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As Bitcoin's October volatility rattled traders, the infrastructure for digital-dollar settlement moved deeper into mainstream finance.
For the third time in seven days, Bitcoin crossed a threshold that would have seemed fantastical a decade ago. On October 6, the cryptocurrency touched $126,000, a new all-time high, before collapsing to $104,000 just five days later—a 17 percent plunge that erased nearly $20 billion in leveraged positions and triggered the largest single-day liquidation in the asset's history. The immediate culprit was President Trump's announcement of escalated tariffs on Chinese imports, a geopolitical jolt that sent risk assets tumbling. Yet by month's end, Bitcoin had clawed back to roughly where it started October, leaving fast-money traders bruised on both sides of the trade.
The drama obscured a more consequential shift. While speculators chased price swings, a procession of institutions—payment networks, banks, and asset managers—was quietly wiring stablecoins into the plumbing of cross-border finance.
Some see this institutional shift as a sign that crypto’s infrastructure phase—not its speculation phase—has begun. And a few analysts are already pointing to what could be the next major frontier.
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The week after Bitcoin's crash, Visa announced it would support four stablecoins across four separate blockchains, convertible into more than 25 fiat currencies. The payment giant disclosed that stablecoin-linked card spending had quadrupled year-over-year, and that monthly settlement volume through its stablecoin rails now runs at an annualized pace exceeding $2.5 billion. Since 2020, Visa has facilitated more than $140 billion in cryptocurrency and stablecoin flows—a figure that dwarfs the headline-grabbing volatility of any single trading session.
Rails, Not Hype
What distinguishes this cycle from the speculative frenzies of 2017 and 2021 is not the absence of volatility—October's price action confirms crypto remains a high-beta asset—but the nature of the actors involved and the problems they are solving. Visa's expansion is not a bet on Bitcoin's next all-time high; it is a bet that dollar-denominated tokens, backed one-to-one by Treasury bills and settled on public blockchains, can displace correspondent banking in specific corridors where friction is high and margins are low.
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The use cases are prosaic but economically significant. Remittances sent through legacy rails cost an average of 6.49 percent of principal, according to World Bank data; stablecoin-based transfers typically run under 1 percent. Settlement times compress from multiple business days to near-instant, 24/7 execution. For small businesses managing supplier payments across borders, or workers sending money home, the difference is not philosophical—it is measured in basis points and hours saved.
What Corporates Are Solving
The 2017 initial-coin-offering wave promised decentralized finance but delivered regulatory chaos and investor losses. The 2021 surge, fueled by retail enthusiasm and low interest rates, ended in the collapse of algorithmic stablecoins and platform insolvencies. The current adoption arc is narrower and more institutional. Visa, Mastercard, and traditional banks are not embracing crypto ideology; they are adopting blockchain settlement because it reduces operational complexity, cuts intermediary fees, and aligns with anti-money-laundering frameworks under newly clarified rules.
Corporate interest follows a logic distinct from retail speculation. Banks and payment networks care less about Bitcoin's price trajectory than about settlement risk, foreign-exchange spreads, and the cost of maintaining pre-funded accounts in dozens of currencies. Stablecoins offer a solution: a digital representation of the dollar that moves across borders without correspondent banks, settles on-chain in seconds, and converts to local currency on arrival. The model—sometimes called the "stablecoin sandwich"—starts and ends in fiat but routes the cross-border leg through USDC or USDT, cutting both cost and time.
Dollar Mechanics
JPMorgan analysts argue that dollar-pegged stablecoins could generate $1.4 trillion in additional demand for U.S. dollars by 2027. The logic is straightforward: approximately 99 percent of the stablecoin supply is pegged one-to-one to the dollar or dollar-denominated assets such as Treasury bills. When a foreign business or individual converts local currency into a stablecoin, they are effectively creating new demand for U.S. dollars. That demand, while still modest relative to the $8.6 trillion in daily dollar trading volume, is large enough to matter at the margin—and it flows through a channel that reinforces dollar dominance rather than eroding it.
For U.S. policymakers, the implication is clear: stablecoins are not a threat to the dollar's reserve status; they are a vector for extending it. This insight helps explain why Congress moved with unusual bipartisan speed to pass stablecoin legislation, and why the Federal Reserve has begun publicly discussing stablecoins as a tool for improving cross-border payments.
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Risk Box
Stablecoins are not without hazards. The same October crash that liquidated leveraged Bitcoin positions briefly sent Ethena's USDe stablecoin to $0.65—a 35 percent de-peg driven by collapsing liquidity and margin calls. Though USDe recovered within hours, the episode underscored that even asset-backed stablecoins can break under stress, particularly those relying on complex hedging strategies or thin on-chain liquidity. Regulatory execution risk remains: the GENIUS Act's effectiveness depends on rules that have not yet been finalized, and fragmented oversight across state and federal agencies could slow adoption.
Yet the trajectory is evident. October's volatility did not derail institutional adoption—it clarified it. While retail traders absorbed losses, corporations and payment networks continued building.
The lesson for non-professional investors is not to ignore price—volatility remains a feature of this asset class—but to recognize that the next phase of mainstreaming is less about speculative coins and more about the standardization of payment rails. Attention should follow where large networks are embedding digital dollars into everyday finance, not just where the charts spike.
Deniss Slinkins,
Global Financial Journal




