Author: Shier Han | Founder of PengoPay
Over the past six months, our team has conducted in-depth research into the stablecoin payments landscape — from offline retail and cross-border commerce to B2B settlements. Through this exploration, we reached a clear conclusion:
B2B payments represent the most promising entry point for stablecoins today.
Based on this insight, we plan to launch a B2B-focused stablecoin payment solution in February 2026, designed to help businesses receive stablecoin payments more efficiently and at significantly lower cost.
Throughout this market exploration, several key insights have become increasingly clear.
I. Industry Context: The Trillion-Dollar Future of Stablecoins
Market consensus is forming rapidly: USD-denominated stablecoins are on a long-term growth trajectory, with total market capitalization expected to surpass one trillion dollars within the next three to five years.
This growth is not driven solely by demand within the crypto ecosystem. More importantly, it reflects traditional finance’s need for faster, more efficient settlement mechanisms. Cross-border trade, inter-company settlements, and supply-chain finance are emerging as the next frontier for stablecoin adoption.
II. Licensing and Compliance: The Conflict Between Cost and Reality
One uncomfortable reality defines today’s stablecoin payment landscape:
there is no regulatory license designed specifically for stablecoin payments.
When licenses do exist, regulators often force stablecoin businesses into traditional payment or money-service frameworks. Once custody of funds is involved, the regulatory bar rises dramatically — often to the level required of centralized crypto exchanges — with extremely high compliance and operational costs.
This regulatory lag creates a fundamental contradiction:
innovators in stablecoin payments must either shoulder disproportionate compliance costs or operate uncomfortably close to regulatory gray areas.
III. The “High-Risk, Low-Return” Trap of Full Custody
Many early stablecoin payment products adopted fully custodial wallet models, but this approach hides serious structural risks.
A custodial solution demands exchange-level security, compliance teams, risk controls, and insurance coverage. Without these, the system becomes highly vulnerable to hacks, internal misuse, or operational failures.
More critically, the return on investment is fundamentally misaligned. A stablecoin payment platform may process an entire year’s transaction volume that still falls short of a mid-sized exchange’s single day of trading — yet it must bear nearly identical compliance and risk costs.
This “small engine pulling a heavy load” model is simply not sustainable.
IV. The Real Winners: The Ones Selling the Shovels
In every gold rush, the most durable businesses are often not the miners, but those selling tools.
In the stablecoin payment wave, we see similar dynamics. Infrastructure and service providers often have stronger long-term positioning than front-facing payment products, including:
Wallet infrastructure providers
KYT / AML risk-monitoring services
KYC / KYB identity verification providers
Fiat off-ramp and settlement institutions
These “shovel sellers” serve the entire ecosystem, face more diversified risk, benefit from higher standardization, and are far easier to scale sustainably.
V. Three Clear Dead Ends
Based on market observation, several strategies stand out as high-probability failure paths:
- Spending Heavily to Chase Licenses
Unless backed by a major financial institution, startups that invest heavily in acquiring and maintaining comprehensive financial licenses often exhaust their resources before achieving real product-market validation.
- Fully Custodial Fund Management
Custody means assuming exchange-level risk while earning payment-level margins. Once a security breach or internal control failure occurs, trust evaporates instantly — often beyond recovery.
- Personally Building Fiat On- and Off-Ramps
Establishing reliable fiat channels requires deep institutional relationships. Loosening KYC or AML standards for growth is nothing more than short-term survival at the cost of long-term collapse, inevitably inviting regulatory backlash.
VI. A War of Endurance: Enter Early, Stay Alive
The stablecoin payment sector holds enormous long-term promise — but far fewer things are feasible today than many imagine.
This is a war of endurance. Success depends not on speed, but on patience, rhythm, and survival intelligence.
We believe the key is simple:
Enter the field — and make sure you can stay in the field.
That requires:
Choosing a light-asset, scalable business model
Partnering with professional compliance and infrastructure providers instead of rebuilding everything internally
Focusing relentlessly on core value rather than “do-everything” solutions
Remaining flexible and ready to adjust direction as the market evolves
Our Approach
The B2B stablecoin payment product we are about to launch is a direct result of these beliefs.
We do not custody user funds
By avoiding custody, we eliminate the need for complex, exchange-level compliance structures
We do not operate fiat on- or off-ramps ourselves
Instead, we focus on solving the real problem: helping businesses accept stablecoin payments efficiently and safely, in partnership with licensed, professional service providers
Final Thoughts
The future of stablecoin payments is bright — but the road forward is uneven and unforgiving.
In emerging markets like this, restraint matters more than ambition, and survival matters more than expansion.
We choose to enter with cautious optimism and a long-term mindset. As long as we remain in the game, we believe we will be there when the industry matures and real value is unlocked.
The transformation of borderless payments has already begun.
And we are on the road.
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