Meeting the stablecoin moment: How programmable money is rewriting the future of risk

Stablecoins are no longer a crypto experiment. They’ve quietly become one of the most powerful forces reshaping how money moves across the globe. In 2025, they hit a tipping point — propelled by new U.S. regulations, enterprise-grade infrastructure, and adoption from major players like Mastercard, Shopify, and Brex.

For risk, compliance, and product leaders, this shift is not theoretical. It’s already here.

Stablecoins by the numbers

If you move money, these numbers should make you pay attention:

• $1.4 trillion — JP Morgan expects stablecoins to generate an additional $1.4 trillion in demand for U.S. dollars by 2027. (Source: Bloomberg)  
• $46 trillion — Stablecoin reached $46 trillion in global transaction volume as of Oct 2025, being outpaced only by ACH (Source: Techloy)
• $15.6 trillion in Q3 alone — According to a research note, on-chain stablecoin transfer volume hit an all-time high of ~$15.6 trillion in Q3 2025, highlighting how rapid the usage is (though much of it may be bot-driven). (Source: Bitcoin & Crypto Trading Blog - CEX.IO)
• Market cap around $232-250 billion — The total stablecoin market capitalization as of mid-2025 stood in the ~$230-250 billion range, up significantly from prior years. (Source: Stablecoin Insider+2NFT Evening+2)

In short: stablecoins have gone mainstream — and they’re accelerating.

Why stablecoins are surging in 2025: regulation and enterprise adoption

Two big shifts unlocked enterprise adoption:

1. Regulatory clarity

The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act (S.1582), passed in July 2025, represents a turning point for digital finance — providing long-awaited regulatory certainty for stablecoin issuers, custodians, and users. For the first time, there’s a federal framework that treats payment stablecoins like legitimate financial instruments rather than experimental crypto assets.

At its core, the GENIUS Act:

• Defines “payment stablecoins” and establishes who is eligible to issue them, setting clear parameters for regulated activity.
• Creates a licensing and reserve regime similar to traditional banking oversight, requiring issuers to maintain high-quality, liquid reserves.
• Subjects issuers to AML, sanctions, and custody requirements, integrating them into the broader financial compliance ecosystem.

In the EU, MiCA introduces a comparable framework to the U.S. GENIUS Act, defining how stablecoins are issued, backed, and supervised.

These provisions signal a clear policy stance: only compliant, well-collateralized stablecoins will qualify for mainstream use. That gives financial institutions, fintechs, and institutional investors the confidence to build real products on top of stablecoin rails. Ultimately, it reduces legal ambiguity and accelerates broader enterprise adoption.

2. Infrastructure that scales

Alongside regulatory clarity, 2025 also delivered production-grade infrastructure for stablecoin payments. The era of experimental pilots and fragmented vendor stacks is ending. Fintechs and financial institutions can now launch, test, and scale stablecoin use cases in weeks — not quarters — thanks to a new wave of infrastructure providers and maturing developer ecosystems.

This shift is driven by key enablers:

• API-based settlement rails that support instant issuance, redemption, and payouts. Companies like Zero Hash provide infrastructure to quickly launch crypto and stablecoin products.
• Integrated custody and compliance tooling that eliminates the need for separate vendors for KYC, KYB, sanctions screening, and blockchain analytics — critical for institutions that need audit-ready processes from day one.
• Programmable settlement layers on networks like Base, Stellar, and Ethereum, which allow developers to embed smart-contract logic for escrow, refunds, or milestone-based payouts directly into payment workflows.

These advancements transform stablecoins from speculative instruments into a reliable payment infrastructure. What once required a small army of vendors and months of compliance review can now be achieved with a handful of API calls — opening the door for fintechs, processors, and financial institutions to pilot real-world, revenue-generating products powered by programmable money.

Why are stablecoins important for financial institutions and fintechs? 

For financial institutions and fintechs alike, stablecoins have evolved from a curiosity into a competitive advantage. As cross-border transactions, digital wallets, and embedded finance platforms expand globally, institutions are realizing that programmable money offers a way to move faster, cheaper, and with more control than legacy payment rails ever allowed.

At a high level, stablecoins unlock three key benefits:

• Always-on settlement: Traditional rails like ACH or SWIFT shut down on weekends and holidays, creating delays and trapped liquidity. Stablecoins enable 24/7, real-time transfers, dramatically improving cash flow management and customer experience.
• Lower transaction costs: By reducing intermediaries in cross-border and marketplace flows, stablecoins can cut operational and FX-related costs, allowing institutions to serve new markets profitably.
• Programmable infrastructure: With smart-contract capabilities, stablecoins support complex use cases — from escrow and milestone-based payouts to instant refunds and automated reconciliation — all within a single settlement layer.

