Original Author: Lawyer Shao Jiadin
This article discusses global trends in crypto payments and stablecoin settlement, with a primary focus on observing entities such as Visa and other overseas payment institutions, overseas stablecoin payment infrastructure, and relevant international regulatory frameworks. The terms "crypto payments," "stablecoin payments and receipts," "U Cards," etc., mentioned herein, are not targeted at the Chinese mainland market and do not constitute advice for Chinese mainland residents to participate in virtual currency transactions, payments, investments, or related activities. The Chinese mainland has clear regulatory requirements for virtual currency-related businesses. Relevant institutions and individuals should strictly comply with current laws, regulations, and supervisory policies.
Visa recently added more fuel to the crypto payments industry. On April 29, 2026, Visa announced the continued expansion of its global stablecoin settlement pilot, adding 5 new blockchain networks. This brings the total number of blockchains supported in its stablecoin settlement pilot to 9. Concurrently, Visa disclosed that the annualized stablecoin settlement volume for this pilot has reached $70 billion, representing a 50% increase compared to the previous quarter.
The image above is from the VISA official website.
If you view this news simply as "Visa is also doing stablecoins," you're missing the depth. Visa didn't just start experimenting with stablecoin payments now. It has long been conducting pilots around USDC, issuers, acquirers, and on-chain settlement. As early as January this year, Reuters reported that Visa was integrating stablecoins into its existing payment systems and had initiated a pilot in the US allowing some banks to use USDC to settle with Visa. At that time, the disclosed annualized stablecoin settlement volume was approximately $4.5 billion.
Therefore, what's truly noteworthy this time is not that Visa "suddenly embraced stablecoins," but rather that it is persistently increasing its investment, and this investment is not focused on front-end hype but on the more foundational settlement layer of the payment network. This indicates that crypto payments are evolving from being a product story within the Web3 circle into a direction for infrastructure that traditional payment giants are seriously investing in.
In today's market where many Web3 narratives are no longer captivating, this shift is ironically more worthy of a serious look from entrepreneurs and investors.
Visa Continues to Double Down, Stablecoin Settlement Is No Longer Just an Experiment
Many Web3 news stories generate buzz for a few days and then fade away. A strategic partnership today, an ecosystem partner tomorrow, a technical integration the day after. They all sound significant, but when it comes to actual business operations, nothing may have happened.
This Visa news is different. Because it's not a one-off PR piece, but a continuation of an ongoing effort. The new blockchains Visa added support for include Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon, and Tempo. Combined with the previously supported Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana, and Stellar, this forms a stablecoin settlement pilot network across 9 chains.
The signal behind this is clear: Visa is not betting on a single chain, nor is it conducting a one-time experiment. It is building a multi-chain settlement network. More crucially, the scenario Visa emphasizes this time is not "users spending stablecoins," but issuer/acquirer settlement—the settlement arrangements between card issuers, acquirers, and the Visa network. This is particularly interesting. Front-end payments are often easily packaged as marketing stories, but back-end settlement is difficult to sustain on concepts alone. Questions like cost reduction, efficiency improvement, transaction transparency, risk management, and acceptance by financial institutions are unavoidable.
If stablecoins remain solely within exchanges, they are just liquidity tools for the crypto asset market. But when stablecoins enter the settlement layer of payment networks, they begin to transform into financial infrastructure. This is the most noteworthy aspect of Visa's latest move. It's not about revisiting the question "Can stablecoins be used for payments?" but rather a mainstream payment network answering in its own way: stablecoins can become a complementary settlement tool for traditional payment systems. This answer carries more weight than any self-promotion from Web3 projects.
Many Web3 Stories Are Hard to Tell, But Payments Still Hold Up
There is a noticeable change in the Web3 industry today: many stories are hard to tell. Layer-1 chains are too competitive, DeFi is too old, NFTs are too cold, GameFi is too abstract, and AI + Crypto often feels like conceptual stitching. The era where a grand narrative, a polished whitepaper, or an ecosystem fund alone could sustain market expectations is at least not as easy as it once was.
But payments are different. Payments are not a story; payments are cash flows.
A foreign trade company needing to receive payments from overseas clients—that's not a narrative.
A Web3 company paying its global employees—that's not a narrative.
An exchange managing local on-ramps and off-ramps—that's not a narrative.
An RWA project handling investor subscriptions and redemptions—that's not a narrative.
A wallet connecting users' stablecoin balances to real consumption scenarios—that's not a narrative either.
These are all real business needs that occur daily.
This is also why crypto payments are actually more worth watching today. They may not be the sexiest, but they are closest to money; they may not be the easiest to weave myths around, but they are the easiest to generate revenue from; they may not excite the market overnight, but they can attract daily use from customers.
The challenge for many Web3 projects is: Why must users use you?
But the logic of payment business is more direct: as long as you can make money move faster, cheaper, more stably, and more accessibly, there is business value. This value doesn't require much imagination.
Issues like high cross-border payment costs, slow arrival times, lengthy banking chains, weekend and holiday uncertainties, account freezing risks, and insufficient financial infrastructure in emerging markets have always existed. Stablecoins are not a panacea, but they do provide a new path for value transfer.
Therefore, Visa continuing to invest in stablecoin settlement is not an isolated event. It simply makes a prevailing trend more evident: stablecoin payments are transitioning from "crypto circle tools" to "payment infrastructure."
