A Reuters report said the entity will launch with over 42,000 bitcoin (valued at about $3.6 billion), positioning it as the third-largest corporate bitcoin holder globally.

Stablecoin issuer Tether will contribute $1.6 billion in bitcoin, with its affiliated exchange Bitfinex kicking in $600 million and Japanese technology investor SoftBank adding $900 million, the report said.

A statement from the company Wednesday (April 23) said Twenty One Capital will be majority-owned by Tether and Bitfinex, with SoftBank holding a minority stake.

Strike CEO Jack Mallers will lead the company as co-founder and CEO, according to reports. “We’re not here to beat the market, we’re here to build a new one. A public stock, built by bitcoiners, for bitcoiners,” Mallers said in a statement.

The investment vehicle was reportedly inspired by the success of bitcoin acquirer Strategy (formerly known as MicroStrategy). Bloomberg reports that Strategy has amassed about $45 billion worth of bitcoin.

According to Reuters, bitcoin is trading at $94,166, gaining more than 40% in the past six months.

Financial and real estate services holding company Cantor Fitzgerald is headed by Brandon Lutnick, the son of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. PYMNTS reported on the deepening ties between Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether in November.

A Reuters report said Cantor Fitzgerald holds 99% of Tether’s U.S. Treasury reserves.

The statement from Twenty One Capital said the partner companies plan to raise $585 million in additional capital through a combination of convertible bonds and equity financing.

CoinDesk reported that Twenty One Capital will merge with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Cantor Equity Partners, which will keep its “CEP” NASDAQ ticker until the transaction is finalized. It is unclear when the deal is expected to close.

Twenty One Capital will trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol “XXI” after the deal closes, the report said.

Twenty One Capital also plans to report its performance in bitcoin per share (BPS) and bitcoin return rate (BRR), the company statement said.

The post Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether, SoftBank Launch $3.6 Billion Bitcoin Investment Firm appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Bitcoin has surged past $90,000, signaling renewed investor confidence in crypto markets after a classically volatile first few months of 2025. Simultaneously, major financial institutions are integrating blockchain technologies and regulatory frameworks are becoming more defined.

This convergence of factors is ushering in a new era for digital finance, characterized by increased institutional participation, innovative stablecoin applications and strategic moves by unexpected players.​

Regulatory Clarity and Institutional Integration

The crypto industry in 2025 finds itself at a critical juncture, shaped less by speculative booms and more by its confrontation with regulation.

As Dan Boyle, partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster this week, “crypto is not getting a get-out-of-jail-free card”— a nod to the end of the industry’s regulatory gray area and the beginning of its era of accountability.

“There’s some strategic value to being a world leader in digital assets … If my competitor is issuing a stablecoin or tokenizing assets, am I missing out if I don’t?” Boyle added.

In a sign of the changing times, Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday (April 21) after being confirmed by the Senate earlier this month. Atkins, who has been personally involved with digital assets, is viewed favorably by industry advocates.

This shift is pushing institutional players out of the shadows, as evidenced by news this week. Major global banks, like ING, are in fact beginning to partner on stablecoin projects, motivated both by the fear of being left behind and the opportunity to define new standards. These are robust, multi-bank consortia aiming for real-world use cases — cross-border payments, corporate treasuries and eventually programmable money at scale.

Meanwhile, settlement infrastructure is catching up. The Lynq network — developed by Arca Labs, Tassat Group, and tZERO — promises real-time, yield-bearing settlements, a marked upgrade from legacy systems that still settle on T+2 timelines. This settlement innovation, which also includes participation from U.S. Bank, is critical for both risk management and unlocking new forms of financial products.

But regulation is not just a hurdle; it’s also an on-ramp for credibility. By building within clearer rules, crypto firms are opening doors to mainstream adoption. In this way, the “compliance crunch” is less a death knell and more a growth spurt — setting the stage for new business models and products that would have been unimaginable in the industry’s early days.

Putting an exclamation point on today’s landscape, a Cantor Fitzgerald affiliate business is teaming up with SoftBank and Tether to create a multi-billion-dollar corporate treasury vehicle with the goal of accumulating bitcoin.

