Visa CPO: After the GENIUS Act, How Far Are Stablecoins from the Next-Generation Payment Infrastructure?
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Visa CPO: After the GENIUS Act, How Far Are Stablecoins from the Next-Generation Payment Infrastructure?
To make stablecoins a truly mainstream payment method, it is essential to build a universally accessible interface layer that actively engages and attracts users.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Jack Forestell
Compiled & Translated: TechFlow
Last week, the Senate passed the "Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act," or GENIUS Act—a significant step forward in stablecoin regulation in the United States. At Visa, we support this legislation and believe it could mark a pivotal moment in the history of the payments industry. However, I say “could” because many challenges remain before stablecoins can achieve widespread adoption. While stablecoins bring promise for a new era of programmable digital money, they are still far from maturity.
Driving the adoption of new payment technologies is no easy task. It requires building trust globally between buyers and sellers, payers and recipients. And that trust doesn’t emerge overnight—it depends on a complex, tightly integrated set of capabilities, including security, reliability, transaction assurance, fraud prevention, dispute resolution, ease of use, and continuous technological innovation.
For stablecoins to become foundational infrastructure for next-generation global digital payments, three key conditions must be met:
Layer One: Technical Foundation
A robust, scalable, flexible, and open technical architecture is required—one capable of securely processing transactions at extremely high speed and scale, with zero failures, vulnerabilities, or security risks. In recent years, rapid advancements in blockchain technology have provided viable solutions to meet this need.
Layer Two: Reserve Backing
The core of any stablecoin lies in the credibility of its value and stability. Stablecoins backed by reserves and approved by regulators offer a reliable answer to this challenge.
Layer Three: Interface Layer
To truly go mainstream as a payment method, stablecoins must be supported by a universally accessible and user-engaging interface layer.
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This layer must deliver trust, rules, standards, security, and tangible value to both parties in every transaction.
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It must be scalable enough to serve billions of users worldwide.
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It must also provide users with simple, seamless ways to convert digital assets into their preferred fiat currency—ensuring that value earned can be easily used wherever needed.
However, stablecoin infrastructure alone cannot fully address this critical challenge. Without a strong interface layer, stablecoins will struggle to become mainstream payment tools. They may find utility in niche applications—solving limited payment issues, supporting closed-loop systems, or serving as backend infrastructure for wholesale funding and capital markets—but they’re unlikely to achieve broad-scale adoption in mainstream payments.
Visa is working to bridge this gap. As a leader in global payments, Visa has built the world’s most extensive, secure, and trusted interface layer. Over the years, we’ve invested billions of dollars refining this layer to accommodate diverse payment forms and enable effortless integration into the Visa ecosystem. By combining our infrastructure, services, and connectivity, we deliver seamless, secure digital payment experiences to billions of buyers and sellers worldwide. This unique combination is known as the “Visa as a Service” (VaaS) stack. Whether it's small merchants or large banks and enterprises, when organizations seek to scale their payment solutions, the Visa stack is often their go-to choice—and the same holds true for partners in the cryptocurrency space. In recent years, we've partnered with leading crypto and stablecoin platforms, enabling them to access the Visa stack and achieve payment hyper-scalability. Since 2020, we’ve facilitated nearly $95 billion in cryptocurrency purchases and over $25 billion in cryptocurrency spending—more than $120 billion in total transaction volume.
Many people ask: “What problem are stablecoins actually solving?” That’s an excellent question. For consumers and businesses around the world, using one of Visa’s 4.8 billion physical cards or nearly 14 billion digital Visa Tokens is already their preferred, convenient, and trusted way to pay and get paid. The Visa payment system delivers an exceptional experience, and we continue investing to make it the most advanced, secure, and user-friendly option available. Visa users don’t have to worry about:
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Will the merchant accept my payment?
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Do I need a special wallet?
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Do I have the right currency in my wallet? Am I on the correct blockchain?
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What is the gas fee for this transaction?
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Is my privacy protected? Can someone view my transaction history or address without permission?
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Will I earn points or rewards?
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How do I access my credit line?
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If something goes wrong, who can I contact?
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Is this transaction secure?
Through the Visa network, these concerns simply don’t exist for users—that’s the core value we deliver globally.
The vast majority of consumers and businesses will continue to prefer paying in fiat currency and enjoy the convenience of the Visa system. But for stablecoin-based payment solutions, as long as they connect to the Visa network, they too can offer users this same seamless experience.
So what problems *can* stablecoins solve? In specific contexts—particularly in emerging markets—stablecoins show meaningful potential, such as:
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Situations where users want to hold U.S. dollars but lack easy access
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Regions where local currencies are highly volatile, causing economic instability
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Certain cross-border fund flow needs, such as international remittances or business-to-business (B2B) payments
These use cases represent new growth opportunities for Visa, as they involve flows of money we haven’t yet fully served. In these areas, we plan to collaborate with stablecoin platforms, partners, and financial institutions worldwide—leveraging the strength of the Visa network to deliver innovative solutions.
However, in developed markets like the U.S., it’s less certain whether consumers and businesses will adopt stablecoin payments. This is because such markets already offer abundant payment options—such as direct “digital dollar” transfers via bank accounts—that are equally convenient and competitive.
The passage of the GENIUS Act provides a clear regulatory framework for stablecoins, opening the door for broader adoption. Visa is already actively advancing in multiple directions within the stablecoin space, including:
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Deploying Visa Certify and Visa Token services to connect stablecoin platforms and their users to fiat currency and the global Visa payment network;
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Offering native settlement services for stablecoins to make transactions more efficient;
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Developing cross-border payment solutions based on stablecoin technology to simplify international transactions;
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Providing customers with programmable money solutions to explore new payment possibilities;
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And numerous other innovative features currently in development.
Of course, achieving full-scale application of stablecoins in payments will take time—this is just the beginning.
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