Stablecoins 2.0: Beyond Exchange Floors

The stablecoin narrative is shifting. What once centered entirely on exchange settlement is now branching into enterprise use cases that matter for real-world adoption.

The emerging playbook includes payroll processing, merchant settlement systems, B2B payments, cross-border payout infrastructure, and even collateral mechanics within DeFi protocols. These aren't niche experiments—they're where growth is accelerating.

What deserves attention: non-exchange transaction flows are climbing. Enterprise integrations are moving from pilots to production. Supply expansion and transfer velocity metrics tell the story of whether stablecoins are becoming actual payment rails or staying exchange-bound.

The failure modes are equally clear. Regulatory pressure on issuers, institutional risk events, depeg incidents, and bottlenecks in distribution networks could all trigger adoption setbacks. When trust fractures or liquidity tightens at critical points, the whole ecosystem feels it.

The winners won't be the exchanges. They'll be whoever builds the rails that make stablecoins invisible infrastructure for global payments.