Why Crypto Payments Remain One of the Few Directions Still Worth Investing In
Crypto payments are worth pursuing not because they are new, but because they are practical. This statement might sound underwhelming, but it's important.
Many Web3 startups today are still searching for "the next narrative," but payments don't need to be invented as a new narrative. Business receipts, user payments, merchant settlement, platform profit sharing, cross-border remittances, stablecoin on-ramps/off-ramps, RWA subscription/redemption—these scenarios already exist. Crypto payments simply recombine stablecoins, wallets, on-chain transfers, fiat channels, payment networks, and compliance systems to make cash flows operate in a new way.
This sector has at least three reasons that warrant continued investment.
The first reason is that demand is sufficiently real.
Regardless of market bull or bear cycles, businesses need to receive, pay, and settle funds. Especially in cross-border scenarios, the traditional banking system isn't always cheap, fast, stable, or friendly. For SMEs, cross-border e-commerce sellers, Web3 teams, freelancers, overseas service providers, and users in emerging markets, stablecoin payments are no longer an abstract concept but a tangible alternative.
The second reason is that stablecoins have effectively formed a de facto on-chain dollar network.
Stablecoins like USDT and USDC have long ceased to be mere pricing tools within exchanges. They are becoming the dollar liquidity tool for many on-chain applications, cross-border transactions, capital flows in emerging markets, and Web3 corporate operations. As long as stablecoins continue to be used, there will be demand for related services around their payment, exchange, custody, settlement, risk control, and compliance.
The third reason is that the entry of giants won't eliminate entrepreneurial opportunities; instead, it will mature the market.
Institutions like Visa, Mastercard, Circle, and Stripe are more adept at building underlying networks, establishing clearing standards, serving large institutional clients, and forming global partnerships. However, for specific countries, industries, clients, and scenarios, numerous mid-layer and application-layer service providers are still needed.
Some will work on U Cards, some on merchant acquiring, some on corporate wallets, some on OTC channels, some on stablecoin on-ramps/off-ramps, some on cross-border B2B payments, some on RWA subscription/redemption, some on on-chain payroll, some on payment APIs, some on stablecoin clearing networks.
These directions may seem different, but at their core, they all revolve around one question: how to enable stablecoins to complete receipt, payment, exchange, and settlement in the real business world.
The future of the crypto payments industry likely won't be winner-takes-all but rather a multi-layered structure: the bottom layer consists of stablecoin issuers, blockchains, and clearing networks; the middle layer comprises licensed payment institutions, issuers, acquirers, and liquidity providers; the top layer includes wallets, merchants, enterprise clients, industry-specific scenarios, and user interfaces.
Startups don't necessarily need to operate at the very bottom layer but can go deep within a specific region, customer type, or scenario. For example, specializing in stablecoin payment services for cross-border e-commerce sellers; payroll and expense reimbursement for Web3 companies; subscription and redemption services for RWA projects; wallet on-ramp/off-ramp services for exchanges; stablecoin settlement for foreign trade enterprises; or stablecoin-to-fiat liquidity management for high-net-worth clients.
These are not purely narrative-driven businesses. As long as they solve real client cash flow problems, there is room for charging fees. In this current phase where the overall Web3 industry narrative is cooling down, crypto payments have ironically become one of the few directions with increasing certainty due to real demand, investment from giants, and regulatory co-option. Hype may fade, but cash flows won't disappear.
The More Promising the Sector, the Less Room for Unregulated Approaches
However, crypto payments is not a sector that can be sustained long-term through unregulated approaches. The reason is simple: it deals with money. Once you touch money, you inevitably touch regulation.
Even within "stablecoin payments," some models might constitute only technical services, while others may already fall under virtual asset services, money transmission, currency exchange, merchant acquiring, or even trigger regulations for stored value facilities, e-money, or payment institutions.
The most typical example is U Cards. Many assume U Cards are just "users top up with U, then swipe to spend." But when broken down, numerous questions arise: Who issues the card? Who holds the user's stablecoins? Who completes the stablecoin exchange? What exactly is the nature of the user's balance? What does the merchant receive? Who bears refunds and chargebacks? Who is responsible for KYC? Which country's users cannot be served? Can the app be listed in local stores?
The same applies to merchant stablecoin receipt. If a platform merely provides a plugin, the risk is relatively limited. But if the platform helps merchants receive stablecoins, aggregate funds, exchange them for local fiat currency, and then transfer to the merchant, it's no longer simple technical service. It may simultaneously involve custody, exchange, payment settlement, and merchant acquiring.
Therefore, the increasing certainty of crypto payments does not mean lower barriers to entry.
On the contrary, the more established the sector, the more serious regulation becomes; the more giants participate, the harder it is for unregulated approaches to survive.
If you genuinely want to enter this sector, you can't just focus on products and channels. You must first clarify the business structure: Are you operating a wallet, an exchange service, a remittance service, an acquirer, an issuer, a clearinghouse, a custodian, or a technical service? Which part of the cash flow do you control? Which entity contracts with users? Which partners bear the licensed obligations? Which countries can you serve, and which must you block? How should user agreements, risk disclosures, AML policies, and on-chain risk controls be embedded into the business process? These are not formalities; they are part of the business model.
When engaging in crypto payments today, the biggest fear isn't lack of opportunity. The biggest fear is seeing the opportunity, building the product, only to realize you've been operating the business under a flawed structure from day one. Visa's moves indicate the road for stablecoin payments is widening. But a wider road doesn't mean you can drive with your eyes closed.
