The recent passage of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act) by the U.S. Senate marks another significant milestone in the clarification of U.S. regulatory frameworks. On June 23, Jack Forestell, Chief Strategy and Product Officer at Visa, published an article titled "The Potential Genius of GENIUS," outlining Visa's perspective on the future of stablecoins. This aligns with views expressed by Visa CEO Ryan McInerney in a recent CNBC interview.
Visa's stance is particularly noteworthy. As a dominant player in traditional fiat value transfer systems, the company’s insights often signal broader industry trends. By analyzing Visa’s statements and combining them with independent observations, we can explore what lies ahead for stablecoins.
A "Potential" Milestone in Payment History
According to Jack Forestell, the GENIUS Act should be viewed as a “potential” pivotal moment in payments history. The term “potential” is key here. While stablecoins represent an opportunity to usher in the next age of digital programmable money, achieving true scalability requires substantial additional work.
Visa CEO Ryan McInerney echoed this, noting, “Not much has changed in our world immediately with the passage of the stablecoin bill. For years, Visa has been preparing for and embracing the arrival of stablecoins.”
Expanding new payment technologies is challenging. It requires building broad trust among buyers, sellers, payers, and recipients. This trust is built over time and is rooted in a complex set of intertwined functions that together deliver security, reliability, fraud protection, dispute resolution, ease of use, and continuous innovation.
For stablecoins to become part of the world’s next-generation digital payments infrastructure, they must be operational across three critical layers:
1. The Technology Layer
A robust, scalable, flexible, and open technical backbone is essential. It must execute large-scale transactions securely and reliably at high speed, with zero tolerance for failures, leaks, or breaches. Advances in blockchain technology already offer promising solutions here.
2. The Reserve Layer
Trust must be established in the value and stability of the medium of exchange. Regulated, reserve-backed stablecoins provide a viable solution.
3. The Interface Layer
A ubiquitous interface layer that participants are actively willing to use is crucial. This layer must provide trust, rules, standards, security, and value for both parties in every transaction. It must scale to cover billions of end-users and offer a simple mechanism for converting value tokens into users’ chosen fiat currencies.
The stablecoin infrastructure alone cannot solve the challenges of this third layer. Without a solution here, stablecoins will not achieve mass adoption or become a mainstream medium of value exchange.
Without widespread adoption, stablecoins may remain limited to niche payment solutions, closed-loop systems, and back-end infrastructure for wholesale money markets—but they will not scale for mainstream payments.
Independent Analysis:
The settlement layer can be built on blockchain technology, refined over more than a decade, while compliant stablecoins can serve as the reserve layer. This forms the core stablecoin infrastructure. Additionally, global on/off-ramp networks and financial institutions supporting fiat channels are vital.
This infrastructure enables seamless conversion between fiat and stablecoins, supporting numerous real-world payment scenarios and solving the "last mile" problem to make stablecoins ubiquitous.
Key strategic moves observed include:
- Visa’s strategic investment in stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK, which later integrated with acquirers like Worldpay and LianLian Pay, leveraging Visa Direct and card products to achieve last-mile connectivity.
- Circle issuing USDC and building the Circle Payment Network with global financial institutions to create a critical stablecoin infrastructure network.
- Stripe acquiring Bridge and Privy to build stablecoin capabilities, then empowering B2B2C clients like Shopify.
- Ripple developing from the XRP blockchain to RippleNet and now its RLUSD stablecoin.
- PayPal leveraging its PYUSD stablecoin within its Superapp ecosystem, including Venmo, to serve its 40 million users.
PayPal outlined a three-phase adoption strategy upon PYUSD’s launch:
- Awareness (e.g., driven by the GENIUS Act)
- Utility (the current phase)
- Ubiquity (requiring more stablecoin-accepting scenarios, not just licensing)
This aligns with the Visa CEO’s emphasis on the capabilities needed for real-world payment adoption: trust (from Visa’s network of financial institutions), ease of use (front-end products like Visa cards), and scalability (Visa’s vast network of consumers and merchants).
The final stage of any new payment technology is ubiquity—seamless integration into daily life where users pay effortlessly without concerning themselves with the underlying technology, be it blockchain or stablecoins.
How Visa Plans to Address These Challenges
Jack Forestell, Visa:
Visa has built the world’s largest, most secure, and most trusted third-layer payment system. We have invested billions in continuously enhancing it, improving compatibility with underlying transaction mediums, and enabling easy, flexible integration for all parties.
By integrating Visa’s infrastructure, services, and connectivity, we deliver seamless, secure digital payment experiences to billions of buyers and sellers globally, with unmatched scale, reliability, and security. We call this powerful combination the “Visa as a Service” stack.
From the smallest merchants to the largest banks and enterprises, when the world needs to scale payment solutions, they turn to the Visa stack. Crypto-native partners are no exception. For years, Visa has collaborated with leading crypto and stablecoin platforms to provide access to our stack and enable hyper-scalable payments.
Since 2020, Visa has facilitated nearly $95 billion in cryptocurrency purchases and over $25 billion in crypto spending—totaling over $100 billion in payment volume.
Global consumers and businesses recognize 4.8 billion Visa credentials and nearly 14 billion Visa digital tokens as a preferred way to pay and get paid everywhere. Our technology stack delivers a superior payment experience, and we continually invest to make it the most advanced, secure, and convenient payment method available.
Thanks to Visa’s capabilities, users no longer need to ask themselves these questions before making a purchase:
- Will the merchant accept my payment?
- Do I need a special wallet to pay?
- Do I have the right type of currency in my wallet? Am I on the correct blockchain?