They aren’t alone. Upexi, a consumer products firm, is raising $100 million to accumulate Solana, echoing the “corporate treasury as crypto hedge” playbook pioneered by MicroStrategy. This signals not just speculative belief, but operational integration: companies see blockchains not only as investment vehicles but as potential infrastructure for their own business models.

Stablecoins: The Battle for Everyday Utility

Stablecoins — digital tokens pegged to fiat currency — were supposed to be crypto’s killer app. In practice, their journey has been more complex.

On one hand, there’s an acceleration in the development of stablecoin infrastructure. Circle’s launch of a stablecoin orchestration layer aims to make stablecoins “invisible” in the best sense: moving money across borders, across blockchains and into the hands of consumers without them needing to understand the underlying tech. Major financial institutions are taking notice, not just with experimental projects but with real investment and product launches. 

There are efforts to merge cash and crypto worlds. The partnership between CompoSecure and MoneyGram exemplifies this. By enabling cash-to-crypto conversions at thousands of global MoneyGram locations, stablecoins are made accessible to the unbanked and underbanked, potentially reshaping remittance and financial inclusion.

But there’s a disconnect: if stablecoins are so promising, why aren’t they ubiquitous at the cash register or online checkout?

As PYMNTS explored, merchant adoption is lagging. The reasons are myriad: regulatory uncertainty, concerns about fraud and reversibility, technical integration hurdles and the simple inertia of established payment methods. There’s also a user experience gap — most people are not clamoring for change, especially if it’s more complicated than swiping a card.

Additionally, tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) is gaining steam. With Visa, Mastercard and JPMorgan testing tokenized forms of cash, treasuries and even real estate, we’re beginning to see the outlines of a future where everything of value can be transacted in programmable, composable digital units. 

Still, widespread adoption will hinge on regulatory harmonization — especially for cross-border use cases — and the resolution of critical technical bottlenecks. The race is on: can stablecoin projects solve for “spendability” before their window of opportunity closes?

What’s clear is that the market is bifurcating. “Crypto as casino” remains, but is being joined by “crypto as capital market.” The result: a more mature, complex and — paradoxically — less predictable ecosystem.

Taken together, these three trends — regulatory maturation, the real-world quest for stablecoin utility and the institutionalization of digital assets — mark a turning point. The Wild West days of crypto are fading, replaced by a convergence with mainstream finance.

The stakes are enormous. Success could mean a financial system that is faster, fairer and more inclusive, leveraging the strengths of both centralized and decentralized models. Failure — or stagnation — could see the space captured by legacy interests or fragmented by regulatory balkanization.

In the end, the future of crypto will be shaped not just by code, but by collaboration — between innovators, regulators, financial giants and the everyday users whose adoption will determine which experiments take root and which fade into history.

The post Stablecoins Push to Go Mainstream Amid Crypto Renaissance appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The company expects to offer a 3.7% annual rewards rate upon the launch of the program, although it can change the rate at any time, PayPal Holdings said in a Wednesday (April 23) press release.

Users will be able to immediately use the rewards to send to other PayPal or Venmo users, fund international transfers, exchange for fiat, convert to other cryptocurrencies or make purchases at merchants with PayPal Checkout, according to the release.

“Consumers and businesses use PYUSD today for commerce, crypto, peer-to-peer transfers and B2B payments,” PayPal President and CEO Alex Chriss said in the release. “We’re demonstrating our commitment to an innovative, commerce-ready ecosystem by enabling it for the settlement of cross-border transfers, vendor payments and in the future for additional payment use cases like payouts and bill pay.”

PayPal introduced PYUSD in August 2023, saying the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin was issued by Paxos Trust Co.; 100% backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S. Treasuries and similar cash equivalents; and “designed to contribute to the opportunity stablecoins offer for payments.”

During an investor day held Feb. 25, Michelle Gill, general manager of small business and financial services at PayPal, said the company expects to use the stablecoin to power a new B2B bill pay offering.

“B2B bill pay is tapping into a $2 trillion market,” Gill said. “This is exciting not just for our merchants, but also for PayPal in that it opens up a brand-new network. … They now get to invite their vendors and their suppliers to join the PayPal ecosystem. … By the end of 2025, we hope to power all of this through PYUSD.”

