Beyond Stablecoins: The Rise of the Internet Financial System

These technology advances include the rise of hyper-performant, third-generation blockchains capable of delivering the throughput, security, privacy, and user experience required for mainstream use across a full range of payments use cases, from programmable payments to micropayments, streaming payments, agentic commerce and more. The age of intelligent commerce needs intelligent money, and USDC is an ideal medium of exchange for today and tomorrow.

With the GENIUS Act now law, banks, payment companies, and enterprises have regulatory certainty around USDC in the US and other major global markets that had previously enacted rules. This clarity is unlocking cross-border use cases where stablecoins deliver the greatest payment utility. Since the passage of the GENIUS Act in July 2025, stablecoin use for payments has grown by 70%.³³ 

Together, these factors have spurred many of today’s leading payment networks to accelerate stablecoin initiatives.^34,35 As the world’s largest regulated stablecoin, with significant network effects and robust fiat banking integrations across the world, USDC is set to play a role in many of these initiatives.

Zooming out, the opportunity to upgrade mainstream payment flows with the speed, scale, and uptime of the internet is just the start of a broader shift in how money moves. Over time, the programmability of stablecoin payments could unlock even greater advances, enabling a future that is more automated and efficient. In short, it is not possible to put new money on old rails, and the growth of stablecoins as an extension of the banking and payment system has spurred a wholesale upgrade in the financial rails that power the global economy. Arc, CPN, and other Circle platforms are becoming part of this new economic operating system for the internet. 

Upgraded payment workflows can also strengthen cash management. Faster and more transparent payments support better, more informed working capital decisions. Even companies that are not yet accepting stablecoins from customers can use them in treasury operations, sweeping funds across global accounts and subsidiaries to improve cash consolidation across borders, time zones, banking hours, and weekends.

Smart contracts are self-executing programs that facilitate transaction flows in stablecoins and other digital assets across the internet financial system in ways that are not possible with traditional settlement. They make it possible to automatically trigger transactions and complete back-office processes based on pre-set, easy-to-verify parameters. Given the open nature of the blockchains where USDC, EURC, and USYC are native, nearly any business and developer can interact with regulated, programmable value via smart contracts. While nascent today, smart contract programmability could begin to reshape the future of manual, process-heavy flows for corporations, financial institutions, and financial markets participants.

To complement USDC usage within major payment networks, Circle launched CPN, an open standard for the coordination and orchestration of cross-border payments, in May 2025. CPN simplifies fiat payments by using stablecoin money movement to connect vetted Originating Financial Institutions (OFIs) and Beneficiary Financial Institutions (BFIs) to streamline settlement in select global markets. CPN connects banks, payment service providers (PSPs), virtual asset service providers (VASPs), and enterprises to enable consumer, business, and institutional payment use cases. CPN enables 24/7 near-instant settlement, with all partners vetted for appropriate licensing, regulatory compliance, operational risk management, security, and more. 

Circle is working with a wide range of partners to rapidly turn CPN into a payments orchestration layer to unlock the benefits of stablecoin payments, particularly in the context of cross-border money movement, which is often slow and costly. CPN is in the early stages of opening several emerging market payment corridors, with USDC already flowing across Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Nigeria, and the US.

CPN’s steep adoption curve signals clear market demand. Since going live in May 2025, CPN experienced a hundred-fold growth in trailing TPV that has grown to $3.4 billion on an annualized basis.³⁶

dLocal is a NASDAQ-listed, leading cross-border payment platform connecting global merchants with billions of consumers in emerging markets. Founded in Uruguay, the company operates in over 40 countries across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America, offering access to more than 900 local payment methods. It maintains a strong on-the-ground presence in every market in which it operates, ensuring local knowledge and operational support across its network.

In 2025, dLocal and Circle announced a collaboration in which dLocal joined CPN as a BFI to support stablecoin-enabled payouts and to enhance payment efficiency across emerging markets. By integrating dLocal’s deep local infrastructure, CPN participants can seamlessly disburse funds in local currencies across key emerging markets. The collaboration supports near real-time settlement of merchant payouts, B2B treasury flows, and remittances, initially launching in Mexico and Brazil and with expansion plans across LatAm, APAC, the Middle East, and Africa.

This CPN integration streamlines fund flows and enables remittances and disbursements in emerging markets. dLocal’s expertise and extensive regional payment capabilities provide CPN participants with reduced costs and a reliable user experience. It also addresses long-standing cost and speed challenges in cross-border transactions by leveraging Circle’s USDC and EURC stablecoin infrastructure through regulated intermediaries for instant conversion and settlement.

“This alliance marks a milestone in connecting global stablecoin liquidity with local payment ecosystems,” says John O’Brien, Chief Revenue Officer at dLocal. “By leveraging dLocal’s extensive presence across emerging markets, it enables financial institutions and fintechs to operate more efficiently, reduce costs, and deliver a better experience for businesses sending funds in these high-growth economies.”

As a cornerstone of CPN, dLocal exemplifies how financial institutions can bridge digital currency infrastructure with traditional payout rails while setting a model for stablecoin-powered financial inclusion across the developing world.

For more than a decade, Zepz’s mission has been simple yet powerful: to break barriers in financial access and improve the lives of those most underrepresented. Created through the 2021 merger of digital remittance brands Sendwave and WorldRemit, today Zepz serves over 10 million customers across 130 countries and more than 90 payout partners, with 95% of transactions settling in minutes.

Zepz started by making it as easy to send money as it is to send a text, improving a process that once made cross-border payments slow and expensive. That focus helped millions of people support loved ones, access opportunity, and build stability across borders. Now, Zepz is expanding from remittances to become a platform for financial empowerment, making managing money as simple, reliable, and affordable as possible. 

Zepz has achieved its scale through tackling some of the hardest problems in payments. They have brought payment costs below the UN’s 3% target, with near-instant payouts replacing multi-day settlement common through traditional settlement that relies on multiple legs of correspondent banks. Zepz has built a digital-first compliance model that customers can complete on their phone in minutes, improving on manual, document-heavy KYC processes. And its secure, traceable payout network reaches into many underdeveloped economies that frequently rely on informal money transmission channels that can create fraud and consumer protection risks. 

In 2025, the company launched its USDC-powered Sendwave Wallet enabling customers to send money quickly and directly around the world to anyone in the Zepz network, including recipients that do not have a bank account. Recipients who live in countries that can often face currency devaluation can hold USDC in the Sendwave Wallet rather than convert to local fiat, providing them with security and stability. 

Zepz’s decade-old global payout network makes it easy for customers to withdraw USDC funds through trusted partners into fiat currency and pay for everyday basic needs like food, healthcare, and education. Zepz is now beginning to enhance its traditional remittance flows and the Sendwave Wallet by integrating with CPN, which it joined as an OFI with an initial focus on payments to India and the Philippines. 

Mark Lenhard, CEO, Zepz summarizes: “CPN is a high-utility network designed by payments experts to facilitate fast, affordable cross-border transactions, a primary concern for our customers. Zepz’s decision to join CPN is driven by the ability to achieve real-time, secure settlement, ensuring more money gets home faster, with less friction and greater impact."