Stablecoins can cross borders within seconds, but converting them into spendable local currency remains a slower and more fragmented process, Gravity Team CEO Mārtiņš Beņķītis told crypto.news as the firm launched its institutional OTC desk.

Stablecoin payments depend on two types of liquidity

Mārtiņš Beņķītis, co-founder and CEO of emerging-markets liquidity provider Gravity Team, told crypto.news that stablecoin infrastructure has become a liquidity issue because the same tokens perform different jobs across trading and payments.

Market makers hold stablecoins to quote buy and sell prices, move inventory between exchanges, and respond to changes in trading activity. Payment companies, by contrast, use stablecoins to fund a conversion before releasing local currency to the recipient.

Trading inventory must remain available across multiple venues, while a payment balance can be used again after settlement. However, the payment company still needs enough local currency to complete the other side of the transfer when the stablecoin arrives.

“Stablecoin payment infrastructure is a liquidity story because stablecoin balances serve very different jobs,” Beņķītis said.

“A market maker uses them to quote on both sides of order books and manage inventory risk across dozens of connected exchanges. A payment business uses them to fund a conversion and release local currency to the recipient.”

Gravity Team’s corridor analysis found that correspondent banking can leave the equivalent of 20% to 40% of monthly transaction flow in pre-funded accounts. The company said stablecoins may reduce this idle capital, but only when an operator maintains funded local-currency books and enough inventory to quote the conversion.

The conversion point remains a bottleneck

A stablecoin payment contains at least two distinct stages. The first moves the token on-chain, while the second converts it into the currency that a recipient can spend through a local bank account or payment service.

Beņķītis said the second stage has become the newest area of competition for payment providers. Every currency market has different levels of liquidity, bank operating hours, compliance controls, transaction limits, and counterparties.

Gravity Team currently supports settlement involving the Philippine peso, Indonesian rupiah, Mexican peso, Brazilian real, euro, British pound, and U.S. dollar. The company plans to add the Vietnamese dong.

Its internal data found that between 3% and 7% of traditional inbound wires in the Southeast Asian and Latin American corridors it serves are delayed or returned on their first attempt. Stablecoin transfers in those markets reportedly clear on-chain more than 99.9% of the time once broadcast.

Beņķītis cautioned that the on-chain success rate does not cover the entire payment.

“Local conversion and payout still have to complete after the token arrives,” he said.

Operators using direct banking relationships can control funding, payment cut-off times, and failed transactions more closely. Partner-based models can reach additional countries but depend on another company’s liquidity, availability, transaction limits, and handling of unsuccessful payouts.

The commercial test, according to Beņķītis, is therefore not how quickly a token reaches a wallet. It is how often the complete payment reaches the recipient at the quoted price and within the promised period, including when the primary payout route is unavailable.

Stripe and Mastercard move deeper into stablecoin payments

Large payment companies have already spent heavily to bring stablecoin infrastructure into their existing networks.

Stripe completed its acquisition of Bridge in February 2025. Bridge provides infrastructure for businesses to receive, store, convert, issue, and spend stablecoins.

Mastercard completed its acquisition of BVNK on Aug. 3. The card network had agreed to pay as much as $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent payments, for technology connecting fiat and stablecoin rails.

Beņķītis described both acquisitions as logical steps but said global platforms must still maintain consistent pricing and settlement as they add currencies with different operating conditions.

Gravity Team estimates that stablecoin settlement costs between 0.1% and 0.4% of the principal across the corridors it studied. Its estimated cost for correspondent banking ranges from 3% to 11% after including foreign-exchange spreads, intermediary charges, and capital held in pre-funded accounts.

Those comparisons also come from company research. Actual costs can vary by corridor, payment size, compliance requirements, and the number of intermediaries involved.

A March 2026 Federal Reserve note separately found that correspondent banking chains can make cross-border payments slower, more expensive and less transparent. The Fed said intermediaries may repeat compliance checks and make it harder to determine where a payment is being held.

Gravity Team opens institutional OTC desk

Gravity Team launched an institutional over-the-counter desk on Aug. 24 as part of its effort to connect crypto liquidity with local fiat settlement.

The company said the service acts as the principal counterparty for transactions within agreed limits for size, price, and volatility. Clients receive quotes with defined validity periods instead of executing large orders through public exchange order books.

The desk offers stablecoin settlement in under 60 seconds and T+0 fiat settlement in more than 20 currencies where local banking conditions allow. T+0 means the fiat side is intended to settle on the same day as the transaction rather than after one or more business days.

Gravity Team said it has direct banking relationships in more than 20 markets and intends the desk for payment providers, fintech companies, brokers, and other institutions moving funds into emerging economies. It also offers request-for-quote execution and credit lines, subject to its counterparty terms.

The launch comes as emerging markets account for some of the fastest growth in crypto activity. Chainalysis reported that Asia-Pacific crypto volume rose 69% to $2.36 trillion during the 12 months ending June 2025, while Latin American activity increased 63%.

For U.S. payment companies, the issue also extends beyond moving dollar-backed tokens overseas. Although the GENIUS Act created a federal framework for payment stablecoin issuers, domestic issuer rules do not by themselves supply peso, real, rupiah, or other local-currency liquidity in destination markets.

Stablecoins can shorten the digital part of a cross-border transfer. Completing the payment still requires local funding, currency conversion, regulatory checks, and a functioning payout route.