Coinbase Wallet began letting users of its USDC stablecoin earn rewards by holding the stablecoin on-chain in November, saying rewards will be paid out monthly, directly into user wallets. The feature, USDC Rewards, is available in most regions worldwide and was made available to American users in November.

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“There’s certainly a change in how the administration views the digital assets industry,” Dan Boyle, partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster. “This is not a confrontational posture.”

Until recently, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) operated under what many in the industry perceived as a “regulation by prosecution” doctrine, aggressively pursuing high-profile crypto cases while offering little regulatory guidance. But the DOJ’s recent decision to pivot away from that stance, paired with growing bipartisan support for proposed frameworks for stablecoin regulation, signals a reimagining of how Washington approaches cryptocurrency oversight.

Boyle, who’s seen the cryptocurrency conversation from both the prosecutor’s desk and the defense table, believes that despite headline-making changes, crypto companies would be mistaken to interpret this as a green light to let down their guard.

“This shouldn’t be seen as a get out of jail free card. It’s just a change in posture and market participants have to recognize that,” he said.

Rather, it’s a pragmatic acknowledgment that blanket hostility doesn’t help to foster compliance or innovation. And as compliance improves among major exchanges and stablecoin issuers, Boyle anticipates a divergence within the crypto ecosystem.

“You’re going to see a divide between some companies which become compliant and others that want to stay outside of it,” he said. “You’ll just see less in the gray area.”

In other words, when it comes to cryptocurrency, sunlight may be the best disinfectant.

Playing Whack-a-Mole With Risk

Crypto’s global reach has created a cat-and-mouse game between innovation and illicit activity. From cross-border scams to unregulated online marketplaces, the challenge for regulators is to protect consumers without stifling progress. For many in the industry, the DOJ’s shift has introduced a new dilemma: where to refocus compliance efforts, and whether the enforcement risk has truly declined.

While enforcement risk remains, the GENIUS Act has emerged as a beacon of hope for crypto firms seeking clarity. If passed, it would be the first comprehensive U.S. framework for regulating stablecoins, a digital asset class often used as an off-ramp for criminal funds but increasingly embraced by mainstream financial institutions.

“The obvious growth in stablecoins and the fact that you have a lot of issuers ready to be fully compliant. It’s a hard argument for Congress to ignore,” Boyle said.

Yet not all stablecoins are created equal. Criminal organizations continue to exploit the flexibility and speed of stablecoins, particularly when issued outside the bounds of U.S. regulation.

“Even if stablecoins are the preferred medium for a lot of criminal activity, creating a regulated environment where these companies can operate in conjunction with law enforcement is probably a positive,” Boyle said.

His advice is to align with what is known: the administration’s enforcement focus, recent executive orders and global geopolitical shifts. That means preparing for scrutiny around transactions linked to Venezuela, Iran or known cartels. It also means considering proactive disclosure if risky activity is detected.

“Your risk has gone up higher,” Boyle said bluntly. “You’re going to have states and foreign regulators that still care about things like foreign bribery and kleptocracy. Those haven’t gone away.”

Regulation as a Catalyst for Innovation?

The current administration, in Boyle’s view, sees crypto not as a fad but as a lasting part of the financial ecosystem. And that opens the door for large enterprises that were previously sitting on the sidelines to explore partnerships, issue stablecoins or tokenize real-world assets.

“When you look at how the prior administration just kind of viewed [crypto] as an area that wasn’t particularly compliant … now there’s going to be a lot of freedom to develop new technology,” he said. “There’s some strategic value to being a world leader in digital assets … If my competitor is issuing a stablecoin or tokenizing assets, am I missing out if I don’t?”

Crypto is no longer an outsider technology. It’s moving into the mainstream, with all the legal, strategic and ethical responsibilities that entails. Still, the future could hinge on one crucial thing: defining what digital assets even are. After all, as Webster noted, if you ask 10 people what a digital asset is, you’ll get 15 different answers.

Boyle agreed, adding that, “even now, whatever definition we might come up with today, that may be obsolete in three to six months … Perhaps having more participants in the area is going to help us all understand what the scope of the category should be.”

