In June, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced that the ridesharing giant was looking into stablecoins as a form of global money transfer. A year ago, such a statement from a Big Tech executive would’ve seemed far-fetched. Today, though, everyone from Apple to Amazon—not to mention big banks and brokerages—is rushing to embrace stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies pegged to an underlying asset like the U.S. dollar. What changed?
Most obviously, there is a dramatically different regulatory climate in Washington, D.C. This has produced a bill, passed by the Senate and currently being considered by the House, that would ease stablecoins’ integration into the financial system.
Crypto boosters also say there’s a growing business case for stablecoins. Stablecoins, which are separate from more volatile cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, promise a more efficient form of payments—the ability to send digital dollars at near-instantaneous speeds and with lower costs. This potentially upends how companies approach anything from global treasury management to paying staffers and contractors around the world.
However, as the technology remains early and its regulatory future uncertain, analysts who spoke with Fortune also voiced skepticism that Silicon Valley’s tech giants would widely adopt stablecoins in the near future.
The cost of doing business
For a company like Amazon, moving money around the world is expensive. Net sales from its international business accounted for 22% of its consolidated revenues last year, totaling almost $143 billion, according to its 2024 annual report. Those sales are denominated in local currencies, which means the company has to account for foreign exchange risk and currency fluctuations that potentially cost it billions of dollars.
Nick van Eck, the CEO and cofounder of the stablecoin startup Agora, pointed to global treasury management as one of the advantages of stablecoins—being able to convert local currency into stablecoins and repatriate that back to the U.S.
Agora allows companies to white-label their own dollar-backed stablecoins. Van Eck told Fortune that while most of Agora’s clients today are crypto firms, his ideal customer is a multinational company like Pepsi that has dozens of bank accounts and corporate entities around the world, along with thousands of suppliers. “Stablecoins can drastically improve their capital efficiency,” he argued. “Now you can move $100 million from country to country in one second versus waiting days.”
Agora isn’t the only startup looking to cash in on Silicon Valley’s stablecoin craze. A flood of stablecoin startups have raised tens of millions from VCs over the past year, including Mesh, Bastion, and BVNK. Last October, the payments company Stripe completed a $1.1 billion landmark acquisition of the stablecoin startup Bridge.
Stripe, which counts half of the Fortune 100 as its customers, lets businesses automatically bill customers, provides a pre-built checkout system, and helps clients send money globally, among other payment products. Cofounders Patrick and John Collison lauded stablecoins in their most recent annual letter to investors, saying the assets will help large enterprises more quickly expand globally, among other benefits.
‘Why would I pay with stablecoins?’
Colin Sebastian, a research analyst at Baird covering Amazon, told Fortune that companies are always on the lookout for financial instruments or payment methods that can help manage expenses or reduce friction. “Traditional credit card payments are fairly expensive,” he said. “Of course, those fees are even higher for cross-border transactions.”
But while Amazon and other global firms may have a financial incentive to try stablecoin adoption, convincing customers to adopt the technology for payments will be trickier. “What would really drive consumer behavior to change?” Sebastian asked. “Credit cards and debit cards are really popular.”
Thomas Forte, a Maxim Group analyst who covers consumer internet companies like Amazon and Apple, agreed with Sebastian’s assessment. He argued that Amazon’s most logical use for stablecoins would be to accept payments from customers through stablecoins, thus reducing transaction fees. “Where I struggle is: As a consumer in the U.S., why would I pay with stablecoin[s]?” Forte asked.
Agora cofounder Van Eck argued that, at least until there is broader stablecoin adoption in the U.S., the likeliest embrace of the technology will be in countries with more volatile currencies, where consumers are more incentivized to try out a more stable form of payment. He recalled a recent instance of receiving funding from angel investors outside of the U.S., with one wire taking 10 business days to arrive, and another 22. “This is very common, not just for individuals, but also for businesses that operate multinationally,” he told Fortune.
In Argentina, for example, inflation has run rampant for more than 15 years, and the value of the country’s national currency has plummeted in comparison to the U.S. dollar. It’s no surprise, then, that stablecoin transactions from June 2023 to July 2024 in Argentina accounted for almost 62% of the country’s crypto trading volume. That’s compared to a global average of about 45%, according to a 2024 report from Chainalysis.
“I’m much more interested in the businesses that are really solving a problem for businesses in Nigeria that want to pay someone in the Philippines—or something like that,” said Nic Carter, founding partner at Castle Island Ventures, a crypto venture capital firm that specializes in stablecoin investments.
Still, Big Tech companies in the U.S. are excited enough about the tech that they’ve already made moves into the burgeoning category. PayPal has launched its own stablecoin. The online brokerage Robinhood and payments giant Mastercard have both joined a consortium in which members can mint, or create, the stablecoin USDG. And companies like Amazon, Apple, and Meta are already exploring stablecoins for payouts.
Meta previously declined to comment on its stablecoin plans. Spokespeople for Apple and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.
As stablecoin regulation nears completion in Congress, there’s little downside for Big Tech to experiment with new technology, said Sebastian, the Baird analyst. “One of the common features or common elements of a lot of the Big Tech companies,” he said, “is that they are very open to experiment and try new things.”
