Stablecoin Gold Rush: A $200 Trillion Opportunity | Rob Hadick
The stablecoin revolution is here—and it's moving fast. In our latest Bankless episode, Rob Hadick of Dragonfly lays out the vast landscape being reshaped by stablecoins and why we're at just the beginning of a financial transformation that could touch every corner of the global economy.
💸 From Crypto Curiosity to Infrastructure Backbone
Stablecoins like USDC and USDT have long served as on-chain trading pairs and liquidity tools in crypto-native contexts. But their utility is evolving. Rob outlines how stablecoins are now being deployed far beyond DeFi into real-world use cases like cross-border payments, contractor payouts, and remittance rails—markets worth over $200 trillion annually.
And the growth is explosive: cross-border stablecoin payments have ballooned from near-zero to an estimated $30–50 billion per month in just the last year, growing at 20–30% month over month. The infrastructure is catching up fast—with orchestration platforms like Bridge and Conduit, stablecoin-specific blockchains like Codex, and banks racing to develop “stablecoin strategies.”
🛠️ The Stablecoin Tech Stack
But this isn’t just about issuing another digital dollar. Rob walks through the new "stablecoin stack": payment rails, orchestration layers, APIs, compliance, liquidity networks, and app-specific blockchains designed to rival Visa. He explains how emerging players are solving the “hard things”—like compliance, bank integrations, and risk underwriting—while incumbents like Stripe and Checkout.com are exploring their own stablecoin strategies.
Circle, for example, may be constrained by its deal with Coinbase, while Tether faces compliance challenges. But new players like Paxos, Agora, and Biddle are designing flexible and composable solutions for savings, collateral mobility, and FX settlement.
🌍 Emerging Markets & The Real Opportunity
Emerging markets are ground zero for adoption. In regions like Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, stablecoins solve real problems—hyperinflation, banking exclusion, expensive remittances—and provide seamless access to dollars and US goods. Rob shares how even OnlyFans creators, TikTok influencers, and SMBs are adopting stablecoins to bypass legacy banking.
Yet the stablecoin future isn’t just USDC versus Tether. It's a proliferation of purpose-built tokens—some optimized for savings, some for speed, others for regulatory compliance. While many new stablecoin projects will launch, Rob predicts most will fail unless they solve the hard problems and differentiate clearly.
🧠 Final Thoughts
We’re still early—maybe 5% of the way there. But the long tail of stablecoin use cases—from FX tools to on-chain savings and native stablecoin blockchains—signals a massive wave of disruption. The winners? Those who build deep integrations, abstract away crypto complexity, and solve the hardest problems in finance.
If you're building in fintech or payments and don’t have a stablecoin strategy yet—you’re already behind.