Stablecoins are becoming a distribution business before they have conclusively become a profitable payments business.
And if stablecoins are a distribution business, then a new player might be trying to corner the market. Samsung last month gave stablecoins something the cryptocurrency industry has spent years trying to build: a direct route to over 80 million consumers.
More news broke Thursday (Nov. 5), however, about the number of involved companies standing between the customer and the money in the new digital-dollar wallet may be how many companies stand between the customer and the money inside Samsung Wallet’s new Stablecoin Account. Samsung controls the interface. Stripe handles stablecoin purchases. Coinbase provides custody infrastructure, while Circle issues the digital dollars.
Each party has a commercial interest in the transaction. None controls the entire relationship.
Banks and payment providers have a part, too. They help move funds into and out of the conventional financial system. PYMNTS Intelligence has found that 88% of surveyed firms receiving stablecoins convert them immediately into U.S. dollars.
That division of responsibilities is becoming the defining competitive question for stablecoins as regulatory clarity attracts banks, payment networks and technology platforms into the digital asset market.
See also: What the 2026 Midterms Mean for Crypto, Banks and Stablecoin Regulation
Samsung’s 82 Million Devices Are Only a Slice of the Stablecoin Pie
Regulation is making stablecoins more accessible to established financial institutions. Technology companies are making them easier to use, and payment providers are integrating them into existing financial workflows. But access, adoption and profitability remain distinct achievements.
Samsung Wallet supports transfers to compatible digital wallets and eligible bank accounts in more than 60 countries. Samsung is not attempting to become a stablecoin issuer, bank or digital asset custodian. Instead, it is assembling regulated financial services behind an existing consumer interface.
The arrangement offers a preview of what embedded stablecoin payments could become: a financial product that consumers use without necessarily knowing which company issued the underlying currency.
For banks, card networks and stablecoin issuers, the greatest commercial threat may not be losing access to the transaction. It may be participating in every transaction while someone else captures the customer economics.
However, as Circle’s latest earnings suggest, the race for distribution is advancing faster than the economics of stablecoin issuance.
Read more: The Fed and PYMNTS Intelligence Agree: Stablecoins Have a Demand Problem
Circle’s Earnings Expose the Revenue Problem
This week, beyond of the Samsung launch, the Mastercard-powered OKX Card announced availability to eligible customers in most U.S. states and select territories on Monday (Nov. 2), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) set out how community banks can issue stablecoins through subsidiaries, and the Walmart-backed OnePay revealed that it is now letting customers deposit stablecoins straight into their checking accounts.
But Circle’s third-quarter results, released Wednesday (Nov. 4), illustrate why more transaction activity does not necessarily produce proportionately more revenue, and spotlights the economics of the stablecoin story.
USDC on-chain transaction volume increased 49% to $13.9 trillion, while average circulation rose 8% to $73.3 billion. Yet the composition of that growth tells a more complicated story. Reserve income declined 8% to $658 million as lower interest rates offset circulation growth. Of Circle’s $207 million in other revenue, $182 million came from a presale of tokens associated with its Arc blockchain.
Circle also reported $412 million in distribution, transaction and other costs, illustrating the expense of maintaining the ecosystem through which USDC reaches customers.
At the same time, the company’s earnings announcement highlighted Visa’s movement from pilot testing to commercial deployment of stablecoin prefunding for Visa Direct, allowing eligible clients to use USDC to support cross-border payouts.
Still, for stablecoin economics to matter, people and businesses need to be using them.
Data from “The Wallet Effect: How Credit Unions Can Close the Digital Currency Access Gap,” a June Credit Union Tracker from PYMNTS Intelligence and Velera, found a limited grasp on how various digital assets work, with stablecoin awareness falling short for 70% of credit union members.
And in a speech this Thursday, Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack questioned whether regulatory clarity would necessarily translate into greater global demand for digital dollars.
Those implications are in line with research by PYMNTS Intelligence research, which found that 42% of middle market companies were interested in stablecoins, though only 13% had used them.
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