Stablecoins Were Built to Bypass Banks. Now They’re Becoming Banks.
Inside the making of a new monetary system
The Dream of Digital Dollars
When stablecoins first appeared, they felt like magic. A digital token you could send instantly, pegged to the dollar, and spend anywhere in the world. No volatility like Bitcoin, no delays like bank wires. Just money that moved at the speed of the internet. The pitch was simple: one coin always equals one dollar. Stablecoins promised to be the digital cash of the future (IMF, 2023).
The appeal was obvious. All you needed was a phone, an internet connection, and a wallet app. A worker in California could send $200 to family in Mexico in seconds. The World Bank (2024) says traditional remittances cost an average of 6.4%-often more than $12 on a $200 transfer, with some corridors above 10%. A stablecoin transfer, by contrast, typically costs 0.1% to 1% (OECD, 2024). The recipient receives digital dollars instantly, no bank account required. Compared to those fees and delays, stablecoins looked like a revolution.
They were built to bypass banks. But survival is forcing them to become banks instead.
The Early Promise
For a while, stablecoins lived up to the hype. Transfers cleared in seconds instead of days (McKinsey, 2025). Programmable features allowed for escrow, automated payments, and yield-bearing accounts (OECD, 2024). In countries like Argentina or Venezuela, where local currencies lost value by the day, stablecoins became lifelines. Chainalysis (2024) tracked billions flowing into dollar-pegged tokens as citizens tried to escape inflation. They seemed to offer freedom: borderless, anonymous, and efficient.
This is the story most people still tell-that stablecoins are outsiders reshaping money. But the real story unfolding today is different. Stablecoins are not breaking the banking system. They are being absorbed into it.
A Transformation Underway
The two largest issuers, Tether and Circle, control more than 80% of the $298 billion market (MacroMicro, 2025). And both are racing into compliance. Circle now calls USDC “the most regulated and trusted dollar digital currency in the world” (Circle, 2025). Tether, long the rebel, launched a new U.S.-regulated token in 2025, with CEO Paolo Ardoino calling it “a hedge against being excluded from the American market” (Tether, 2025).
Why the pivot? Because the rules are changing. In Washington, the 2025 GENIUS Act forces issuers to hold reserves in U.S. Treasuries or cash, under federal oversight (Reuters, 2025). Europe’s MiCA law and Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Ordinance do the same. Survival now means playing by government rules, earning trust, and partnering with big banks.
Banks smell the opportunity. JPMorgan has run its own JPM Coin since 2019 and, in 2025, expanded into deposit tokens. It is also working with Bank of America, Citi, and Wells Fargo on a consortium-backed stablecoin (Reuters, 2025). Jamie Dimon, once a skeptic who dismissed crypto as a “pet rock,” now says JPMorgan “has to be good at” stablecoins-even if he’s not sure why people need them (Investopedia, 2025). The rebels are turning into incumbents.
When Stability Cracks
The irony is that “stable” has not always meant safe. TerraUSD’s collapse in 2022 erased $40 billion overnight (HKMA, 2022). Circle’s USDC briefly lost its peg in 2023 when part of its reserves were frozen in the Silicon Valley Bank failure (Federal Reserve, 2023). Even Tether, the giant, admits it could be forced to dump Treasuries in a crisis if too many users rush for redemptions (J.P. Morgan, 2025). Stability, it turns out, is fragile when confidence is tested.
Governments know this. The Bank of England warned in 2025 that “stablecoins could pose risks to financial stability if widely adopted without safeguards” (Bank of England, 2025). The response is more oversight, not less. The result: stablecoins increasingly resemble the very banks they were meant to bypass.
Privacy and Taxes: The Vanishing Promise
In the beginning, stablecoins promised anonymity. Anyone could move money without leaving a trace. That era is ending. The GENIUS Act now requires issuers to verify identities and report suspicious transactions (Reuters, 2025). Europe’s MiCA adds similar rules. Transactions once thought invisible are now fully traceable.
Taxes compound the shift. In the U.S., every stablecoin payment can be treated as a taxable crypto event, no matter how small (IRS, 2024). That makes daily spending far more complex than advocates imagined. What began as a tool for privacy is becoming financial plumbing subject to the same oversight as banks.
The Unbanked and the Unbankable
Yet for millions, the promise remains real. About 1.4 billion adults worldwide are still unbanked (World Bank, 2021). Another 1.7 billion are underbanked, relying on costly services like payday loans (OECD, 2023). Even in the U.S., nearly 6 million households have no bank account, and 19 million are underbanked (FDIC, 2022). For these groups, all you need is a phone and an app to access digital dollars. That is the overlooked market: not Wall Street, but São Paulo, Lagos, and Manila.