Ultimately, for companies navigating crypto’s uncertain terrain, Boyle offered these final words of advice: don’t let your guard down, but don’t sit it out.

“It is a catalyst for innovation,” he said. “And there’s a lane now for companies who want to do it right.”

The post ‘Not a Get Out of Jail Free Card:’ Boies Schiller’s Dan Boyle on Crypto’s Regulatory Reset appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The Dutch bank launched the project after the implementation of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation last year created an opportunity to issue regulated stablecoins in the European Union (EU), CoinDesk reported Tuesday (April 22), citing unnamed sources.

Reached by PYMNTS, ING declined to comment on the report.

The EU’s implementation of MiCA’s provision for stablecoins put the EU at the forefront of crypto regulation, PYMNTS reported in July.

Having stricter disclosure requirements, regular audits of crypto firms and more robust capital reserve requirements will provide the regulatory clarity crypto and Web3 firms had been asking for and help build trust and transparency across the marketplace.

French bank Societe Generale opened its euro-backed stablecoin to retail investors in 2024, PYMNTS reported in December.

The bank’s integrated and regulated subsidiary, Societe Generale-Forge said in July that it updated its EUR CoinVertible (EURCV) stablecoin to comply with the MiCA regulation and allow its widespread adoption and distribution.

“Robust and regulated stablecoins are essential to the proper functioning, security and institutionalization of crypto-asset markets,” Societe Generale-Forge CEO Jean-Marc Stenger said in a July 1 press release. “With EUR CoinVertible, and the implementation of the European MiCA regulation, SG-Forge is strengthening its offering to crypto ecosystems while continuing to develop innovative cross-border settlement and payment solutions based on blockchain technology for its corporate and financial institution clients.”

Stablecoin issuer Circle said in July that it attained an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license from the French banking authority, thereby achieving compliance with the MiCA regulatory framework and enabling it to issue USDC and EURC stablecoins in compliance with MiCA’s regulatory obligations for stablecoins or eMoney tokens.

Circle CEO and Co-founder Jeremy Allaire said in a July 1 press release that the achievement is “a huge milestone in bringing digital currency into mainstream scale and acceptance.”

“By working closely with French and EU regulators, we are now able to offer both USDC and EURC as fully compliant dollar and euro stablecoins to the European market, unlocking the enormous potential of digital assets to transform finance and commerce.”

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Paul S. Atkins was sworn into office as the 34th chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Monday (April 21) after being confirmed by the Senate earlier this month. Atkins, who has long been personally involved with digital assets, is viewed favorably by industry advocates, who are hopeful he will use his position atop the regulatory body to drive forward regulatory clarity for the digital asset landscape.

In a sign of the evolving times, Circle, the FinTech firm best known for the USDC stablecoin, unveiled Monday an initiative called the Circle Payments Network (CPN), which aims to modernize how value flows worldwide.

CPN will connect financial institutions and enable real-time settlement of cross-border payments using USDC, EURC and other regulated stablecoins, the company laid out in a white paper.

Separately, crypto companies like Paxos and Coinbase, as well as Circle, are pursuing bank charters, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, essentially seeking to become part of the very banking system that has historically kept them at arm’s length.

For chief financial officers, treasurers and payment executives, these trends could affect how companies manage money in the coming years.

Read also: The Digital Asset Primer: On-Chain Tokenization for Payments Professionals

What to Know About Circle’s Payment Network and Stablecoins

At a high level, CPN is a blockchain-powered payment network that connects financial institutions (FIs) and allows them to transact using digital stablecoins as the settlement medium. Participants might include banks, neobanks, payment service providers, FinTechs and digital wallet operators.

By joining CPN, these institutions can send and receive payments globally in real time via stablecoins like USDC (a U.S. dollar-pegged coin) or EURC (a euro-pegged coin), which are redeemable 1-to-1 for fiat currency. The stablecoins effectively act as the transmittal vehicle for value, zipping from sender to receiver faster than traditional bank wires.

One key aspect is that CPN itself doesn’t move cash between bank accounts in the old-fashioned way. Instead, it coordinates the movement of stablecoins between network participants.

“Importantly, CPN does not move funds directly; rather, it serves as a marketplace of financial institutions and acts as a coordination protocol that orchestrates global money movement and the seamless exchange of information,” Circle’s white paper said.

