What Airwallex's founders got wrong about stablecoins
First, the conclusion: On G10 currency corridors like USD-EUR, Airwallex’s “instant settlement plus 0.01% fee” offering is nearly flawless. But the financial world isn’t limited to just this one highway. Stripe's acquisition of Bridge, Visa integrating stablecoin settlements into its network, and Circle’s explosive NYSE IPO—all signal a much larger transformation taking shape: Whoever unlocks the "last mile" of money movement will have the chance to redefine the next-generation payment infrastructure.
1. The "0.01% + Instant" Halo Only Covers 15% of the Market
Jack Zhang recently posted a series of long threads on X with a straightforward thesis:
Pricing—Airwallex has slashed USD→EUR fees down to 0.01%;
Speed—Funds settle in real time; even blockchain transfers aren't necessarily faster;
Practicality—Stablecoin on/off ramps remain expensive and heavily regulated, with no breakthrough use cases after 15 years.
If we limit the stage to London ↔ New York ↔ Frankfurt, his claims hold water. But here’s the catch—85% of global cross-border flows don’t travel along these G10 highways.
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To a freelancer in Argentina, banks still mean 3-day waits and minimum 3% fees;
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A merchant in Kenya supplying goods to Nigeria must navigate two layers of correspondent banking “mountain roads”;
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A Turkish importer trying to send a deposit Friday evening faces a weekend banking blackout—no action possible until Monday.
In these overlooked corners ignored by “mainstream” finance, stablecoins have tripled in volume over the past six months—growing like wildfire.
2. Three Trends Explain Why Stablecoins Are Taking Off Now
1. The Latin America Curve: Dollar Shortages Drive On-Chain Dollars
In 2021, stablecoins in Latin America totaled just $20 billion. By 2024, that had surged to $68 billion—and reached $75 billion by mid-2025. High inflation, scarce USD access, and weekend banking outages have pushed people onto blockchains—not to save 0.01%, but because they need funds right now.
2. The Tech Giant Adoption Curve: Keep Money Inside the Network
Stripe acquired Bridge for $1.1 billion, and Visa immediately rolled out its stablecoin rails across Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia. What these giants care about isn’t FX spreads—it’s the expansion premium from keeping money within their ecosystems. Once funds no longer need to touch a bank account, payment platforms can evolve into custodians, wealth hubs, and credit gateways all at once.
3. The Wall Street Valuation Curve: Circle Prints Money via Yield
Last year, Circle earned $780 million purely from interest on USDC reserves. Its stock more than doubled in the first three days post-IPO. Wall Street is betting on the “on-chain dollar + Treasury yield spread” as a cash-printing machine—and on an already-realized network effect: Every new business accepting USDC reduces off-ramp demand and silences fee debates.
3. Beyond “Cheap” and “Fast”: The Hidden Costs Nobody Talks About
Most people obsess over fee tables, ignoring the real profit killers buried in back-end operations: T+2 liquidity delays, Nostro account pre-funding, and redundant KYC checks. These are the black holes eating into cross-border margins.
When these frictions get compressed into code logic, a 0.01% fee advantage quickly becomes irrelevant.
4. Three Real-World Scenarios Where Stablecoins Already Beat Banks
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USD→ARS Payroll
Banks impose FX controls and weekend freezes—transfers wait until Monday. With a USDC wallet, funds arrive in 5 minutes, and total effective fees hover around 1%. Employers save, employees accept—everyone wins. -
KES↔NGN Small Business Payments
No direct clearing exists between Kenya and Nigeria. On-chain P2P runs 24/7 with fees of just 1–2%. -
Weekend Global Liquidity Management
Banks go dark after Friday close, freezing capital. Finance teams can now instantly sweep idle cash into yield-bearing assets (e.g., BUIDL) earning ~4% APY, then redeploy it Monday morning for payroll.
These use cases may not look flashy, but they sit precisely where profit margins are fattest and traditional banking support is weakest—the long tail of unmet needs.
5. How the Flywheel Accelerates Before 2026
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Bank-Issued Stablecoins: After MiCA takes effect, at least ten European regional banks will follow Société Générale’s lead and launch EUR-denominated stablecoins.
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Super App Gateways: Platforms like Grab and MercadoPago are already testing USDC wallets in gray markets. Once enabled by default, tens of millions of users will instantly enter the on-chain economy.
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On-Chain Closed Loops: When merchants receive, supply chains pay, employees get paid, and savings earn interest—all within the same network—off-ramp fees naturally approach zero.
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Corporate Treasury Migration: Deloitte predicts that by 2027, 10% of Fortune 500 companies will park idle cash in yield-generating stablecoin accounts, draining a significant portion of traditional bank current accounts.
At that point, arguing over 0.01% fees on G10 corridors will be like telecom giants in 2010 cutting long-distance rates by one cent, while WhatsApp gains a million users a day with free voice calls.
6. The Final Message From Circle’s IPO
Circle delivered a clear message to the market: A clean yield statement and rapidly expanding network effects show that "cheap remittance" was only the prologue—rewriting the financial infrastructure is the main event.
Airwallex has optimized the G10 corridor almost perfectly—making it champion of a 15% slice of the world. But the remaining 85% is shifting to a new track, under a new scoring system.
The next phase? Money will move like email. And when that happens, who will care whether the postage costs one cent or one-tenth?
Watch the landscape shift—don’t tie your hands at the starting line.
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