Payments orchestration for stablecoins is coming.

Co-authored with Johannes Kaske

Stablecoins promise faster global transfers, but often rely on fiat at the start and end of a transaction – known as the 'stablecoin sandwich’.

This use case can shave days off global?settlement times, but involves manually coordinating multiple third parties, meaning it doesn’t scale well.??

Payment providers that can seamlessly orchestrate the perfect payment path on top of stablecoin and fiat rails will unlock new efficiencies.?

Let’s dig in

Stablecoins deliver on speed, but fiat still dominates.

I’ve written in the past about how stablecoins can solve the problem of global payouts: acting as a fast-lane to pay out sellers, creators and gig workers in minutes.

At BVNK we’ve seen the demand firsthand. In the last 9 months, we made 70,000 successful stablecoin payouts to contractors, from Argentina to Germany, through our partnership with a global HR platform.?

By settling directly in stablecoins, we can experience their full efficiency: 24/7 availability, global reach, low cost payments. This I believe, is the direction of travel.

In the future, stablecoins will cannibalize local payment rails, as people choose to receive and keep their funds in stablecoins, rather than convert back to their local currency.?

But in the short to medium term, most stablecoins transactions will need a fiat component.?

Why?

• Network effects: The global economy still runs on fiat, and stablecoins haven't reached critical mass.

• Practicality: While US-dollar backed stablecoins can protect savings from local currency inflation, daily expenses like groceries or utility bills are often still settled in local currencies.

This is where the stablecoin sandwich comes in. Stablecoins accelerate the middle part of a payment journey, but the first and last steps still rely on fiat.

What is the stablecoin sandwich?

Today stablecoins are typically used to fast-track the middle part of a cross-border payment, accelerating settlement between business partners in different countries. The first and last leg of the transaction often takes place in fiat.?

Lets take 3 examples:

Remittance transfers

A worker in the UK sends money to their family in the Philippines.

• The sender pays GBP to a local remittance provider.
• The provider converts GBP to stablecoins and transfers to a local partner in the Philippines.
• The local partner converts stablecoins to Philippine Pesos and pays out via local rails.

Ecommerce marketplace payouts

A US-based buyer purchases from a Hong Kong seller via an ecommerce site.

• The payment is collected in USD by the payment provider of the ecommerce business.??
• The ecommerce business uses a stablecoin payment partner to convert funds to stablecoins and send to a local payment partner in Hong Kong.
• The partner in Hong Kong converts to Hong Kong Dollars and makes the last mile payout via local rails.

Supplier payments?

A business in Germany pays a supplier in Singapore.

• To speed up the transfer, it uses a stablecoin partner to convert Euros to USDC and sends to a local payment partner in Singapore.
• The local partner converts USDC to Singaporean dollars and makes the last mile payout via local rails.??

In all three examples, funds reach their destination several days sooner than they would have done through traditional methods – and the sender and recipient (and often the PSP) don’t ever touch stablecoins. That part is managed by a stablecoin provider in the middle.

This entire flow could also be instant, if we use:?

• A real-time payments rail in the onramp market?
• A high-speed blockchain like Solana.?
• A real time payments rail in the offramp market.?

So far, so good.

But with multiple parties involved in the on and offramps, things can get messy. Managing fiat and stablecoin conversions to complete these payments requires:

• A liquidity partner to convert fiat into stablecoins.
• A local liquidity partner to convert stablecoins back into local fiat currencies.
• A local payment partner to make the final payout.

Coordinating between partners can be time-consuming, manual, and difficult to scale.

The solution: stablecoin payments orchestration.

We’ve seen the rise of orchestration in traditional payments, where platforms manage and coordinate all the different parts of a payment process to make it smooth and efficient.?

With payment orchestration, businesses can integrate all their chosen providers and apply smart routing logic to decide the best path for each transaction to optimize for cost, speed, reliability– or whatever matters most.

Imagine if the 'stablecoin sandwich' could be automated with a single orchestration layer. This could quickly become a true replacement for traditional money movement rails.

In this model, instead of having fintechs, exchanges and PSPs acting as uncoordinated nodes in a network, you have a single orchestration layer, with:??

• Integrated providers: Built-in connections with local banks, crypto liquidity providers, and local offramp partners (eg Bitso in Latin America or Yellowcard in Africa).
• Optimised routing: Smart systems automatically select the fastest, cheapest, and most reliable payment paths for multi-leg transactions.
• Single interface: Businesses execute and track global payments easily with minimal friction.

This orchestration layer transforms the stablecoin sandwich into a scalable, efficient model for global payments.

The era of multi-rail payments orchestration.

At BVNK, we’re supporting fintechs and payment providers with stablecoin orchestration through our Layer1 solution. Here, we enable customers to plug in their crypto liquidity providers, track and manage trades and determine the best routes for multi-leg conversions.?

The next phase of our Layer1 vision is all about multi-rail payments orchestration.

Here, we’ll empower payments companies and enterprises to move further up the payments stack, by automating stablecoin and fiat payments (and the stablecoin sandwich) with a single payments SDK.

For businesses looking to scale how they use stablecoins, orchestration is the next phase.

It simplifies payments across different blockchains and networks, reduces failed payments, optimises for cost efficiency, and makes cross-border transactions feel truly borderless.

We’re keen to get feedback as we build out this solution. Would this solution benefit your business? What would be the most valuable features and capabilities?

If you’re interested in becoming a design partner, please get in touch.