The $300 billion stablecoin market has evolved beyond its initial purpose of facilitating faster global transactions, with businesses now exploring the full potential of these digital assets. This shift is driving a new wave of adoption, according to Chunda McCain, co-founder of Paxos Labs, who notes that the industry is transitioning from basic infrastructure to practical business applications. "The initial step was acquiring a stablecoin, and now the question is: what's next?" McCain stated in an interview with CoinDesk.
Paxos Labs recently secured $12 million in strategic funding, led by Blockchain Capital, to develop a "financial utility stack" enabling companies to integrate digital assets into their products through a single integration. The newly launched Amplify Suite offers three core tools: Earn, for generating yield on digital assets; Borrow, for lending against them; and Mint, for supporting branded stablecoin issuance. This allows firms to integrate tokens into their business and add capabilities over time.
For years, enterprise crypto adoption focused on initial capabilities like trading, custody, or issuing a stablecoin, which rarely generated returns on their own, according to McCain. "Stablecoins have been loss leaders for years," he said.
The opportunity lies in how these assets are utilized. Payments are a clear example, where merchants typically forfeit 2% to 3% in fees, while stablecoin rails can reduce costs and generate yield on on-chain balances. "You transform a traditional cost into revenue," McCain explained. Some novel use cases exist 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 instantly across borders.
Although these models are still in their early stages, the building blocks are starting to come together, he said. Not every company needs its own stablecoin to capture these benefits. While companies like PayPal have launched branded tokens to control payments and margins, issuing one 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 integrate existing stablecoins and still benefit from lower costs and added yield.
This shift may lack the hype surrounding big firms launching their own tokens, but it has a tangible impact on business operations. Stablecoins are starting to reshape margins, unlock credit, and change how money moves globally, particularly where traditional systems are costly or slow. "It might sound boring, but this is the math," McCain said.