange giant Binance, but the partnership was discontinued for regulatory reasons.

Greenberg pointed out USDG is a “true consortium,” and Paxos is a distribution partner, albeit with some particular administrative duties.

“We are building a decentralized community around the stablecoin, with yield that goes back to everybody,” Greenberg said. “Some of us are founding partners, and if we were a property company, Paxos would be the property management. They make sure that the licenses are in place and that the treasuries are handled properly and that the minting is done. But it’s on all of us to be equal partners in making the global dollar network a success.”

Driving the consortium’s growth is the offer of yield, which both incentivizes firms to join up, and also reimagines stablecoins as part of the wider financial system, Greenberg said. It’s also how USDG plans to challenge the dominance of Tether and Circle.

“I believe in decentralization over centralization. I believe in giving the value back to users, and USDG is doing that in a way that you can’t with Circle or Tether today,” said Greenberg. “Tether and Circle make a lot of money. In banking you give your deposits and they do things with it, but you get almost nothing back. But stablecoins shouldn’t be like that.”

Kraken moves a lot of money around the world and naturally the firm has been using USDG, eating its own dog food, in business innovation parlance.

“We use global dollars and the USDG all over the world,” Greenberg said. “You send a wire and it can take four or five days and get stuck in some random bank along the way. That’s already changing really fast. And you see players like Visa and MasterCard and others come to the table and stablecoins start to play that role in a much bigger way.”

Kraken’s clients are also taking advantage of earning up to 4.1% on U.S. dollars in every country in the world by putting their money in USDG, Greenberg added.

“If you’re in the U.S., maybe that’s not that exciting, because there are other ways to do that. But if you’re in Argentina, or if you’re in Canada, where there are no U.S. dollar accounts and earning 4.1% is unheard of, it’s a very cool opportunity to make that happen.”

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The dollar is no longer issued, it’s minted by the internet

Global Dollar Stablecoin Eyes Hundreds of Partners Attracted by Yield, Sees ‘Big Names’ From TradFi