CPN can essentially be viewed as an orchestration layer that tells participants how and when to transfer tokens (and the corresponding fiat on their balance sheets) to complete a transaction. Circle’s role is as the network operator defining the rules (the protocol) and providing the APIs and smart contracts that participants plug into.

Circle’s ultimate vision for CPN isn’t just a single product but a framework others can build upon, more akin to how the internet’s open protocols enabled a proliferation of websites and applications. For corporate finance teams, this could mean a richer array of financial services available on one interoperable network, rather than siloed portals and bank platforms.

See also: 3 Things Payment Stakeholders Can All Agree On About Stablecoins

Crypto Firms Are Knocking on Banking’s Door

While Circle is building out the CPN platform, it’s also part of a broader movement of crypto companies pushing into the regulated banking sector. Several crypto and FinTech firms are seeking U.S. bank charters or similar licenses right now.

It’s a striking development, given that just a year or two ago the relationship between crypto firms and banks was fraught. In 2023, after high-profile failures like FTX in the crypto industry and the collapse of crypto-friendly institutions like Silvergate Bank and Signature Bank, many traditional banks pulled back from serving crypto clients.

If successful, a company like Circle could hold customer deposits, custody reserves for stablecoins, and make loans or offer other banking services, all under the supervision of bank regulators.

There’s a growing sentiment among policymakers (on both sides of the aisle) that if stablecoins are to be a part of the financial system, they need a legal foundation similar to banks or money market funds. By obtaining bank charters or trust licenses now, crypto companies could get ahead of impending regulations and shape them.

Chartered institutions also have certain advantages. They can potentially get direct access to Federal Reserve payment systems, hold customer dollar balances in central bank accounts, and operate across all 50 states without needing a patchwork of state licenses.

For a stablecoin issuer like Circle or Paxos, being a nationally regulated bank could bolster trust among large institutions and users — essentially saying, “We meet the same standards as the bank where you hold your corporate treasury or your personal savings.”

It’s worth noting that not all these firms are pursuing the same type of charter. Circle and BitGo are reportedly aiming for full-service national bank charters. Others have considered national trust bank charters or even industrial loan company (ILC) charters.

If these charters are approved, regulators will subject the firms to bank-like scrutiny. This is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it means greater oversight and accountability (good for customers and the system’s integrity), but on the other hand, it means these companies must mature their risk management, compliance operations and capital requirements.

As crypto firms become regulated banks or trust companies, partnering with them becomes less of a reputational or regulatory risk for businesses. A Fortune 500 company might have been hesitant to hold stablecoins or use a crypto service provider when the sector was seen as the Wild West. But if that provider is now a supervised bank entity (subject to audits, capital requirements and oversight by federal regulators), it changes the equation.

Ultimately, the takeaway for business leaders is to stay informed and be prepared.

For all PYMNTS digital transformation and B2B coverage, subscribe to the daily Digital Transformation and B2B Newsletters.

The post Crypto Firms Chase Bank Charters as Circle Launches Stablecoin Orchestration Layer appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The move lets users convert physical cash to digital USDC stablecoins and withdraw cash at MoneyGram locations worldwide, according to a Monday (April 21) press release.

According to the release, this integration allows users to deposit cash at participating MoneyGram locations and receive Circle USDC on the Stellar blockchain, which can be managed within the self-custody Arculus crypto wallet. Users can also withdraw local currency from their digital USDC holdings at over 440,000 MoneyGram retail locations across more than 200 countries and territories, the release said.

Adam Lowe, chief product and innovation officer at CompoSecure and Arculus, said this could be particularly appealing to those who lack access to traditional banking services. “We are bringing efficient and alternative technologies to millions of unbanked individuals without ready access to traditional banking and providing them with security and flexibility,” Lowe said in the release. “This integration enables people to convert physical cash into digital dollars on the highly performant Stellar blockchain and store those digital dollars securely, giving them complete autonomy and control over their assets.”

The release also noted that Stellar blockchain’s infrastructure supports the tokenization and trading of various currencies — including the U.S. dollar and the euro — providing interoperability between financial systems.