CleanCore Solutions has sold substantially all of its 463 million Dogecoin holdings for about $33.4 million as it redirects capital toward AI infrastructure while a $100 million stock offering has more than doubled its outstanding share count.

CryptoSlate, citing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, reported that CleanCore disposed of substantially all of its remaining Dogecoin (DOGE) on July 20 and allocated the proceeds to its AI infrastructure segment, ending a treasury strategy that less than a year ago was built around accumulating a major share of DOGE supply.

The sale follows several earlier disposals. An SEC prospectus showed that by June 2, CleanCore had already sold about 200 million DOGE for $18.4 million and transferred another 70 million tokens in exchange for roughly $6.8 million of professional services. At that point, it still held 463.06 million DOGE valued at approximately $44.3 million.

CleanCore’s retreat has reversed a strategy that began in September 2025, when the company raised $175 million through a private investment in public equity to make Dogecoin its primary treasury reserve asset. As crypto.news previously reported, the financing attracted more than 80 investors, including Pantera, GSR and FalconX, while House of Doge and 21Shares advised the treasury program.

CleanCore Dogecoin treasury has moved from accumulation to liquidation

Only days after launching the strategy, CleanCore bought 285.42 million DOGE for about $68 million and initially planned to accumulate 1 billion tokens within 30 days. Its longer-term plan called for holding as much as 5% of Dogecoin’s circulating supply, according to coverage of the purchase in September 2025.

The holdings continued rising after the initial acquisition. By October 2025, CleanCore said its treasury contained 710 million DOGE and carried more than $20 million in unrealized gains, while management said the company had sufficient cash to continue buying tokens toward the 1 billion DOGE target, according to an October report.

By 2026, however, the company had begun unwinding the program. A June 8 SEC filing said CleanCore had terminated its asset management agreement with Dogecoin Ventures and 21Shares on March 6 and was managing the remaining assets internally while assessing their disposal. The company disclosed the earlier 200 million DOGE sale and 70 million DOGE transfer in the same filing.

At the same time, CleanCore appointed Tyler Hassen as chief executive and said its business would focus on building AI infrastructure in the United States. The filing described plans to move away from both its cleaning products operations and its previously announced Dogecoin treasury strategy, while the company was exploring a sale of the cleaning business.

$100 million offering has lifted CleanCore’s share count 121.9%

Funding the new business has also substantially changed CleanCore’s capital structure.

CleanCore priced a best-efforts public offering on Aug. 11 involving 275,829,576 common shares, 124,170,424 pre-funded warrants and investor warrants covering up to another 400 million shares. The common shares and accompanying warrants were offered at a combined price of $0.25, while the pre-funded warrant packages were priced at $0.2499.

According to CleanCore’s Aug. 20 SEC filing, issuance of the 275.83 million common shares increased shares outstanding to 502,090,260. The final prospectus placed the pre-offering total at 226,260,684 shares, meaning the shares already issued through the transaction increased the outstanding count by about 121.9%.

Potential dilution extends beyond the shares already issued. The offering included pre-funded warrants for 124.17 million shares, which carry a $0.0001 exercise price and have no expiry, alongside warrants covering as many as 400 million shares at an exercise price of $0.25 over five years.

If all offering-related warrants were eventually exercised after the Aug. 20 share count, the number associated with the offering could reach 1.026 billion shares. That remains a conditional scenario because warrant exercises are subject to ownership limits and other terms, while CleanCore’s prospectus separately lists stock options, restricted stock units, existing warrants, settlement shares and other potential equity issuances.

The company said the offering generated approximately $100 million in gross proceeds. Its prospectus estimated net proceeds of about $92 million after an $8 million placement and advisory fee, although the closing disclosure did not specify the final amount of cash received.

AI infrastructure commitments exceed the latest equity raise

CleanCore’s new capital is being directed toward an AI infrastructure business that already carries large funding requirements.

A July 23 agreement established a joint venture for an approximately 55-megawatt data center in Minnesota, including a baseline 40-megawatt compute deployment connected to a colocation agreement with Cerebras Systems. CleanCore later said the 10-year Cerebras agreement carried an initial contract value of about $800 million, with two additional 10-year renewal options that could take potential contract value above $3 billion. Initial revenue is expected in the first quarter of 2027, according to the company.

The Minnesota venture carries an initial project budget of approximately $479 million, while CleanCore’s commitments can reach as much as $500 million under the transaction structure, according to the filings cited by CryptoSlate. An initial contribution schedule called for $25 million at the venture’s closing and as much as another $15 million within four business days depending on project needs.

CleanCore subsequently said approximately $140 million of project equity had been “funded or committed,” including proceeds from the stock offering and completed Dogecoin sales. The disclosures cited by CryptoSlate did not separate capital already funded from outstanding commitments or reconcile the $140 million figure against the venture’s contribution schedule.

The financing model resembles a pattern already visible among other listed crypto companies. A July 2026 report found that more than a dozen digital asset treasury companies had moved toward AI and data center businesses as falling crypto prices and lower treasury premiums reduced investor demand for the digital asset treasury model.

CleanCore had reported $4.1 million in cash and cash equivalents and another $13 million in restricted cash on its March 31 balance sheet. The disclosures cited by CryptoSlate have not provided an updated cash balance incorporating the subsequent $33.4 million DOGE disposal and proceeds from the August equity offering.