Stablecoins were built to replace banks but on course to becoming one

Bitcoin was launched fifteen years ago. The industry has ballooned into a nearly $4 trillion ecosystem, yet Satoshi’s vision of everyday payments remains largely unfulfilled. The hope for peer-to-peer payments has shifted to stablecoins. But rather than replacing banks, stablecoins risk becoming bank-like infrastructure. Stronger regulation in the U.S. and Europe may push them toward centralized rails rather than open money.

Regulation turning stablecoins into regulated payment networks

In America, the GENIUS Act established a federal framework for payments with stablecoins—who can issue them, how to back them up, and how they’re regulated. In Europe, MiCA regulation (Markets in Crypto-Assets) became applicable in 2024 and set strict requirements for stablecoins under categories like “e-money tokens” and “asset-referenced tokens.”

These regulations foster legitimacy and safety, but at the same time push stablecoin issuers into the world of banks. When issuers need to comply with reserve, audit, KYC, and redemption requirements, the structure and essence of stablecoins shift. They become centralized gateways rather than peer-to-peer money. Over 60% of corporate stablecoin usage is cross-border settlement, not consumer payments. Stablecoins are becoming more institutional tools and fewer tokens for individuals.

The danger: becoming the next SWIFT

What does it mean to “become the next SWIFT”? It means evolving into the go-to rail for institutions; efficient yet opaque, centralized yet indispensable. SWIFT transformed global banking by enabling messaging between banks; it did not democratize banking access. If stablecoins mirror that evolution, they’ll deliver faster rails for existing players rather than empowering the unbanked.

Crypto’s promise was programmable money—cash that moves with logic, autonomy, and user control. But when transactions require issuer permission, compliance tagging, and monitored addresses, the architecture changes. The network becomes compliant infrastructure, not money. That subtle but profound shift may make stablecoins less radical and more reactionary.

A better path to open rails with compliance baked in

The challenge is not regulation; it’s design. To uphold the promise of stablecoins while adhering to regulatory demands, developers and policymakers should embed compliance in the protocol layer, maintain composability across jurisdictions, and preserve non-custodial access. Back in the real world, initiatives like the Blockchain Payments Consortium provide a glimpse of hope that standardizing cross-chain payments is possible without sacrificing openness.

Stablecoins must work for individuals, not just institutions. If they serve only large players and regulated flows, they won’t disrupt—they’ll conform. The design must allow true peer-to-peer movement, selective privacy, and interoperability. Otherwise, the rails will lock us into old hierarchies, just faster.

Stablecoins still hold the potential to rewrite money. But if we allow them to become institutionalized rails built for banks rather than people, we will have replaced one central system with another. The question isn’t whether we regulate—stablecoins will be regulated. It’s whether we design for inclusion and autonomy, or lock in yesterday’s system behind digital wrappers. The future of money depends on which path we choose.