Stablecoins Face Scaling Bottleneck Without Banks, Argues Trace Finance CEO

What happened: In a Decrypt op-ed, Trace Finance CEO Bernardo Brites contends that stablecoins have captured just 0.02% of the $208 trillion global cross-border payments market, with $390 billion in annualized real stablecoin payments and $226 billion in B2B flows (+733% YoY). Brites argues that further scaling is impossible without deep integration with regulated banks, citing recent regulatory moves like the GENIUS Act and FTC warnings to major payment processors. He references Stripe’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Bridge and Citi’s crypto custody launch as evidence of the trend.

Why it matters: The op-ed highlights a growing industry consensus that stablecoin adoption depends on trusted, regulated fiat on/off-ramps—an area where crypto-native firms have struggled. However, Brites’ company directly sells such infrastructure, raising questions about the impartiality of the analysis. Still, the data points to a real bottleneck: despite explosive growth, stablecoins remain a rounding error in global payments, and regulatory scrutiny is intensifying.

Source: Decrypt