Stablecon 2025 offered a rare industry snapshot: pragmatic, forward-looking, and shaped by both crypto-native innovators and institutional finance leaders.
The event surfaced key signals about where stablecoins are making progress — and where challenges remain. While there’s no question stablecoins are gaining momentum, practical barriers continue to shape the pace and direction of adoption.
Here’s what stood out most, and why it matters for enterprises evaluating their next moves.
Liquidity emerged as the most consistent and urgent theme. For small, retail transactions, stablecoins are already proving effective. But for large B2B flows, liquidity remains thin in most global corridors, forcing corporates to rely on OTC desks that introduce cost, delay, and manual complexity.
That means focusing on near-term opportunities in specific high-need corridors: USD-to-emerging-market flows, euro-to-African remittance lanes, Southeast Asia–U.S. supplier payments. These are the routes where fiat systems underperform, where OTC desk dependence adds unnecessary cost, and where stablecoins could create immediate, meaningful gains.
Rather than stretching thin across global markets, the industry’s leaders are concentrating liquidity in these narrow, inefficient corridors to build proof points. Success here — like faster supplier payments, cheaper remittances, or more efficient cross-border treasury movements — will provide the traction needed to scale outward.
Tech companies, with their distribution networks and money flow insights, are especially well-positioned to seize these opportunities by optimizing the most efficient settlement paths across fiat, card networks, and crypto-native rails.
Even when money moves smoothly, recipients can face headaches when they use stablecoins.
The promise of 24/7 global payments at minimal cost is compelling but the reality is stablecoins aren’t considered legal tender in most jurisdictions. That means they can’t be spent like fiat, and holding them on a corporate balance sheet creates accounting, compliance, and tax complications. Vendor acceptance remains limited, and many practical use cases still require off-ramping into fiat which reintroduces traditional fees, largely erasing the system’s advantages.
There’s optimism that spendability will increase over time, but for now, the lack of practical spendability remains a major bottleneck. Until recipients can use stablecoins directly, much of the system’s potential will stay theoretical.
Not all stablecoins are created equal, and institutions are paying close attention to the differences.
Corporate treasurers and banks are increasingly focused on the safety, regulatory standing, and reserve quality behind the stablecoins they use. Some stablecoins are highly regulated and backed by strong reserves; others offer far less transparency and carry higher risk.
As adoption grows, institutions are asking for a formal safety and risk rating systemin order to clearly identify which stablecoins are the most reliable for specific use cases. Whether they’re moving funds across jurisdictions or managing global payment flows, corporations want to make sure they’re using the safest, most trusted version of the dollar.
In the coming phase, it won’t just be about using any stablecoin; it will be about using the right one.
The most forward-looking opportunities in the stablecoin space go beyond payments, like the emerging possibility of settling transactions but directly in tokenized treasuries or money market funds— AKA the assets backing the stablecoins themselves.
Imagine corporate treasurer A and corporate treasurer B transferring tokenized fund shares directly, without first redeeming stablecoins into fiat or repurchasing reserve assets on the other side. By burning the stablecoin and moving the underlying tokenized securities, they could achieve instant, 24/7 settlement at blockchain-level costs, even for large-scale transactions.
If global treasurers and asset managers begin pushing into direct tokenized settlement, the market will need new mechanisms for interoperability between different tokenized money market funds. This could require institutions and competitors to collaborate on cross-asset conversion standards, creating a more efficient landscape for value movement.
However, these models also introduce complex regulatory and legal challenges, particularly around securities law and cross-platform interoperability. While still early, they represent one of the most promising frontiers for driving capital efficiency at scale.
Compliance has shifted from a back-office concern to a front-line differentiator.
Two years ago, compliance was often treated as an afterthought to be sorted out after the technical systems were in place. But today, it’s front and center. Companies know that to lead in the next phase of stablecoin adoption, they need to build not just for technical scale, but for regulatory scale.
New frameworks like the GENIUS Act and Stable Act are helping bring clarity to the US, particularly around the rules for issuers. But major gaps remain, especially when it comes to custody, on-ramps, off-ramps, and yield-bearing stablecoins. Many companies at the event acknowledged they don’t yet have full answers for how they’ll navigate these areas.
Still, some players are already proactively preparing to meet future regulatory requirements, often through strategic partnerships. This signals a meaningful change in mindset. Companies are no longer just reacting to rules but looking to turn compliance into a competitive advantage.
Stablecoins excel at speed and finality, but the financial world runs on more than just instant settlement.
One of the challenges raised at Stablecon centers on something often overlooked in crypto conversations: the need for fraud handling, dispute management, and refund mechanisms. As stablecoins push into high-volume use cases, these gaps become more pressing.
Global payments are complex. They involve reversals, complaints, and human error. Today, there’s no standardized framework for handling fraud, dispute resolution, or refunds in the stablecoin ecosystem and without them, stablecoins can’t fully serve as a foundation for enterprise-scale financial flows.
Building these systems will be critical to moving stablecoins from speculative or retail use into mainstream, institutional-grade financial infrastructure.
The companies best positioned to lead the next phase of stablecoin adoption aren’t necessarily those with the most advanced technology but those applying disciplined, focused strategies.
By concentrating on the corridors and use cases where stablecoins can deliver immediate, tangible benefits, these players are creating the proof points that will drive market momentum. Tech companies, with their user reach and operational flexibility, are especially well placed to execute on these targeted opportunities.
Critical mass in liquidity, trust, and spendability won’t materialize on its own. It will be shaped by the companies that know where to focus and how to execute.
Closing Thought
Stablecon 2025 underscored that the stablecoin conversation has grown up. Now the challenge becomes solving the hard, practical problems that will define whether stablecoins become a foundational layer of global finance.
The companies that move decisively, focus strategically, and build not just great products but great operational frameworks will do more than ride the next wave of adoption. They’ll shape the future of how money moves.