- What is the gas fee for this transaction?
- Can I maintain privacy? Will others be able to see my transaction history and address without my consent?
- Will I earn rewards?
- How can I use my credit line?
- Who do I talk to if I have a problem?
- Is it secure?
The vast majority of consumers and businesses will continue paying with fiat currency through the convenience of Visa credentials. The same will hold true for stablecoin-driven solutions connected to the Visa stack.
Independent Analysis:
Visa’s core message is clear: having stablecoin infrastructure capability is not enough. Leveraging Visa’s ecosystem and capabilities is essential to achieve scale—this is the critical differentiator.
However, major entities like Walmart and Amazon are reportedly considering issuing their own stablecoins. If these companies with massive transaction volumes can bypass Visa/Mastercard networks, they could save significantly on intermediary fees, greatly enhancing profitability—a challenge Visa cannot ignore.
As noted in previous industry reports:
Payment processing fees directly erode business profits. Reducing these fees could substantially improve profitability. For example:
- Walmart, with $648 billion in annual revenue, might pay $10 billion in credit card fees. Eliminating these could increase profitability by over 60%.
- Chipotle could see a 12% profit increase by lowering payment costs.
- Grocery chains like Kroger, with margins below 2%, could potentially double their net income with cheaper stablecoin payments.
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What Problems Do Stablecoins Actually Solve?
Jack Forestell is often asked, “What problem do stablecoins actually solve?”
His response: First, stablecoins have already found product-market fit in cryptocurrency trading markets. For certain use cases—including those in emerging markets—they still represent significant opportunities. Specifically:
- Users in countries with hyperinflation, currency instability, or difficult access to USD can hold dollar-backed stablecoins.
- Certain cross-border payment flows, such as C2C remittances or B2B enterprise payments.
The CEO of Tether noted that less than 40% of USDT’s market capitalization is related to crypto markets. Over 60% of its growth comes from grassroots usage in emerging markets. The next growth driver may come from commodity trading.
Visa sees these use cases as newly evolving processes that are not fully addressed by existing systems, presenting growth opportunities. Visa plans to work with stablecoin-native partners, platforms, and financial institutions to leverage the power of the Visa stack.
In developed markets like the U.S., it remains uncertain whether consumers and businesses will prefer stablecoins, given existing competitive options for using “digital dollars” directly from bank accounts.
The GENIUS Act provides practical regulatory clarity for stablecoins, opening a potential path for broader application. Visa is already actively developing various stablecoin solutions, including:
- Deploying Visa credentials and digital tokens to connect stablecoin and crypto platforms to fiat and our global network
- Enabling native stablecoin settlement
- Facilitating cross-border payment solutions via stablecoin infrastructure
- Offering programmable money solutions for clients
- And more in development
Of course, it will take time for stablecoins to realize their full potential—and we are only just beginning.
Independent Analysis:
The Visa CEO highlighted a common misconception: since most stablecoins are dollar-based, many assume the U.S. is the primary market. In reality, stablecoins have found product-market fit outside the U.S.—in the so-called Global South, spanning 30–50 countries where stablecoins can drastically improve financial efficiency.
The CEO of Tether corroborated this in a Bankless interview:
The U.S. already has highly efficient financial channels, with stablecoins potentially improving efficiency from 90% to 95%. In other regions, stablecoins can improve efficiency by 30–40%, making them far more impactful.
Visa itself has limited reach in these markets. As highlighted in previous reports, payment preferences vary significantly by country:
- In Germany, only 32% prefer credit/debit cards, while 49% favor digital app payments.
- In the Philippines, 49% prefer digital app payments, partly because 48.2% of consumers lack access to traditional banking.
Worldpay’s 2025 report indicates that Visa/Mastercard penetration remains low in key African economies like Nigeria, where cash is still king.
This is where Tether excels. While the Global North engages in a regulatory and licensing race, Tether has deeply penetrated the Global South:
- With 3 billion people still unbanked globally, Tether already serves 450 million users. The opportunity is enormous.
- Tether’s innovative distribution and deep penetration into emerging markets are key to its leadership. It has built an unprecedented dollar distribution network worldwide—one of its least-known advantages.
If Circle faces competition from traditional finance and industry giants after going public, Tether’s competition comes from strategic geopolitical initiatives like China’s Belt and Road.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the GENIUS Act?
The GENIUS Act is U.S. legislation aimed at establishing a regulatory framework for stablecoins. It provides clarity on issuance, reserves, and compliance, fostering innovation while ensuring consumer protection and financial stability.
How do stablecoins improve financial efficiency in emerging markets?
Stablecoins offer access to dollar-denominated value without traditional banking infrastructure. They enable faster, cheaper cross-border payments, protect against local currency inflation, and provide financial inclusion for the unbanked.
Can stablecoins replace traditional payment networks like Visa?
Not in the immediate future. While stablecoins offer cost benefits, they lack the scale, trust, and ubiquitous acceptance of established networks. Collaboration with existing infrastructures, as Visa suggests, is key to achieving mass adoption.
What are the main barriers to stablecoin adoption?
Key barriers include regulatory uncertainty, technical scalability, user experience challenges, lack of consumer awareness, and integration with existing financial and legal systems.
How does Visa’s stack support stablecoin payments?
Visa provides connectivity between stablecoin platforms and its global network of merchants and financial institutions. This allows users to spend stablecoins wherever Visa is accepted, leveraging existing security, dispute resolution, and rewards programs.
Are stablecoins only used for payments?
No. Beyond payments, stablecoins are used in trading, lending, decentralized finance (DeFi), remittances, and as a hedge against currency volatility in unstable economies.