Arrangement: Fairy, ChainCatcher
Editor: TB, ChainCatcher
“Stablecoins cannot reduce the cost of remittances between major currencies, and cryptocurrencies have not demonstrated clear real-world use cases in the past 15 years.”
On June 7, a tweet from Jack Zhang, founder and CEO of Airwallex, sparked a heated discussion about the actual value of stablecoins. The reason why this bearish voice attracted attention is that Jack Zhang is at the core of global financial technology.
Airwallex is the worlds leading cross-border payment platform for enterprises, with business covering more than 50 countries. Its core products include international collection accounts, multi-currency corporate cards, global transfers, etc. In May this year, Airwallex completed its F round of financing, with its valuation rising to US$6.2 billion and cumulative financing reaching US$1.2 billion. The investors behind it include well-known capitals such as Tencent, Sequoia China, DST, and Hillhouse Capital.
At a time when stablecoins are entering the mainstream financial field, Jack Zhangs tone seems particularly harsh. But his views are not isolated, but reflect the views of some traditional payment practitioners and even financial elites on the rise of stablecoins.
Here are Jack Zhang’s tweets (compiled by ChainCatcher):
Investors always ask me about stablecoins and how they can reduce FX fees; but if you are sending money from USD to EUR and the recipient still requires EUR in their bank account, then I really don’t see how stablecoins can reduce fees - the cost of exchanging from stablecoins to the receiving currency is much higher than the traditional interbank FX market.
Cryptocurrency is something I still don’t understand. After 15 years, I still don’t see where cryptocurrencies really help. Even if stablecoins are less volatile, I don’t see how they can be useful in B2B transactions, except in some very niche currency markets, where liquidity is inherently very low.
Unlike artificial intelligence, its applications are real, and each of us uses various AI tools every day. What about stablecoins? How many people are actually using them?
I remember in 2021, I was like a fool, watching everyone talking about cryptocurrencies, the market was going crazy, and even a16z released a white paper on the future of Web3. But I still cant see that future.
This year, I feel like a complete fool again, because I still don’t see any prospects for using stablecoins for cross-border transactions between G10 currencies. Our cost of cross-border transfers is now less than 0.01%, and it arrives in real time. You can’t get cheaper than “free” or faster than “real time”.
The only real use case I can see is probably Stripe providing stablecoin wallet infrastructure to consumers in Latin American or African countries through the acquisition of Bridge... but thats really just regulatory arbitrage.
If anyone wants to refute me with transaction volumes, here is a spruced up chart showing only stablecoin transaction volumes related to real economic activity (such as payments, remittances, and commercial transactions) by region from 2021 to 2025 year-to-date data.
Image source: Jack Zhang
In a discussion with netizens in the comments section, Jack Zhang further clarified his stance on stablecoins:
In the future, stablecoins may serve as a supplementary option for payment tools and financial infrastructure rather than a disruptive change.
Stablecoins are over-hyped and their development path is still long. Excessive publicity and hype can easily mislead the publics judgment of their actual value.
The issuance of currency should be dominated by the central bank, and pure financial products will not create any real value for society.
Cross-border regulatory restrictions and developing countries resistance to dollarization make the prospects for the global compliance of stablecoins dim.
These views have triggered fierce rebuttals from the financial and crypto circles:
Financial analyst Simon Taylor pointed out that stablecoins are indeed just another option at present and have not yet constituted a mainstream financial track, but he believes that a key turning point is coming. With the upcoming stablecoin regulatory rules in the United States, stablecoins are expected to usher in an institutional turning point. He pointed out that similar to the path of Eurodollar, stablecoins may also become an alternative to SWIFT for some countries. Driven by the G20, multilateral institutions such as the OECD are promoting a functionally equivalent regulatory framework to lay an institutional foundation for its globalization.
Juan Lopez, partner of VanEck Ventures, said that real innovation is often born in marginal markets. Stablecoins have great potential and should not be denied simply because they are hype-based. Because it is the attractiveness of the potential market (TAM) that inspires continued exploration. He emphasized that although the services of Airwallex and Wise are excellent, they still cannot meet the many needs of stablecoin users in global transactions, and these market feedbacks just prove that stablecoins are solving real pain points and represent a necessary innovation path.
Interests determine positions, defense of old forces?
As the US stablecoin legislation has made a key breakthrough and several states have taken the first step to issue stablecoins, this crypto asset, once regarded as an on-chain tool, is evolving into a frontier force in the global financial game. Stablecoins are no longer just a part of the technology stack, but rather a carrier of the struggle for capital power, the reshaping of the regulatory framework, and the profound collision of geopolitical structures.
Therefore, in response to Jack Zhang’s statement on stablecoins, many people believe that this is not just a technical view or market judgment, but also a true projection of the discourse position of the old financial interest groups.
Crypto KOL BroLeon pointed out that Airwallexs business model is not complicated, and its core competitiveness comes from the financial licenses it holds in multiple countries and the capital pool advantage brought by the deposited funds. Through multiple rounds of large-scale financing, Airwallex has actually been deeply bound to the global traditional financial vested interest groups and has become part of the old system.
BroLeon further stated that the current rise of stablecoins, in addition to relying on the technical transformation of backward financial infrastructure by blockchain, is driven more deeply by the game within the U.S. political ecology. Emerging political forces represented by the Trump camp are challenging traditional financial groups represented by the Federal Reserve, and stablecoins have become a product and tool in this conflict of interests between new finance and old finance.
Tastingo.eth/.sol, co-founder of OHDAT Labs, also expressed a similar view. He believes that Jack himself is a representative of the vested interest system, and his position on the issue of stablecoins naturally reflects this reality. The development of stablecoins is not a simple technological innovation to a large extent, but a redistribution of power between new and old financial forces in the context of global competition. In the United States, stablecoins have become a tool for the MAGA camp to challenge the dominance of the Federal Reserve to some extent.
Stablecoins lie between financial innovation and regulatory reality. Jack Zhangs doubts are in sharp contrast to the exploration of emerging forces. Can the new political driving force that is quietly gathering really shake the foundation of the global payment system?
