Author: Chris Dixon, founder of a16z Crypto; Translation: Golden Finance xiaozou
The Internet has enabled the free flow and global dissemination of information. But why is it still difficult and costly to transfer money?
The early Internet promised a future where people could publish, create, and trade without permission. Open and neutral protocols such as email and the World Wide Web inspired a surge in creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. But as we developed, we gradually deviated from this track.
Today's global financial system is like a patchwork of corporate networks - centralized, closed, and extractive. Behind every transaction is a complex network of middlemen: sales terminals, payment processors, acquiring banks, issuing banks, local banks, correspondent banks, foreign exchange platforms, card organizations, etc., each of which exploits, exacerbates delays, and imposes rules. These networks impose unnecessary "taxes" on business activities and stifle innovation, turning financial pipelines that should be neutral into high-friction bottlenecks.
Stablecoins, cryptocurrencies that are anchored to stable assets such as the US dollar, are becoming a way out. It is like a system reset, giving the original intention of the Internet back to the monetary system.
1. The disruptive opportunity of stablecoins The current payment system is not born for the Internet, but for the old world full of fee-charging middlemen (once necessary to manage local cooperation, fraud and operations). Even today, international remittance fees are still as high as 10% (the average fee for a $200 remittance in September 2024 is 6.62%). The system we inherited is slow, opaque and exclusive, preventing billions of people from fully enjoying or being completely isolated from the global financial system.
For many companies, the inefficiency of traditional payments is also shocking. Stablecoins can significantly improve the current situation: B2B payments from Mexico to Vietnam take 3-7 days to clear, with fees of $14-150 for every $1,000 transaction, involving up to five middlemen who share the profits. Stablecoins can bypass traditional international networks such as SWIFT and related clearing processes, making such transactions almost free and instant.
This is not just talk - SpaceX has used stablecoins to manage corporate funds (including repatriating funds from countries with volatile local currencies such as Argentina and Nigeria); companies such as ScaleAI are using stablecoins to achieve faster and cheaper salary payments to employees around the world; in the B2C field, Stripe, as the first service provider to widely provide crypto payments, has a settlement fee rate of only 1.5%, which is only half of that of traditional institutions. As Sam Broner, partner of a16 Crypto, showed, for grocery stores with a gross profit margin of only 2%, a 1.5% cost optimization could double net profit. (Transaction fees are expected to be further reduced in a competitive blockchain-driven market.)
Unlike the old financial system that developed in isolation, stablecoins are inherently global. They are based on blockchains—open, programmable networks that allow anyone to participate in their construction, without the need to coordinate dozens of banks across borders, just access the network. The market has voted with its feet: stablecoin settlement volume reached $15.6 trillion in 2024, on par with Visa. Although it mainly reflects the flow of funds (not retail payments), its scale shows that we are at the tipping point of a transformation of financial infrastructure—this time it will no longer rely on tinkering with the 20th century system.
We will build a new system that is truly Internet-native, like Stripe’s metaphorical "room temperature superconductor for financial services"—not the lossless transmission of energy, but the lossless transmission of value.
2. The "WhatsApp Moment" of Money For the first time, stablecoins allow money to flow openly, instantly, and without borders, just like email.
Look back at the evolution of SMS services: before WhatsApp, international SMS messages cost $0.30 per message and had poor delivery rates. Internet-native messaging apps made SMS delivery instant, global, and free. Today’s payment system is like the telecommunications industry in 2008: divided by national borders, weighed down by middlemen, and with artificial barriers to entry.
Stablecoins offer a radical alternative: no need to piece together cumbersome, expensive, outdated systems, but rather flow seamlessly on a global blockchain. These systems are programmable, composable, and designed for cross-border expansion. Stablecoins have significantly reduced the cost of remittances: sending $200 from the United States to Colombia costs $12.13 in traditional methods, but only $0.01 in stablecoins. (The handling fee for converting stablecoins to local currencies is as high as 5% and as low as 0%, and is continuing to decline due to competition)
Just as WhatsApp has disrupted expensive international calls, blockchain payments and stablecoins are reshaping global money transfers.
3. Regulation: From bottleneck to breakthrough Although often seen as an obstacle, wise legislation is the key to unlocking it.
A clear regulatory framework for stablecoins and crypto market structure will eventually push the technology out of the sandbox and towards large-scale application. For many years, DeFi has been trapped in the "crypto-internal circulation" economy, not because the tools are useless, but because regulation makes it difficult to open up traditional financial channels.
The turning point has appeared: policymakers are actively formulating rules to strike a balance between maintaining US competitiveness, protecting consumers and promoting innovation. For example, the framework that distinguishes between network tokens and security tokens can both prevent bad behavior and provide clear guidance for builders. The upcoming regulatory bill may pave the way for wider adoption (Congress is finalizing the details at the time of writing this article).
4. Build inclusive public products Traditional finance is built on private closed networks, and the Internet has shown us the power of open protocols such as TCP/IP to drive global collaboration and innovation.
Blockchains are the internet’s native financial layer, combining the composability of public protocols with the economic vitality of private enterprises. They are trusted, neutral, auditable, and programmable. When combined with stablecoins, we have an unprecedented open monetary infrastructure for the first time.
It’s like a highway system: private companies can still build cars, do business, and build facilities along the way, but the roads themselves remain neutral and open.
Blockchains and stablecoins not only reduce costs, but also give rise to new software paradigms: • Programmable payments across machines: Imagine AI agents automatically matching transactions of resources such as computing power. • Micropayments for content creation: After setting rules, smart wallets automatically distribute rewards for music, media, and AI contributions. • Fully audited and transparent payments: a government spending tracking system. • Global trade without intermediaries: international settlements are completed instantly at almost zero cost (already achieved).
Technology, market demand and political will are converging to bring blockchain and stablecoins to an explosive moment: the stablecoin bill may be voted on this year, and regulators are evaluating the risk matching framework. Just as early Internet startups prospered after it was clear that they would not be blocked by telecom giants or copyright lawyers, the encryption industry is about to cross the chasm - from financial experiments to infrastructure pillars, and stablecoins are leading this change.
We don't have to patch the old system. We can create a better new world.
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