Stablecoins - The Next-Generation Digital Payment Solution: Empowering Financial Inclusion

Introduction

Welcome to the digital age, where seamless and inclusive payment solutions are essential. Stablecoins, particularly fiat-backed ones, offer significant potential to enhance financial inclusion by bridging gaps in traditional systems. This article introduces the idea of a Stablecoin Payment Framework (SPF), designed to unite users, developers, fintechs, banks, and stablecoin issuers in a secure and compliant ecosystem. Despite their promise, fiat-backed stablecoins face challenges due to fragmentation across issuers, blockchains, and regulations.?

Background

My journey into blockchain and cryptocurrency started in 2016 around the tail-end of my 15-year career and experience as an entrepreneur B2B developer and solution provider of high-frequency real money gaming and payment platforms exclusively targeting licensed gambling operators. At the time, I was supplying random number generator (RNG) 3D Virtual Games to a major National Lottery in West French Africa under a 5-year exclusive agreement that was nearing its conclusion. These 5-years were the most horrific times I have ever experienced in terms of repatriating funds from Africa to Europe through bank-to-bank wire transfer payment rails. Fortunately, my discovery of Bitcoin 2016, and seeing the potential of a new decentralized payment rail (blockchain) has fuelled my passion for blockchain-based digital asset payments ever since.?

Cryptocurrency Payments Use Case for Blockchain

Crypto payments have been a real thing for me from the beginning of my journey 8-years ago when I began working full-time in the industry. Frankly, I had no choice but to accept that crypto could be utilized as a method of payment as the two companies I was employed by between 2017-19, London-based AmaZix and Singapore-based Pundi X only paid out salaries in crypto (BTC or ETH). At the time, receiving payments in these volatile cryptocurrencies knowing I had a mortgage and bills to pay and mouths to feed made me a nervous wreck for 1-day at the end of every month. During this monthly recurring pay day event, I would be glued to my triple screen monitors (with sweat dripping from my forehead) displaying btc and eth market movement on several centralized crypto exchanges. The level of stress in anticipation of receipt from payroll of an inbound crypto payment along with a transaction hash to verify the transaction was an experience full of adrenaline. I just couldn’t envision the masses adopting crypto payments under these volatile, non-conducive and heavily frictioned circumstances back then.??

In 2018, when I was introduced to the opportunity to work with Pundi X in Singapore, I was very intrigued as the start-up was one of the few that had not just a whitepaper, but an actual tangible physical product and solution to tackle barriers in the crypto payments space. Remember, I had just spent the previous year with AmaZix performing deep dive analysis on more than 50 whitepapers that were fundraising by selling dreams and vapourware through ICO token sales. With the innovative, first-to-market crypto point-of-sale (POS) device developed by Pundi X, I realized that not only were digital assets possible as alternative payment methods, but stablecoins were the answer to mitigating risk for merchants accepting crypto payments. Led by hard working visionaries such as Zac Cheah , Yeuk Ting Wan , Soohan Han , 康如松 , and J. Victor Mendes , XPOS took off as one of the more successful crypto payment platform launches - well before the “dime a dozen” crypto payment POS solutions fighting for market share that we see today.

Shout out to Junde Yu when in 2018, we travelled together to freezing cold Lithuania to solidify strategic partnerships with EMI-licensed payment service providers. It was there that he put me on notice that if I wanted to best represent the company, I had better master the use of the company's crypto wallet technology when trying to transact and make payments in public. I was a NOOB and was not so familiar with making crypto payments in a retail setting using a mobile crypto wallet at the point-of-sale.

The Pundi X solution does very well in emerging markets where local fiat currency is depreciated such as Brazil and Türkiye for example.

Which Blockchain Network to BUIDL on?

