Payments Will Eclipse Trading In Crypto’s Next Cycle
The story of cryptocurrency has been told through the lens of volatile price charts and speculative tokens for the better part of the last decade. Market cap milestones, memecoin rallies, and 10-second liquidation candles dominated the headlines. But that is now shifting toward real-world uses.
Stablecoins alone now represent a $250 billion asset class. The stablecoin ecosystem processes more on-chain volume each month than the entire remittance industry moves through traditional money transfer channels. Legislators are responding in kind by introducing clear regulations that treat stablecoins not as unregulated tokens but as licensed e-money, complete with reserve audits, redemption rights, and real-time compliance checks.
As regulators, established financial institutions, and consumers all agree that moving money should be cheaper and faster, the next adoption curve becomes obvious: payments will play a much bigger role in crypto’s next cycle.
Regulators Give Payment Rails the Green Light
For too long, regulatory uncertainty kept crypto from mainstream adoption. Institutions and builders were hesitant to invest significant capital into an ecosystem with unclear rules. That landscape is changing as policymakers converge on a common playbook for fiat-backed tokens (stablecoins).
The recent passage of the GENIUS Act in the U.S. Senate provides the first comprehensive federal framework for stablecoins, mandating full reserves and robust compliance. In Europe, the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation imposes similarly strict standards. Singapore’s Single-Currency Stablecoin Framework and Hong Kong’s new licensing law set similar requirements.
DeFi lending and perpetual-swap venues are still under fragmented oversight, which keeps institutional treasuries on the sidelines. By contrast, in the …
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