In addition, CompoSecure received a grant from the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) to develop Soroban smart contracts for the Stellar blockchain, according to the release. This initiative aims to allow stablecoin holders to make payments directly from self-custody wallets at merchants that accept Visa or Mastercard. Once implemented, stablecoin holders will be able to make purchases at conventional point-of-sale terminals using their digital assets, connecting digital finance to everyday commerce.

“Arculus is making it possible to spend stablecoins with a simple tap just like any other payment card. This is the kind of utility that drives real-world adoption and demonstrates how everyday purchases can be made easy, accessible, and secure on Stellar,” Stellar Development Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon said in the release.

The post CompoSecure Launches Wallet Integration With MoneyGram for Cash-to-Crypto Access appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

“There is a huge amount of friction in global trade, especially in emerging parts of the world,” AgriDex CEO Henry Duckworth told Karen Webster. “You can fix that with the digitization of contracts and easier payments.”

The company’s newest product, Loam, is a USD-backed stablecoin payment rail designed to cut settlement times, reduce transaction costs and bring more transparency to cross-border agricultural transactions. Through Loam’s web-based platform, exporters can manage payments, process invoices and complete trades with little more than a smartphone and an internet connection.

“Even if you’re in the bush in the middle of Central Africa, why do you need to pay DHL to fly your documents all the way to the end buyer on the other side of the world?” Duckworth said. “Why not just do it all through your computer or mobile system?”

In a world where food security is increasingly entangled with climate change, geopolitical instability and broken trade routes, the financial plumbing that underpins global agricultural trade could be overdue for responsible disruption.

To start the transformation, AgriDex is focusing first on a specific set of users: exporters who have already been vetted through existing compliance regimes.

“We’re not starting from scratch,” Duckworth said. “These are established farmers and producers who already work with banks, buyers and regulators. They’ve cleared the major licensing hurdles. We are just giving them better tools.”

Trust Is the Key Currency of Blockchain Innovation

At its core, Loam is a USD-backed stablecoin payment rail that uses smart contracts to enforce transactions under English company law, helping to mitigate risk in jurisdictions where currency volatility and shaky legal systems might otherwise scare off institutional investors.

“Instead of going to a local bank to spend a lot of money turning your local cash into a U.S. dollar… you can jump over that by simply logging onto Loam, uploading your documentation, passing your KYB and engaging with your end traders,” Duckworth said.

However, as with any blockchain-powered innovation, the technology is not the hard part. Building end-user trust is. Convincing farmers and buyers to abandon their long-standing habits and adopt a blockchain-based payment system requires more than a clever user experience. It requires boots-on-the-ground literacy campaigns and incentives that speak to immediate pain points.

“We often work with older farmers who are naturally cautious, and we tell them, ‘Just test it with a smaller trade flow and a buyer you already know,’” Duckworth said. “Once they see the benefits of cheaper and faster payments, they come back. Your sellers can get you better quality products faster if you engage in a system that pays them fairer.”

For buyers, the enablement and acceptance incentive is simple but powerful: a forex arbitrage. In markets like South Africa, Loam users, for example, can gain up to 2% on USD conversion compared to traditional routes, which can provide an edge that matters, especially in low-margin businesses.

Infrastructure and the Leapfrog Effect

Still, as blockchain infrastructure continues to grow and mature, it is becoming increasingly clear that payments are just the tip of the iceberg. Many sector observers see the biggest long-term opportunity in on-chain credit, where Web3 capital can meet a need for working capital in underbanked regions.

“There is a dearth of credit to some really amazing producers, exporters and traders in the region,” Duckworth said, noting that Web3 investors, with their higher risk appetite, could fill that gap.

“It’s not about throwing money around recklessly but about backing vetted businesses that just need liquidity,” he said. “Buyer beware, but there’s an amazing opportunity here.”

This opportunity is best understood through the lens of the “leapfrog effect.” In much the same way that mobile phones allowed many developing countries to skip over the landline era entirely, blockchain and decentralized finance have the potential to leapfrog traditional financial systems.

As for the macro environment shaping stablecoin adoption, Duckworth said he is cautiously optimistic.

“We are going into a multi-currency world,” he said. “American dominance as a singular point of currency is going to be declining. Whether it snaps or ratchets down 1% every year remains to be seen.”

