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This week, Simon Taylor & Cuy Sheffield are joined by:

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Visa Data, Plasma Card Spend: Velocity Is the New Metric 

Visa Onchain Analytics recorded ~$1.8 trillion in adjusted onchain stablecoin volume in June 2026. Cuy Sheffield estimated that around 10%, or $180 billion, came from B2B, B2C and C2B payments. Stablecoin supply remained roughly flat while transaction volume grew. The same dollars are moving more often.

Paul Faecks, CEO and founder of Plasma, offered the clearest consumer marker. Stablecoin-linked card spending finished the previous month just below $1 billion, and he expects July to cross that level. The card number is smaller than total onchain payments, but it shows where the activity is heading. Stablecoins are moving from trading collateral into daily commerce.

The market should now track velocity alongside supply. Supply tells you how much sits in stablecoins. Payment volume tells you how often it moves.

Cuy's estimate has a second implication - most of today's onchain payment volume comes from companies that did not exist five years ago. The incumbents have not yet turned on their rails. They are entering through pilots and selected corridors, but most have yet to convert their existing fiat flows. Current volumes therefore reflect bottom-up adoption more than full institutional distribution. The bigger shift comes when banks with established corporate clients move from pilots to live access. Two recent examples in the episode (UBS and Standard Chartered) show what that looks like.

El Dorado and the Orchestrator Layer 

El Dorado is a digital wallet serving Latin American consumers and, as of two months ago, B2B importers and exporters. CEO Guillermo Goncalvez sees the infrastructure layer as the shift. "The main difference from what we're seeing now in terms of stablecoin volume from two or three years ago is the rise of what we're calling in crypto the stablecoin orchestrators, the bridges of the world," he said.

Those providers connect stablecoin liquidity to SWIFT, ACH, wire, SEPA and Pix. For customers, the stablecoin can stay invisible. A business pays in digital dollars, and the orchestrator routes it onto SWIFT, Pix or whatever rail the destination requires. 

Guillermo sees the strongest demand among small and medium-sized importers in Bolivia, Paraguay and Ecuador. These companies are paying Chinese suppliers for electric vehicles, medical equipment and basic materials. Large multinationals already have subsidiaries and banking relationships across markets. Smaller firms do not have the same access.

El Dorado’s response was unexpectedly physical. It opened a location in Bolivia because importers wanted somewhere to ask questions and complete customs forms. Technology fixed the settlement rail. Adoption still needed a person behind a desk.

Bolivia shows how product quality and institutional familiarity can pull in different directions. Guillermo said five or six major banks already offer USDT wallets, though customers can buy and sell only during office hours from Monday to Friday. Their advantage is familiarity. These are household names with 50 or 60 years of local history. According to Guillermo, seven of Bolivia’s ten most-downloaded financial apps are traditional banks, while the other three, including El Dorado, are digital wallets. Banks have the trusted interface but limited functionality. Digital wallets have the better rail but must earn the confidence banks inherited.

Custody, Bankruptcy and What Plasma Does Differently 

Growth is outpacing consumer understanding. Two apps can show the same USDT balance and give the customer completely different rights. The asset might sit in a self-custodial wallet, a segregated account, or on the provider's balance sheet, where the customer holds only a claim against the company. 

Simon walked through the contractual terms that create that gap. In the example he cited, transferring crypto to the neobank counts as a sale. The customer no longer owns stablecoins; they hold a payment obligation on the provider's ledger. The customer received a payment obligation recorded on an internal ledger, and card spending reduced that balance. Guillermo noted that some commentary suggests customers would rank as creditors, behind senior debt, in a bankruptcy. He stressed the outcome is still unclear. He flagged a second risk - if depositing crypto counts as a sale, the customer may owe tax the moment the funds enter the app. He cited Portugal as one jurisdiction where this applies. 

Plasma chose a self-custodial model. “Assets sit in a user’s wallet in Plasma, not on Plasma’s balance sheet,” Paul said. The shared-key setup means neither Plasma nor a lost device can move funds alone. Paul said that makes customer assets bankruptcy remote.

Cuy warned against treating all neobanks the same. Each one needs to be evaluated on its custody model, licensing and what happens to customers in a bankruptcy. The diligence questions sound basic, but the answers determine everything. Who owns the asset? Can the provider use it? What claim survives insolvency? Stablecoin neobanks will need answers customers can understand before a failure forces the category to explain itself.

UBS and Standard Chartered Play Distribution

UBS ran its first stablecoin proof of concept with Merge, moving corporate payments through a Swiss franc to Brazilian real corridor. The pilot showed how a bank could hide the rail without surrendering the client relationship. Simon described a Swiss franc to Brazilian real corridor in which corporate customers continued using their existing bank interface. They avoided onboarding another supplier, repeating vendor due diligence or changing systems. The product was 24/7 cross-border settlement delivered through a relationship they already trusted. Banks should not wait for clients to request it. “If you wait until your customers ask you for it before you start working on it, you’re too late,” Cuy said.

Standard Chartered launched USDC minting and redemption for institutional clients through its Dubai operations, becoming the first G-SIB to offer that access. The service lets clients onboard once with the bank rather than opening a separate Circle account. Cuy’s view is that Standard Chartered could eventually become a wholesale gateway for banks that need USDC access but do not want separate issuer relationships. Banks do not need to issue their own coin. Cuy pointed to reserve banking and settlement as the clearest revenue opportunities, with custody, FX and distribution as adjacent plays.

The Firms That Make the Technology Disappear Will Win  

The next phase of stablecoin adoption will be won at bank counters, trade conferences, payment processors and local business associations. Guillermo has stopped prioritizing crypto conferences and now attends automotive, agriculture and coffee-industry events. His customers do not care about chains. They want to pay suppliers in China as cheaply as possible. The providers that make the technology invisible will own the flow.

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