This post has been adapted from an original post written by Aishwary Gupta, Global Head of Payments and RWAs at Polygon Labs
Stablecoins were meant to transform money the way the internet transformed information: making it borderless, programmable and universally accessible. In many respects, they have delivered – settling transactions faster than traditional banking systems, enabling cross-border transfers without cutoff times and supporting genuine economic activity on and off blockchain.
Yet as usage grows, a familiar pattern is resurfacing: intermediaries are making a comeback. Not in the familiar guise of correspondent banks or card networks, but through closed ecosystems, proprietary wallets and controlled infrastructure that essentially recreate the same bottlenecks crypto originally set out to eliminate.
With forecasts suggesting that global stablecoin issuance could reach $1.9 trillion to $4 trillion by 2030, the key question isn’t whether stablecoins will grow, but whether the infrastructure built around them remains open and interoperable.
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Intermediaries Take New Forms
Payments systems tend to draw intermediaries back in.
When money crosses borders, currencies, compliance rules and institutional boundaries, complexity inevitably arises. If that complexity isn’t absorbed publicly and openly, private actors will encapsulate it inside gated systems – and charge rent.
That is already happening as stablecoins expand beyond crypto-native use cases into mainstream payments. Many parts of the ecosystem are being rebuilt as closed networks, which may seem like innovation in the short term but they come with a hidden cost, which is lock-in.
If stablecoins only work easily within one wallet, one issuer and one network, then they don’t become truly open money. Instead, they become another set of fragmented payment systems – still faster and programmable, but ultimately gated.
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The Real Friction is Usability
On the settlement layer, stablecoins already function as designed: they move value instantly, globally and around the clock. The theoretical problem has been solved.
But in real payment environments, most of the friction has simply moved “up the stack.”
For businesses and users to make stablecoin payments that look and feel like traditional money,
they must access stablecoins compliantly,
store them securely,
navigate multiple networks and
convert into the recipient’s desired currency
all while enjoying a smooth, predictable experience.
In practice, this often results in a patchwork user experience: fragmented providers, inconsistent compliance, wallet challenges, chain incompatibilities and lingering uncertainty about dispute resolution.
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What True “Open Money” Must Look Like
If stablecoins are truly headed toward multitrillion-dollar scale, they can’t rely on bespoke integrations and closed networks. Instead, they need an infrastructure model more like the early internet:
open
interoperable and
modular.
This means not picking a single winning chain or issuer, but building layers that let institutions plug into regulated fiat access, wallets, routing, compliance and settlement without being locked into one ecosystem. Users shouldn’t need to worry about bridging, swapping or gas fees – the system should handle routing automatically and deliver value in the form the recipient prefers.
That’s what it looks like for stablecoins to function as open protocols, not closed financial networks. Openness isn’t just ideological, it’s essential to prevent old bottlenecks from reappearing at scale.
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Imagine
Imagine a company in São Paulo paying a designer in Lagos. Today, that payment might pass through several banks, take days, incur unpredictable fees, and arrive late or short of the intended amount.
With stablecoins, most of that friction disappears: value can be sent instantly and received in seconds. But if the payment only works within a closed ecosystem requiring the designer to manage wallets, conversions and routing, then complexity hasn’t disappeared, it has simply shifted to a new set of intermediaries. The rails changed, but the dependency remains.
This problem isn’t solved by stablecoins alone. It’s solved when the surrounding infrastructure makes the experience regulated, simple and interoperable.
If stablecoins become a core part of mainstream finance, they shouldn’t be powered by ecosystems that replicate the old closed networks. Instead, they must move value, including local-currency stablecoins, across borders and systems with the reliability users expect from existing payment methods.
That’s the only way stablecoins can broaden access without simply creating new gatekeepers.
One path leads to stablecoins scaling within closed stacks, effectively rebranding today’s intermediaries for the crypto era.
The other leads to stablecoins as open, interoperable money – usable across blockchains, jurisdictions and wallets, automatically routed and connected to regulated fiat systems.
Stablecoins don’t have to reinvent intermediaries. But unless the industry prioritizes openness in the infrastructure layer, that’s exactly what will happen.
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