He said he believes Europe could lead the charge with a digital euro, forcing businesses to adapt.

“Some people just don’t get the tech, and that’s OK,” Duckworth said. “I still remember my granny didn’t want to use cellphones for the first 10 years. Now, she can’t live without it.”

For all PYMNTS digital transformation coverage, subscribe to the daily Digital Transformation Newsletter.

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While blockchain payment and financial solutions can promise decentralization and ownership, they frequently suffer from clunky user experiences and steep onboarding curves.

Adam Lowe, PhD, chief product and innovation officer at CompoSecure, told PYMNTS that what the sector needs is a “tangible crossover point” that allows users to spend their crypto in the real world with the same ease as fiat while still benefiting from the sovereignty and programmability of Web3 assets.

CompoSecure and crypto wallet MetaMask have joined forces to launch a new metal payment card designed to do just that, he said.

The new offering, powered by CompoSecure’s Arculus tap-to-authenticate technology, serves three primary functions: a traditional payments card; a secure authentication device; and a crypto wallet interface. The ability to spend stablecoins directly from a self-custodied wallet marks a shift from earlier crypto cards, which typically required centralized custodians to hold user funds.

“What’s really important is that first scenario,” Lowe said. “I’m tapping to pay at my favorite coffee shop as just a Mastercard… I’m spending my crypto out of my self-custody. That’s typically a stablecoin. The stablecoin goes from your wallet to the Mastercard network and eventually to the merchant.”

The Crypto Landscape Exists at the Intersection of Regulation and Readiness

The target demographic for the MetaMask card is crypto-native users — those who understand and prefer self-custody of digital assets.

This ethos of control is central to the value proposition. With the MetaMask card, users retain their private keys, dictate their spending, and manage their on-chain interactions directly — without depending on third-party intermediaries.

“Most of their assets are with themselves versus a centralized custodian,” Lowe said. “It’s much more like cash in your pocket.”

For these users, the appeal is philosophical and practical.

“It’s like global Web3 Johnny Walker,” Lowe said. “You have a whole bunch of assets in your pocket. You can travel the globe, spend them anywhere you want, turn them into anything you want — permissionlessly.”

Lowe said he is confident that 2025 will be “the year of stablecoins, the year of Web3 payments.” That optimism isn’t unfounded. Regulatory clarity around stablecoins in the United States is increasing, and political sentiment is trending toward support for crypto-based financial innovation.

“Legislation and political tone have made it much more friendly for the space,” he said.

The growing stability is also attracting attention from other issuers.

“On the day [the MetaMask card] launched at ETHDenver, the sign-up broke because it was so popular,” Lowe said.

A Crypto Card That’s Useful

The card is more than just another crypto debit card, Lowe said. It represents a strategic alignment of technology, regulation and consumer behavior. For a space in need of a bridge to the real world, that kind of tangibility might just be the thing that takes crypto payments mainstream.

Beyond day-to-day usability, the card opens new dimensions in rewards and loyalty programs. Because all transactions are posted to chain in real time, Lowe said he envisions a future where loyalty is gamified and automated.

“The issuer or platform can instantly mint an NFT, you can gamify the purchase — and it can all be automated and real time,” he said. “So, you have that tradability aspect, that gamification aspect. For the consumer, there’s also the opportunity for staking and yield.”

Yield underscores a growing trend in crypto: capital efficiency.

“If you have a dollar in your wallet, in your pocket, it’s not doing anything for you,” Lowe said. “If you have a dollar in a yield-bearing stablecoin, every moment it’s earning you 4%-plus yield.”

This creates an incentive for consumers to keep their assets in a digital, decentralized form, and products like the MetaMask and CompoSecure card with Arculus technology make it easy to use those assets in the real world, he said.

At the same time, CompoSecure is actively testing direct on-chain payments, which would bypass traditional rails altogether. The goal is to enable the same simplicity and ubiquity of tap-to-pay while maintaining the flexibility and efficiency of blockchain settlements.

“There’s no reason you can’t directly work paying on-chain,” Lowe said. “The stablecoin goes directly to a merchant wallet. We skip everything in the middle.”