It was in 2020, I started to receive more and more of the same questions - What Blockchain Network should we build our digital asset payment platform on? What kind of blockchain should we use? Today, multiple reports suggest as of 2024, there are over 1,000 Blockchain Networks in existence, so it's to no surprise that it could be a bit overwhelming. I started to tackle this question head on during my time over at Singapore-based WadzPay , an enterprise crypto payment platform that had its eyes on disrupting the payments market by building a scalable digital asset payment solution based on the development of an API that would plug right into existing payment networks. While based in Dubai, I had the pleasure to collaborate with Khaled Moharem and Bobby Kakar where I contributed to knowledge transfer initiatives and assisting with strategic business development and integration projects. There, I had the opportunity to engage with the likes of Bahrain's Electronic Network for Financial Transactions The BENEFIT Company , where I presented to executives wanting to learn more about gaming and esports as use cases for blockchain-based payments, as well as market leading Network International and Dubai Duty Free for the enablement of crypto payments through API integration.

It was while I was at WadzPay where after performing extensive due diligence on L1/L2 chains, I decided to spearhead a strategic partnership with Layer 1 blockchain network Algorand Technologies and advise WadzPay to build out a composable tech stack on top of Algorand.

By this time, I had already commenced advanced research into Stablecoin as a preferred payment method in Gaming Ecosystems for the topic of my Masters Dissertation at the University of Staffordshire .

Which Cryptocurrency Payment Solution?

Fast forward to 2025, and today the talk of the town in payments at every-level is centered all around Stablecoins. This past year, I have witnessed not only a boom in stablecoin infrastructure and payment processing services promoting stablecoin payments, but also a heightened awareness and initiatives from regulatory bodies developing new frameworks to govern and support payment stablecoin innovations.

The two main verticals I am often approached for with regards to the exploring and adoption of crypto payments is by no surprise - 1. Real Money Gaming, and 2. Cross-Border Remittance in emerging markets, notably in Africa and Asia. As each day passes, it has become more and more difficult to recommend crypto payment processing solutions as the market in my eyes has become overly saturated. The one thing that I do advise and will always stick to my guns it that any recipient of blockchain-based digital asset payment should definitely focus on payment stablecoins. Unfortunately, even here, the market has become saturated with few players doing anything to showcase any differentiation from competing platforms as the stablecoin market is fragmented to say the least.

The Problem of Fragmentation

Despite the success of fiat-backed stablecoins, the market is highly fragmented, creating inefficiencies. Because of the multitude of stablecoin solutions that have been developed and launched over the course of the past 1-3 years, it is nearly impossible to keep up with all the new innovation coming out of this space. Not only is there fragmentation amongst different solutions providers from infrastructure projects, payment tech stacks to actual stablecoin processing, but there are now huge gaps in the following areas as a result:

1. Liquidity Fragmentation
2. Interoperability Challenges
3. Regulatory Uncertainty & Compliance Gaps

The fiat-backed stablecoin market will be a vital part of digital payments, but fragmentation across issuers, blockchains, solutions providers, and regulatory regimes limits efficiency. While solutions like regulatory clarity, cross-chain interoperability, and institutional-grade liquidity pools can help, it remains to be seen whether consolidation or further specialization will shape the market’s future.

A Universal Solution: Stablecoin Payment Framework (SPF)

The Stablecoin Payment Framework (SPF) represents a ground-breaking approach to unifying the diverse stakeholders in the global stablecoin ecosystem. By creating a secure, compliant, and efficient infrastructure, SPF aims to streamline digital payments, enhance financial inclusion, and bridge gaps in traditional financial systems. For me, I personally have seen the demand for this kind of a solution to be developed in the Gaming industry which includes both mobile video games, esports, and iGaming.

A Stablecoin Payment Framework (SPF) can revolutionize the gaming industry by offering seamless, secure, and low-cost transactions. In mobile video games, it enables instant in-app purchases and microtransactions without currency conversion hassles due to embedded and seamless on-off ramps. In esports, SPF could ensure swift and transparent prize payouts and facilitates cross-border sponsorship deals. Again, I have seen this requirement a few years ago in Dubai with YaLLa Esports discussing the possibilities with WadzPay . For iGaming, it enhances trust through secure deposits and withdrawals, compliant with regulatory standards. This unified payment solution meets the growing demand for efficient digital payments in these dynamic markets.

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