Who’s already moving on stablecoins?

Stablecoins aren’t the future — they’re the present.

Acquirers and processors: Payment processors are using stablecoins to shorten settlement cycles and reduce friction in global flows. Worldpay, for example, now enables merchant settlement directly in USDC, unlocking real-time treasury operations.

E-commerce platforms: Online marketplaces are turning to stablecoins for instant checkout and programmable refunds. Shopify and Coinbase partnered to enable USDC payments on Base, enabling merchants to settle faster and pay lower fees.

Remittance platforms: Cross-border payment providers are rebuilding their infrastructure on stablecoin rails to deliver faster, lower-cost transfers. MoneyGram’s newly launched app lets users seamlessly move cross-border payments using stablecoins.

Corporate finance platforms: Treasury, corporate card, and settlement flows are being reimagined with stablecoins. Brex and Ramp both launched stablecoin-backed corporate cards for cross-border transactions, improving liquidity and reconciliation speed.

Card networks and issuers: Global card issuers are integrating stablecoins into settlement and disbursement flows. Visa and Mastercard are expanding their programs, while Marqeta, Lithic, and Highnote are piloting stablecoin-based global spending and payout solutions.

Brokerages and consumer fintechs: Retail and investment platforms are adding stablecoins to broaden asset access and trading flexibility. Morgan Stanley now supports crypto and stablecoin trading for all clients, and Robinhood launched its USDG stablecoin in the EU.

Institutional custody: Regulated digital-asset custodians are becoming critical to stablecoin issuance and reserve management. Anchorage Digital, the first federally chartered crypto bank, announced the launch of the first GENIUS Act–compliant stablecoin, setting a regulatory precedent.

Banks: Traditional financial institutions are entering the stablecoin ecosystem to expand custody and explore multi-currency models. U.S. Bank now manages reserves for Anchorage’s stablecoin, while several major banks are testing G7 currency–pegged stablecoins for institutional clients.

In short, stablecoins are no longer a crypto side project — they’re becoming core to how modern financial institutions move money. For fintechs, they’re a growth catalyst. For banks and credit unions, they’re an innovation hedge. And for both, they’re a bridge between the world of traditional finance and the emerging digital economy.

What stablecoins mean for risk and compliance leaders at financial institutions and fintechs

Two distinct risk regimes now coexist inside financial institutions:

Off-chain risk: Off-chain risk includes traditional categories, such as KYC/KYB, credit and transaction risk, sanctions screening, and fraud.

On‐chain risk: On-chain risk includes newer categories, such as wallet reputation, smart-contract protocol risk, depeg exposure, bridge/chain risk, mixer proximity, on-chain sanctions, or scam behaviour. 

Most institutions manage these separately — resulting in blind spots, duplicated work, and inconsistent policy enforcement. That’s not sustainable; the Chief Risk Officer of the future needs a unified view.

A Chief Risk Officer’s playbook for programmable money

1. Define your stablecoin scope. Start with one corridor and one product path, for example, USDC settlement for marketplace sellers. Tie policy to use case, not to “crypto” in general.
2. Standardize counterparties and wallets. Require attested wallet ownership, Travel Rule coverage where applicable, and continuous wallet monitoring.
3. Bring on-chain signals into onboarding. Treat wallet telemetry like any other data source at account opening and KYB refresh.
4. Model depeg and protocol risk. Set limits on stablecoin types, chains, and bridges allowed. Stress test treasury and float.
5. Unify case management. Investigations should move seamlessly across on- and off-chain events with a shared audit trail, SLAs, and playbooks.
6. Measure what matters. STP rate, time to settle, chargeback and clawback outcomes, false positive rate, and on-chain escalation rate by corridor.

How Alloy enables stablecoin risk management across the U.S. and global markets

Alloy helps financial institutions orchestrate identity, compliance, and risk across both traditional and on-chain ecosystems.

• Data orchestration: Combine KYC/KYB data, sanctions data, and on-chain intelligence for complete visibility.
• Configurable decisioning: Build policies for stablecoin use, including wallet provenance, chain allow-lists, travel rule integration.
• Unified case management: Investigate on-chain alerts and off-chain alerts in one workspace with shared audit trails.
• Scalable architecture: Expand global payment use-cases without rebuilding risk foundations.

Alloy gives you the single source of truth for identity and risk—wherever your money moves.

The future Chief Risk Officer

The next generation of Chief Risk Officers won’t specialise in “crypto risk” or “traditional risk.” They’ll own both – integrated, measurable, and orchestrated.

CROs who unify on-chain and off-chain signals will define the next decade of growth.