Stablecoins have spent the past year and a half acquiring nearly everything an emerging payments technology is supposed to need to go mainstream. Clearer regulation, check; more institutional backing, check; better infrastructure and growing support from banks, FinTechs and payment providers? Check, check, and check.
The problem? New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, along with existing research from PYMNTS Intelligence, shows that what stablecoins have not been acquiring at the same pace as their infrastructure building is actual corporate demand. The most cited corporate adoption obstacles, per the Fed’s research, were not linked to regulatory uncertainty or lack of access. Companies instead were satisfied with existing payment methods, unsure of the economic benefit of stablecoins and, critically, were not being asked by customers or suppliers to transact differently.
The findings rhyme with months of PYMNTS Intelligence research, which found this spring that 42% of middle market companies had at least discussed, tested or used stablecoins, while just 13% were actually using them. The findings separately illustrate the widening gap between corporate curiosity and production deployment.
But put the two bodies of research together, and five conclusions emerge about what corporate stablecoin adoption will require.
Read also: Stablecoins Are Just Wildcat Banking With Better Wi-Fi
1. Stablecoins Don’t Have a Supply Problem. They Have a Demand Problem.
The GENIUS Act helped address one of the industry’s longstanding problems by establishing a federal framework for stablecoins. But regulation can make an instrument available without making it necessary. That distinction matters.
The Cleveland Fed found only 21 respondents who identified availability through an existing financial services provider as something influencing, or potentially increasing, their interest in stablecoins. More respondents wanted evidence that stablecoins were cheaper or more efficient, more time to watch adoption, or demand from customers. PYMNTS Intelligence data points toward the same divide. Stablecoins are attracting considerably more corporate attention than conventional cryptocurrencies, but discussion and experimentation are running well ahead of actual use.
That changes the industry’s central commercialization problem. Building another wallet, stablecoin or settlement network may increase supply without materially increasing transactions. For CFOs, the question is less whether stablecoins can move money than why they should replace a payment process that already works.
2. Payments Are More Compelling Than Holding
The second point of agreement may be more important for stablecoins’ long-term trajectory. Among the eight Cleveland Fed respondents using or planning to use stablecoins, four cited accepting customer payments and four cited supplier payments. All three that envisioned stablecoins serving a treasury function also intended to use them for payments.
The Fed’s review of corporate disclosures, meanwhile, found virtually no evidence that nonfinancial, noncrypto companies are keeping meaningful stablecoin positions on their balance sheets.
PYMNTS Intelligence has found something strikingly similar from another direction: 88% of firms receiving stablecoins convert them immediately into U.S. dollars.
In that model, the winning stablecoin may eventually become almost invisible.
See more: Why Stablecoins Are a Money Story, Not a Consumer Story
3. Counterparties Matter More Than Crypto Enthusiasm
Payments technologies are unusually dependent on network effects. A company gains little from supporting a new rail if its customers and suppliers have no reason to use it.
That suggests stablecoin adoption may be less about persuading individual CFOs and more about achieving sufficient density within particular commercial corridors. A U.S. manufacturer may have little reason to introduce stablecoins across domestic suppliers already paid efficiently through ACH. The calculus can look different when paying a supplier in a market where correspondent banking is expensive, settlement is slow or dollar access is constrained.
Stablecoins can remain marginal across corporate payments overall while becoming economically important inside specific cross-border corridors, marketplaces or supplier networks. Lloyds Banking Group and Visa, for example, on Wednesday (Sept. 30) completed a seven-day live pilot that tested cross-border settlement using stablecoins.
More here: What Stablecoins Can Learn From the $12 Trillion Repo Market
4. Stablecoins Have to Fit the Finance Stack, Not Replace It
There is another obstacle that enthusiasm about faster settlement can obscure. CFOs do not operate payments in isolation. Transactions flow through enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, treasury management software, bank connectivity, sanctions screening, approval workflows, accounting systems and reconciliation processes. A payment that settles in seconds but creates hours of manual reconciliation is not necessarily an improvement.
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PYMNTS’ reporting on enterprise adoption has repeatedly identified this back-office issue. The challenge is connecting tokenized settlement with ERP, treasury and banking infrastructure without forcing companies to establish parallel financial operations.
The Cleveland Fed survey captures the same problem from the buyer’s perspective. Respondents cited uncertainty about benefits and costs, accounting and tax treatment, employee knowledge and operational complexity as barriers.
That makes integration a competitive issue, not simply a technical one.
PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster has repeatedly highlighted this with Ryan Rugg, global head of digital assets for Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS), on “From the Block,” noting that ERPs serve as “the gating factor for adoption at scale.”
Read more: Nobody Told the ERP That Blockchain Won
5. CFOs Need Economics, Not a Crypto Thesis
Perhaps the clearest overlap between the Fed and PYMNTS research is that corporations are approaching stablecoins as finance departments generally approach infrastructure: show the return. Forty-two Cleveland Fed respondents said more evidence that stablecoins were cheaper or more efficient would increase their interest. Several simply said their current payment methods already worked.
The relevant corporate calculation includes transaction fees, foreign exchange spreads, working-capital effects, implementation costs, compliance overhead, reconciliation expense, liquidity requirements and operational risk. Stablecoins need to improve the total equation.
That is a considerably higher hurdle than demonstrating faster settlement.
And that may explain why cross-border B2B payments remain one of their most credible enterprise entry points. The worse the incumbent economics, the easier the stablecoin business case becomes.
That is a much narrower proposition than “stablecoins will replace payments.” It may also be a much more commercially significant one.
Of course, there’s still lots of work to do. “The Wallet Effect: How Credit Unions Can Close the Digital Currency Access Gap,” a June Credit Union Tracker from PYMNTS Intelligence and Velera, found rising interest in digital currency among younger consumers, and a limited grasp on how various digital assets work, with stablecoin awareness falling short for 70% of credit union members.
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At PYMNTS Intelligence, we work with businesses to uncover insights that fuel intelligent, data-driven discussions on changing customer expectations, a more connected economy and the strategic shifts necessary to achieve outcomes. With rigorous research methodologies and unwavering commitment to objective quality, we offer trusted data to grow your business. As our partner, you’ll have access to our diverse team of PhDs, researchers, data analysts, number crunchers, subject matter veterans and editorial experts.
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