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Happy weekend!
This week, stablecoins moved another step closer to becoming part of everyday financial infrastructure.
Recap on the two headliners this week:
SS #129 - Stablecoin Card Spending Tops $1B
SS #130 - Revolut Rolls Out EURR Stablecoin
In SS #129, stablecoin-linked card spending crossed the US$1 billion monthly threshold, with USDC and USDT powering the majority of transactions. The important signal is not simply the volume, but what users are buying: groceries, transportation, food delivery and other ordinary expenses. Recent industry reporting similarly points to more than US$1 billion of monthly stablecoin-card spending and growing adoption in emerging markets.
Then in SS #130, Revolut began rolling out EURR, its euro-backed stablecoin, starting with selected customers in Denmark, Poland and Portugal. EURR is issued through Stripe-owned Bridge and integrated directly into Revolut’s existing app, with broader EEA availability and additional currency-denominated stablecoins planned.
Taken together, this week’s message is increasingly clear: Stablecoin adoption is becoming a distribution game.
The winners may not necessarily be the companies that issue the most tokens. They may be the platforms that make those tokens easiest to hold, move and spend.
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Stablecoins have historically competed around three things: liquidity, trust and regulatory credibility.
A fourth dimension is becoming increasingly important: distribution.
The growth of stablecoin cards demonstrates what happens when digital dollars are connected to existing merchant acceptance infrastructure. Consumers do not need merchants to accept USDC or USDT directly. The card layer handles that complexity, allowing stablecoins to sit behind a familiar payment experience.
This is significant because it removes one of the largest obstacles to stablecoin payments: merchant adoption.
Visa has said that more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programmes are already live or under development globally. Meanwhile, USDC and USDT together accounted for roughly 70% of recently tracked crypto-card transactions.
But the Revolut story represents the opposite side of the equation.
Instead of taking an existing stablecoin and distributing it through a new card product, Revolut can take an existing customer base and distribute its own stablecoin infrastructure into it. That distinction matters.
Pure-play issuers traditionally build liquidity first and distribution second. Large fintechs, banks and payment platforms can potentially reverse the sequence: they already own the customer relationship and can introduce stablecoins directly into an established financial workflow.
This suggests that the next phase of competition may increasingly occur between three models:
Issuer-led ecosystemssuch as USDC and USDT.Infrastructure-led ecosystemswhere payment networks, wallets and orchestration platforms connect multiple stablecoins.And increasingly,
distribution-led ecosystems, where fintechs and banks issue or embed their own digital money directly into large existing customer bases.
The stablecoin itself may gradually become less differentiated. Distribution could become the real moat.
Major Stablecoin Issuers
Mixed
Higher payment volumes expand the addressable market, but fintech-issued stablecoins such as EURR increase competition for customer ownership and reserve economics.
Banks & Financial Institutions
Mixed
Banks gain a clearer pathway into tokenised money but face pressure from fintechs capable of integrating stablecoins faster into existing customer journeys.
Regulators
Winner
More regulated issuance under frameworks such as MiCA strengthens the case that stablecoins can operate within mainstream financial regulation.
Corporates & Enterprises
Winner
Growing acceptance infrastructure makes stablecoins more practical for treasury, employee spending, supplier settlement and cross-border payments.
Retail Users & Crypto Natives
Winner
Stablecoin balances become increasingly usable without requiring merchants to adopt blockchain infrastructure directly.
Developers & Protocol Founders
Winner
More stablecoin issuers and distribution channels create demand for wallet, interoperability, FX, compliance and payment infrastructure.
Institutional Investors & VCs
Winner
Investment opportunities increasingly expand beyond issuers toward distribution, orchestration, cards and cross-border payment infrastructure.
Infrastructure & Service Providers
Winner
Issuer proliferation increases demand for custody, compliance, liquidity, settlement, card issuance and blockchain connectivity.
DAOs & Governance Communities
Mixed
Greater real-world stablecoin usage expands onchain liquidity, although activity is increasingly being intermediated by regulated companies.
Exchanges
Winner
More currencies and issuers increase demand for institutional liquidity, FX conversion and reliable settlement infrastructure.
The US$1 billion card milestone matters because it demonstrates that stablecoins can scale without forcing merchants to change how they accept payments.
The merchant can still receive fiat. The consumer can still tap a familiar card. Stablecoins simply become the funding and settlement layer underneath the experience.
That creates a potentially powerful adoption path: instead of replacing existing payment networks, stablecoins can initially scale through them.
But there is still significant concentration. RedotPay, EtherFi and KAST accounted for roughly 77% of tracked volume, suggesting the market remains far from broadly distributed.
Revolut introduces another dynamic.
With more than 80 million retail customers reportedly within its broader ecosystem, Revolut does not need to build a stablecoin audience from zero. EURR can be integrated alongside banking, FX, crypto and payments products users already understand.
The longer-term implication is that stablecoin competition may gradually resemble banking competition:
**Who owns the account?****Who controls the customer interface?**Who owns the transaction flow?
Issuance remains important.
But distribution increasingly determines who captures the economics around it.
One of the strongest signals of stablecoin maturity may eventually be that users stop thinking about stablecoins altogether.
Consumers do not typically think about correspondent banking when making international transfers. They do not think about card acquiring infrastructure when tapping Visa.
Stablecoins could follow the same trajectory.
A consumer may simply see:
**€100 in Revolut.****US$500 available on a card.**Instant settlement to another country.
Whether the underlying value moves through a stablecoin could become largely invisible.
This is why the growth of stablecoin cards is strategically important. It allows blockchain settlement to enter mainstream commerce without requiring mainstream consumers to become crypto users.
Revolut pushes this further.
EURR sits inside an application consumers already associate with banking and payments. Stablecoins therefore become another financial rail rather than a standalone crypto product.
The largest stablecoin opportunity may ultimately be embedded adoption:
Stablecoins powering products that users already want, rather than products requiring users to specifically want stablecoins.
**1. Distribution Concentration:**Card spending remains heavily concentrated among a small number of providers. High headline growth therefore does not yet prove broad-based consumer adoption.**2. Issuer Fragmentation:**As fintechs and banks launch proprietary stablecoins, liquidity could fragment across multiple currencies, issuers and blockchains, increasing the importance of interoperability.**3. Stablecoin Economics vs. User Economics:**Issuing a stablecoin can create reserve income and ecosystem control, but users may have little incentive to switch unless the product delivers better pricing, access or functionality.**4. Card Dependency:**Most stablecoin-card transactions still rely on traditional card networks at the merchant layer. Stablecoins may improve funding and settlement without immediately displacing existing payment infrastructure.**5. Regulatory Divergence:**MiCA gives Europe a clearer framework for stablecoin distribution, but cross-border expansion remains dependent on different reserve, licensing and consumer-protection regimes.**6. Fiat Currency Competition:**EURR also raises a broader question: does the stablecoin economy remain overwhelmingly dollarised, or can fintech distribution create meaningful demand for euro and other local-currency stablecoins?
Onigiri Capital (onigiri.vc), a US$50 million blockchain-focused investment fund, launched by Saison Capital, the venture arm of Japan’s Credit Saison. Onigiri Capital is on a mission to chart the next chapter of finance and invest in seed and Series A blockchain startups in stablecoins, payments, RWAs, DeFi and financial infrastructure. The fund’s strategy emphasizes connecting startups to Asia’s growing digital asset markets.
If you’d like to discuss or contribute to the next Institutional Lens, contact us at hi@onigiri.vc
Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.
