The founder of Bridge, a stablecoin company under Stripe, stated that in the next phase of growth for stablecoins in Asia, there may no longer be a sole reliance on US dollar-stabilized coins, but rather a shift towards the tokenization of local currencies. According to him, as the demand for cross-border payments increases, Asian markets such as Singapore are showing growing interest in local currency stablecoins.
Cross-border payments drive growth first.
Abrams recalled that Bridge initially focused more on the US market, but in reality, its business soon expanded to regions outside of the US, particularly Latin America, Europe, and Africa. The earliest customers mainly wanted to establish cross-border payment infrastructure between the US and Colombia, as well as to handle fund disbursements in places like Venezuela and the Philippines.
In his view, in the regions that experienced the fastest growth in the early stages of Bridge, there were common issues such as high costs and slow processes for cross-border transfers. Latin America is a typical example of such markets. The reason stablecoins were able to be implemented first is that they are cheaper and faster than traditional payment networks.
Bridge was founded in 2021 in San Francisco by Abrams and the current Chief Technology Officer, Sean Yu. At that time, they believed that stablecoins would gradually become the mainstream payment infrastructure. SpaceX is using the technology of Bridge to remit the income obtained from their Stellar Chain business in overseas markets back to the United States.
Local currency stablecoins may be the next step
Currently, the stablecoin market is still dominated by products denominated in US dollars. Abrams believes that this more reflects the fact that the industry is still in its early stages, and it does not mean that in the future, only US dollar-stabilized coins will dominate.
He stated that as more financial infrastructure moves onto blockchain, companies will wish to hold local currency stablecoins and then allocate some of their funds to digital yield assets. Taking Singapore as an example, local businesses may prefer to hold tokenized Singapore dollars and then convert them into U.S. bonds or other assets to generate returns.
- Supported now: Euro, Mexican Peso, British Pound
- Coming soon: Brazilian Real stablecoin support
- Not yet supported: Singapore dollar stablecoins
Asian regulatory progress affects implementation speed
Abrams also mentioned that Asian financial centers such as Singapore and Hong Kong, China are gradually introducing regulatory frameworks for stablecoins; however, large economies like China and India remain cautious about digital currencies overall. This means that the expansion speed of the Asian market still depends on which types of services are allowed to be implemented in each region.
In his view, there are some similarities between Asia and Latin America, including the expansion of the middle class, the advancement of urbanization, and a high dependence on international trade. These characteristics make cross-border payments the most realistic application area for stablecoins, rather than local daily consumer payments.
Abrams indicates that the adoption rate of stablecoins in Brazil is relatively high. One important reason is that the local economy is closely linked to cross-border business, and at the same time, the regulatory environment also supports a more active crypto ecosystem. He expects that as regulations become clearer over time, similar development paths may emerge in several Asian markets as well.
Additional information:As of 2024, the annualized payment processing volume exceeded $5 billion, and before it was acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion, the company had already completed financing of $58 million.