Visa’s CFO called stablecoins “a natural extension of what we already do in payments” (Visa, 2024). That’s why Visa is piloting them in Latin America. In regions where remittance fees are still high and currencies unstable, stablecoins are not experiments-they are survival tools.
The Stablecoin Dilemmas
Stablecoins now sit at the center of dilemmas that reach far beyond crypto. Each asks a question that business leaders, policymakers, and consumers will have to answer.
The consumer dilemma. For the unbanked, stablecoins might be the first bank account they ever have. All it takes is a phone and an app. Yet with new rules, every transaction can be monitored. Will people accept surveillance in exchange for access, or will they search for privacy-first alternatives outside the regulated system? If so, does that create a shadow market that grows in parallel with official stablecoins?
The banking dilemma. Big banks are embracing stablecoins, from JPMorgan’s own coin to multi-bank consortia. But smaller banks could lose deposits and fee income as customers shift into digital dollars. Stablecoins may stabilize the system by anchoring to the largest banks, while quietly draining strength from community banks that have long served local economies.
The global power dilemma. Stablecoins funnel money into U.S. Treasuries, helping Washington finance its debt at lower cost. But mass redemptions could trigger Treasury fire sales. At the same time, their dominance strengthens U.S. sanctions power, which unnerves rivals. Europe, China, and BRICS nations are now developing their own digital currencies. Combined with de-globalization, nationalism, and tech sovereignty, the result may be a fragmented map of competing digital blocs rather than a single global system.
Conclusion
Stablecoins started as rebellion but are turning into banks. What was once pitched as borderless, anonymous digital cash is now being absorbed into the regulatory system. The irony is that survival requires stablecoins to play by the same rules as the institutions they wanted to bypass.
The consumer benefit is real. They still make remittances faster and cheaper, and they give the unbanked access to dollars with nothing more than a phone. For people in Argentina, Nigeria, or the Philippines, stablecoins aren’t a fad-they’re a lifeline.
But the trade-offs are growing. Privacy is fading, taxes complicate daily use, and issuers now resemble banks. The promise of freedom is colliding with the reality of oversight.
Banks are also at risk. Big banks like JPMorgan are moving fast to control the rails. Smaller banks could lose deposits and fee revenue, while fintech platforms risk being sidelined unless they partner up.
And stablecoins are reshaping geopolitics. By funneling demand into Treasuries, they reinforce U.S. dominance. Yet by tightening sanctions power, they also push rivals to launch euro, yuan, and BRICS alternatives. That raises the possibility of a fragmented, bloc-based monetary system.
The real story isn’t disruption or adoption. It’s transformation. Stablecoins won’t destroy the old system. They’re rebuilding it in digital form. The question is whether this makes money safer-or just hides the old risks behind a shinier interface.
Juan Salas-Romer
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Juan Salas-Romer is President & CEO of NHR Group, a firm that builds, invests in, and transforms companies and properties. He holds a BS in Entrepreneurship from Babson College and an MBA in Finance from Boston College. With two decades of experience across finance, real estate, hospitality, and education, he is drawn to opportunities others often overlook.
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References
Recent Cases
World Bank (2024). Remittance Prices Worldwide Q1 2024.
IMF (2023, 2025). Stablecoin and Digital Money Reports.
J.P. Morgan Research (2025). Stablecoin Reserves and Treasury Markets.
Reuters (2025). Coverage on GENIUS Act, Visa LATAM rollouts.
ESMA (2025). MiCA implementation reports.
HKMA (2025). Stablecoin Ordinance guidance.
Federal Reserve (2023). USDC and SVB De-Peg Analysis.
Financial Times (2025). Stablecoin adoption in advanced economies.
MacroMicro (2025). Stablecoin market concentration tracker.
Visa (2024). Pilot announcements on stablecoin settlement.
Chainalysis (2024). Crypto Adoption in Emerging Markets.
Bank of England (2025). Consultation on user caps.
Investopedia (2025). Jamie Dimon on JPMorgan and stablecoins.
Circle (2025). CEO Jeremy Allaire statements on USDC.
Tether (2025). CEO Paolo Ardoino statements on USAT.
About the Author
Juan Salas-Romer is the Editor of Build to Thrive and the President & CEO of NHR Group, a real estate investment and development firm focused on transformative real estate and business turnaround projects. An award-winning investor and business development leader, Juan brings over 20 years of experience driving companies from inception to 7-figure revenues across the finance, real estate, hospitality, and education sectors. His work sits at the intersection of economic growth, innovation, and community impact. Linkedin bio: Juan Salas-Romer
Great time to be alive. New world. New rules. New banks.