Author: Gu Yu, ChainCatcher
On June 26, Metal, a tokenized financial settlement network, announced the completion of its seed round funding, led by cross-border payment giant Airwallex and its affiliated fund, Capital49.
This investment drew attention not only because Airwallex is a significant fintech company in the global cross-border payment sector but also because its founder, Jack Zhang, was one of the most vocal critics of stablecoins just a year ago.
In June of last year, Jack Zhang publicly stated that stablecoins could not reduce remittance costs between major currencies and that cryptocurrencies had not demonstrated clear practical use cases in the past 15 years. In his view, if users ultimately needed to receive euros, pounds, or other fiat currencies in their bank accounts, the cost of converting from stablecoins to local currency might be higher than in the traditional interbank forex market. This sparked intense debate among crypto industry leaders.
The stark contrast between the "detached observation" of a year ago and the "heavy investment and active participation" today precisely reflects the underlying consensus reached by global traditional financial giants in 2026 when faced with Crypto penetration: you can be bearish on speculative narratives, but you cannot refuse the generational revolution in settlement efficiency brought by stablecoins and tokenization networks.
1. What is Metal?
To understand Jack Zhang's change in attitude, one must first understand what Metal aims to do.
According to public information, Metal is a global settlement network and Layer-1 blockchain for tokenized finance, natively supporting AI-agent trading, with built-in identity verification (KYC) and permission authorization systems, offering institutional-grade compliance and privacy.
Its target extends beyond stablecoin payments; it aims to support the tokenized settlement of all financial products like stocks, bonds, and funds, addressing a multi-trillion-dollar institutional trading market.
In terms of the team, Metal co-founder Loong Wang was previously the founder of the well-known cross-chain protocol Ren Protocol, possessing deep technical expertise in distributed systems and on-chain settlement. Another co-founder, Catherine Porter, served as the Global Partnerships Lead for Meta's globally renowned Libra project (later renamed Diem).
Through this investment, Airwallex will introduce tokenized financial products to its payment network, including not only stablecoins but also tokenized bank deposits, money market funds, securities, and a range of other assets.
Airwallex's core capabilities are global accounts, local collections, foreign exchange, corporate payments, and cross-border settlement. If Metal provides the on-chain settlement layer, Airwallex can offer fiat gateways, enterprise clients, compliance interfaces, and global payment scenarios.
Just this month, Airwallex announced the completion of its $320 million Series H funding round, with its valuation soaring to $11 billion. Well-capitalized, it plans to build an AI-native financial operating system.
This is indeed a win-win strategic investment and partnership, common in the business world, but its uniqueness lies in the fact that Airwallex's founder was criticizing cryptocurrencies and stablecoins just a year ago.
2. Jack Zhang Remains Defiant
In June 2025, Jack Zhang posted on platform X, stating, "Investors always ask me about stablecoins and how they can reduce forex fees; but if you are sending money from USD to EUR, and the recipient still requires euros in a bank account, I really don't see how stablecoins can lower costs — the cost of converting from stablecoins to the receiving currency is much higher than the traditional interbank forex market."
"Cryptocurrency is an area I've never been able to understand. Over the past 15 years, I still haven't seen where cryptocurrencies have genuinely helped. Even with stablecoins having lower volatility, I don't see what benefits they bring to B2B transactions, unless for some very niche currency markets, which themselves have very low liquidity," Jack Zhang continued.
This immediately sparked debates among many crypto industry leaders, who continuously promoted the practical application scenarios and value of stablecoins, but Jack Zhang was not persuaded and stuck to his views. At that time, most opinions categorized him as a "defender of the old financial vested interests"—Airwallex's core moat lies in its licenses across countries and global funding pools, and the rise of stablecoins naturally challenges its business model.
Today, Jack Zhang is telling everyone through action that his views on stablecoins are changing. However, facing a flood of ridicule from crypto users, he specifically emphasized that his attitude towards cryptocurrency has not changed, and stablecoins do not belong to cryptocurrency.
"Stablecoins are currencies that tokenize fiat currency onto the blockchain, different from cryptocurrencies; they are backed 1:1 by underlying reserve assets, and are therefore fundamentally different from unsupported crypto tokens," Jack Zhang responded today to the sarcasm from Dragonfly investor Omar Kanji.
Nevertheless, this remains positive news for the stablecoin and crypto payment sectors.
3. Stablecoins and Crypto Payments Are Being Rapidly Embraced by the Mainstream System
Airwallex's investment in Metal is not an isolated case; the traditional financial system has been actively deploying in the stablecoin payment sector over the past year.
Stripe successively acquired Bridge and Privy to complement its stablecoin payment and wallet infrastructure; Mastercard acquired BVNK to enter the stablecoin corporate payment space; large banks like JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo have also reportedly planned to launch tokenization networks to compete with crypto companies on 24/7 settlement. a16z sees these moves as signals that the migration of finance on-chain has passed a tipping point.
Simultaneously, the rhetoric of traditional financial leaders is also changing.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has long been skeptical of crypto, but after JPMorgan launched JPMD, a deposit token for institutional dollar payments, he acknowledged that stablecoins "are real" and stated that JPMorgan must participate to understand their development.
Visa's crypto head, Cuy Sheffield, offers a judgment closer to Jack Zhang's revised stance: stablecoins may not disrupt card networks in domestic US retail payments, but in emerging markets like Latin America, Africa, and Asia-Pacific, stablecoins can provide access to dollars and modern financial tools.
These cases collectively illustrate that stablecoins are being redefined by traditional finance. They are no longer just a dollar substitute on exchanges but a common interface for corporate treasury, cross-border payments, on-chain assets, bank deposits, and dollar liquidity.
For Airwallex, stablecoins are no longer just a theoretical question of "are they useful," but a strategic question of "should we secure a position."
If stablecoins continue to develop, future enterprise clients may need not only traditional multi-currency accounts but also stablecoin accounts; they may need not only local bank collection but also on-chain dollar settlement.
This will change the competitive boundaries for payment companies. In the past, payment companies competed on licenses, local banking networks, forex costs, and API capabilities. In the future, they will also need to compete on stablecoin settlement, on-chain compliance, wallet infrastructure, on-chain liquidity management, and more.
Therefore, Airwallex's investment in Metal is not a sudden "belief in crypto" but rather an advance purchase of an entry ticket to a new playing table. It can continue to question the cost-effectiveness of stablecoins in G10 currency corridors, but it cannot ignore the structural opportunities stablecoins present in emerging markets, corporate finance, and on-chain settlement.
A year ago, Jack Zhang asked: What are stablecoins actually useful for?
A year later, Airwallex's lead investment in Metal provides the answer: At the very least, they are worth investing in; one cannot afford to stand on the sidelines and watch.
