The $300 billion stablecoin market has evolved beyond its initial purpose of facilitating fast global transactions, with businesses now exploring more practical applications for these digital assets. This shift is driving a new wave of adoption, as noted by Chunda McCain, co-founder of Paxos Labs, who observes that the industry is transitioning from basic infrastructure development to real-world business use cases. "The initial step was to establish a stablecoin; the next question is, what's next?" McCain stated in an interview with CoinDesk.
Recently, Paxos Labs secured $12 million in strategic funding, led by Blockchain Capital and participated in by Robot Ventures, Maelstrom, and Uniswap, to further develop its "financial utility stack" that enables companies to convert digital assets into products through a single integration. The newly launched Amplify Suite offers a bundle of three core tools: Earn, which provides yield on digital assets; Borrow, which facilitates lending against these assets; and Mint, which supports the issuance of branded stablecoins. This suite allows firms to integrate tokens into their business operations and add capabilities over time. For years, the focus of enterprise crypto adoption was on "first-touch" capabilities such as trading, custody, or issuing a stablecoin, which, according to McCain, rarely generated returns on their own.
"Stablecoins have been loss leaders for years," he said. However, the opportunity lies in how these assets are utilized.
Payments are a clear example, as merchants typically incur 2% to 3% in fees, while stablecoin-based payments can reduce these costs and even generate yield on on-chain balances. "You convert what has always been a cost into revenue," McCain explained. Some novel use cases emerge at the intersection of payments and credit.
Payment providers already track merchant revenues and cash flow, positioning them to underwrite loans, McCain argued. This could enable merchants to access financing based on real-time performance, earn yield on incoming payments, and settle transactions instantly across borders.
Although these models are still in the early stages, the building blocks are starting to come together, he said. Not every company needs its own stablecoin to capture these benefits.
While some companies, like PayPal, have launched branded tokens to control payments and margins, issuing a token requires significant investment in liquidity, compliance, and distribution. "If you just need the economics, you don’t need to build your own," McCain said. Many firms can instead integrate existing stablecoins and still benefit from lower costs and added yield.
This shift may lack the hype associated with big firms like Western Union announcing their own token, but it has a tangible impact on how businesses operate. Stablecoins are beginning to reshape margins, unlock credit, and change how money moves globally, particularly in areas where traditional systems are costly or slow.
"It might sound boring, but this is the math," McCain said.