Even in the depths of the recent crypto winter, stablecoins stood out as a beacon of optimism. Investors and startups hail them as a long-awaited killer application, and even crypto haters concede stablecoins are a superior technology for moving money around—especially following the 2025 passing of the GENIUS Act, which created a predictable regulatory environment for using the tokens. Still, if stablecoins are so great, why is it so hard to figure out who’s going to use them?
That question occurred to me last week while speaking with Dan Kim, who is VP of Product at the emerging fintech giant Airwallex. Prior to his current gig, Kim held a senior business development role at Coinbase, where he led efforts to persuade merchants to adopt stablecoins. It was a tough sell. Many times, Kim recalls, merchants had concerns about who would handle chargebacks, or simply balked at adding another layer of complexity to an already-complicated payment system. “I ran into a blocker for how to make stablecoins useful … It was a dead end,” Kim told me.
Kim may have a point. While stablecoins are useful in the world of crypto trading, I’ve never seen a need for them in my day-to-day life. If I need to send money to a friend or local business, Venmo and Zelle work just dandy, and even if Coinbase can stand up a robust ecosystem of stablecoin rewards—which it is trying to do with USDC—I can’t see a world where those rewards are more lucrative than what I accrue with my credit cards.
