VanEck Ventures partner: About 30% of remittances between the United States and Mexico may use stablecoins in the next 3-5 years

Stablecoins have long been a cornerstone of the crypto ecosystem, and their rising utility is attracting new interest from venture capitalists. The main driver of the industry's renewed enthusiasm is Stripe's $1.1 billion acquisition of stablecoin payment platform Bridge, the largest deal in cryptocurrency history. Dan Elitzer, co-founder of crypto venture firm Nascent, said the acquisition "made a lot of people very proud, and it was a major deal that was completed in a relatively short period of time. So, it's very real." VanEck Ventures general partner and former Circle Ventures member Juan Lopez also called the Stripe-Bridge deal "huge validation" and pointed out its ripple effects. Lopez said startups like Yellow Card (an African licensed deposit and withdrawal platform) and Felix Pago (a stablecoin remittance service integrated with WhatsApp) are also gaining momentum because they show the utility of stablecoins beyond cryptocurrency transactions. He predicts that in the next 3-5 years, about 30% of U.S.-Mexico remittances (about $20 billion in total per year) may use stablecoins. Will Nuelle, general partner at Galaxy Ventures, also said that non-crypto use cases for stablecoins will accelerate. Use cases such as trade finance and payment processing have reached $200-250 billion per year and are growing at an annual rate of 100%. He expects this figure to reach an annualized $1 trillion by the end of 2026, accounting for more than 1% of the global cross-border business-to-business (B2B) payment market share. Blockchain Capital general partner Kinjal Shah also called stablecoins a "trillion-dollar opportunity" that will transform payments and fintech. Similarly, Dana Malman Warren, venture capital partner at Canaan Partners and former head of Stripe and PayPal, also emphasized the potential of stablecoins in solving the inefficiency of cross-border payments, where traditional systems are still costly and slow. On the regulatory front, progress is more optimistic. Jake Brukhman, founder, managing partner and CEO of CoinFund, called the European Union's Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation and the proposed stablecoin legislation in the United States key developments. He added that crypto-friendly leadership under Trump could further accelerate progress, making it possible for stablecoins to achieve regulatory clarity in the United States. (The Block)