In cases where a merchant prefers fiat, Lowe said the solution can handle real-time asset conversion.

“We flip it to something they’ll accept, or even a stablecoin, off-ramp it, and do a once-daily wire,” he said. “Again, cut out middlemen.”

Ultimately, he added, “consumer choice is everything. This innovation allows you to stay in the self-custody realm and still spend your assets wherever you want.”

The post The Next Frontier of Crypto Payments Is Already in Your Pocket appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

That framework is increasingly being brought to bear on stablecoins, the fiat-pegged digital assets that are emerging as the potential killer app for blockchains in 2025. Despite their initial skepticism of digital assets, banks and fintechs are now exploring stablecoins not just as a curiosity but as a strategic opportunity.

With the news this week that Visa is reportedly joining the Global Dollar Network (USDG) stablecoin consortium, it’s becoming more clear that the rails beneath the payment experience are evolving amid a broader shift among payment incumbents and end-users alike.

Some of the world’s biggest players in finance and payments are moving from skepticism to engagement, guided by a set of evolving priorities designed to balance innovation with institutional-grade rigor.

While opinions can diverge on regulation and implementation, the triad of trust, transparency and interoperability appear to be three key things the payment landscape seems to agree on when it comes to how financial institutions engage with the digital economy.

Read also: Why Stablecoins Are Stuck at the Acceptance Hurdle

Stablecoins Eye Transition from Speculation to Infrastructure

Stablecoins represent the first category of digital assets that traditional financial institutions are beginning to align with, but the first hurdle to institutional adoption has always been compliance. Financial institutions operate under tight regulatory scrutiny, and any stablecoin they touch must offer clarity around know your customer (KYC), anti-money laundering (AML) and transaction monitoring.

For stablecoin issuers, this can include tactics such as embedding on-chain identity verification mechanisms, providing standardized audit procedures and building out jurisdiction-specific compliance models that mirror the rigor of traditional banking.

Trust also begins with transparency around reserve composition. After the collapse of TerraUSD in 2022, the market learned that algorithmic stability models are fragile. Institutional interest today is more so focused on fully reserved stablecoins, where every digital dollar is backed by a real-world dollar or liquid asset.

That transparency is crucial. The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Blockchain’s Benefits for Regulated Industries” found that blockchain technology has numerous potential benefits to serve the unique needs of regulated industries, including finance.

See more: The CFO and Treasurer’s Guide to Digital Assets

Compliance and Regulation a Double-Edged Sword

Of course, while stablecoins have started to decouple themselves from crypto exchanges and position themselves as a component of real-world financial infrastructure, as PYMNTS reported in March, they are still without a comprehensive federal-level framework in the U.S.

The U.S. Congress has floated a half-dozen bills on stablecoin oversight, but none have passed. This leaves nearly everyone in the payments ecosystem, from DeFi founders to Wall Street executives, playing the same waiting game: what will U.S. regulation look like?

And while that uncertainty hasn’t stopped FinTech companies, including Visa, PayPal, Revolut and Stripe, from exploring stablecoin integrations to enhance their cross-border payment services, it has given other ecosystem stakeholders pause.

The creation of a federal framework governing stablecoins is important for industry confidence, Chainalysis Co-founder and CEO Jonathan Levin said in an interview with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster published Monday (April 7). “Without a federal framework, it is incredibly difficult for financial services firms and international enterprises to really get comfortable in using stablecoins at scale,” Levin said.

No serious player wants to operate in the gray area, after all.

Ultimately, if stablecoins are to reach their potential in payments, they must move seamlessly across platforms, network and use cases. For this to happen, partnerships between FinTechs, banks, regulators and tech providers will be crucial. That’s a tall order.

Today’s stablecoin landscape is fragmented — not just by issuer or blockchain, but by standards, custodians and programming models. It’s reminiscent of the early days of mobile payments before QR code standards or NFC norms emerged. 

Stablecoins are a bridge technology. They tie today’s financial world to a programmable, decentralized future without blowing up the foundations. And while debates about monetary sovereignty, decentralization and privacy will (and should) continue, the payments industry is finding a rare kind of consensus: Stablecoins are here to stay, but their success depends on compliance, interoperability and institutional adoption. 

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