Headline: Stablecoin rules opened the door — now firms must build the rails and solve privacy, say MoonPay, Ripple and Paxos at Consensus Miami
Regulatory clarity has moved stablecoins from crypto fringe to mainstream finance, but industry leaders warned at Consensus Miami 2026 that the hard work of payments infrastructure and privacy protection is only just beginning.
Speaking on May 8, executives from MoonPay, Ripple and Paxos said the GENIUS Act and similar regulatory moves have created a clear framework that lets banks and other traditional financial institutions enter the dollar‑pegged token market. Richard Harrison, MoonPay’s vice president of banking and payment partnerships, said GENIUS “brought us clarity,” making compliance easier to evaluate and accelerating institutional participation.
But clarity alone won’t deliver daily use. Harrison likened the situation to electric vehicles: the core product exists, yet mass adoption depends on the supporting ecosystem. “How do you use stablecoin to pay your rent? How do you use it to buy a cup of coffee?” he asked, underscoring the need for merchant integrations, consumer rails and broader payment UX.
Practical utility, not market cap, is front of mind for institutions
Jack McDonald, Ripple’s senior vice president for stablecoins, said institutional clients are prioritizing regulatory compliance, custody security and functional utility over headline metrics like market capitalization. Ripple is focused on enterprise use cases such as treasury operations, collateral management and cross‑border settlement — areas where stablecoins can deliver tangible improvements beyond trading and speculation.
Cross‑border payments already show the promise: stablecoin transfers can settle near‑instantly for fees below $1, compared with traditional banking fees that can exceed 6%. Harrison estimated that as rails and merchant adoption improve, stablecoins could account for roughly 10% of global remittance flows within five years — a meaningful but still partial slice of the market today.
Privacy and interoperability remain major blockers
Brent Perrault, a senior staff software engineer at Paxos, warned that privacy is the sector’s most persistent unresolved problem. Public blockchains reveal transaction amounts and flows, creating both confidentiality and compliance concerns for businesses handling sensitive financial data. Partial privacy fixes aren’t enough, Perrault argued, because users and transactions inevitably move between private and public environments. That means interoperability, privacy-preserving rails and clear compliance models must be solved in tandem.
Competition now looks more like trust and distribution than pure tech
Perrault also said stablecoin differentiation is increasingly driven by trust, partnerships and user incentives rather than technical specs alone. He pointed to real‑world adoption signals such as PayPal USD’s growth and Charles Schwab using Paxos infrastructure as evidence that demand from established financial institutions is expanding beyond crypto‑native firms. Yet even well capitalized issuers face friction when connecting stablecoin rails to everyday payment systems.
Regulatory backdrop and market snapshot
The panel’s comments come as Congress moves on related legislation: the CLARITY Act was headed for a Senate Banking Committee markup on May 14. Five major banking trade groups publicly rejected the Tillis‑Alsobrooks stablecoin compromise language days before that vote, underscoring the political friction around the policy path forward. Executives at Consensus did not directly comment on the markup, but their remarks highlighted why regulatory outcomes matter for firms building stablecoin payment products at scale.
The stablecoin market currently stands at about $317 billion in total value. New institutional entrants are already appearing — Western Union announced a USDPT stablecoin on Solana earlier in May, issued through Anchorage Digital — illustrating the trend Harrison described: regulation has lowered the bar to entry, but the consumer‑facing infrastructure and privacy solutions needed for mainstream use are still being built.
Bottom line: regulation unlocked the opportunity. Now the industry must finish the rails, solve privacy and stitch stablecoins into the payments ecosystem before everyday use becomes routine.
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