Stablecoins are rapidly evolving beyond their original role in crypto trading, emerging as a key layer of financial infrastructure, according to new research from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The report highlights a growing shift toward institutional use cases, particularly in cross-border payments, treasury operations, and capital markets, while traditional banks continue to take a cautious, exploratory approach.

Stablecoins Move Beyond Trading

“Stablecoins are evolving beyond a crypto trading tool into a new layer of financial infrastructure,” said Jordan McKee, Director of Fintech Research at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

According to the report, the most meaningful adoption is happening behind the scenes, where stablecoins are improving settlement speed, capital efficiency, and liquidity movement rather than being widely used at the consumer level.

Market Growth Accelerates

The stablecoin market is expanding rapidly:

• Circulation reached approximately $269 billion in 2025
• Projected to grow to around $434 billion by 2028
• Mentions in earnings calls surged to 107 in 2025, up from just five in 2024

This sharp increase reflects rising interest from banks, fintech firms, and payment providers exploring the role of stablecoins in modern financial systems.

Institutional Use Cases Lead Adoption

Adoption remains concentrated in infrastructure-level applications, including:

• Cross-border payments
• Treasury and liquidity management
• Tokenized capital markets

In these areas, stablecoins are helping reduce settlement times and improve capital mobility across global markets.

Consumer Adoption Still Limited

Despite the growing institutional interest, consumer adoption remains low, especially in developed markets.

Only 12% of U.S. consumers report familiarity with stablecoins, with concerns around security, fraud, and lack of clear use cases acting as key barriers.

Banks Take a Wait-and-See Approach

The report also reveals a significant gap between infrastructure development and institutional readiness.

Among 100 primarily smaller U.S. financial institutions surveyed:

• Only 7% are developing internal stablecoin frameworks
• None are actively piloting stablecoin initiatives

This suggests that while the technology is advancing quickly, many banks are still evaluating how and when to engage.

Regulation and Competition to Shape the Future

Since the start of 2025, at least 19 applications for banking charters related to digital asset services have been submitted to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

As the market matures, S&P Global Market Intelligence expects adoption to be driven less by consumer usage and more by:

• Institutional integration
• Regulatory frameworks
• Competition across issuance, liquidity, and distribution

The report concludes that stablecoins are entering a critical infrastructure buildout phase, which will likely define their role in the global financial system over the coming years.

A crypto card can look simple. You tap to pay, shop online, or withdraw cash, and it works much like a regular card.

Still, the total cost is not always obvious. Depending on the provider, users may pay blockchain fees, conversion costs, foreign exchange charges, ATM fees, or merchant markups. Some of those costs appear clearly. Others are built into the rate or show up only at checkout.

That is why the real cost of a crypto card is not one single fee. It is the total cost of moving funds, converting them, and spending them.

Network fees can start before you even spend

The first cost can appear when a user moves crypto into a wallet or account linked to the card. In that case, the blockchain may charge a network fee, often called a gas fee.

That fee usually does not come from the card provider. Instead, it comes from the network that processes the transaction. As a result, the cost can change depending on which blockchain the user picks and how busy that network is.

So even before the card is used for a purchase, the funding step may already carry a cost.

The exchange rate can include a hidden conversion cost

Many crypto cards convert crypto into fiat at the moment of payment. In some cases, that conversion cost appears as a stated fee. In other cases, it sits inside the exchange rate itself.

That difference matters. A card may look cheap on paper, but the user may still pay more through the rate used to convert crypto into dollars, euros, or another currency.

So when comparing cards, users should not look only at the fee page. They should also look at how the provider handles conversion.

Foreign purchases can trigger FX fees

When a card is used in a different currency, foreign exchange fees can apply. That is common when users travel, shop on foreign websites, or withdraw cash abroad.

In some cases, the card network sets one rate and the issuer adds its own FX fee on top. That means the final cost can rise even when the transaction goes through normally.

This is one reason why cross border spending often costs more than a domestic purchase.

DCC is one of the clearest ways to overpay

Another common cost appears at the terminal. When a user pays abroad, the merchant or ATM may ask whether to charge the card in the user’s home currency instead of the local one. That is Dynamic Currency Conversion, or DCC.

It often looks convenient, but it usually costs more. BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation, said consumers are financially worse off in “practically every single case” when they accept DCC. The same paper cited research showing DCC was on average 7.6% more expensive in one study, while the highest markup reached 12.4%.

So the cleaner option is usually the local currency, not the home currency shown on the screen.

A simple DCC example

That difference may look small on one purchase. Still, it adds up across repeated payments and withdrawals. BEUC’s paper also found examples where payment markups in stores ranged from 2% to 5%, while ATM DCC increases ran from 2.6% to 12% in one dataset.

ATM withdrawals can stack several fees at once

Cash withdrawals are another area where costs can pile up fast. First, the ATM operator may charge its own fee. Then the card issuer may add a withdrawal fee. If the withdrawal is in a foreign currency, an FX fee may apply as well.

So one ATM transaction can combine several charges in a single step. That is why withdrawing cash is often one of the more expensive ways to use a crypto card.

Users should check both the card provider’s fee schedule and the ATM screen before confirming the transaction.

Card holds are not fees, but they still affect spending

Not every unexpected charge is a fee. Hotels, fuel stations, car rentals, and some online merchants often place a temporary hold on the card before the final charge settles.

That hold reduces the available balance for a period of time. Later, the merchant posts the final amount and releases the unused part.

So while a hold is not a direct cost, it can still confuse users and make the card balance look lower than expected.

Other small charges can still matter

Some crypto cards also charge for physical card shipping, replacement cards, premium plans, or inactivity. These costs are not the same across the market, so they should not be treated as universal.

That is why the fee page matters as much as the headline promise. A provider may advertise low spending fees while charging in other places.

In short, the total cost depends on the full structure, not one line in the marketing copy.

What cost can look like in practice

A user may pay one fee to move crypto onchain, another cost through the conversion rate, another fee on a foreign purchase, and another markup if DCC is accepted by mistake. Then, if the same user withdraws cash abroad, ATM and FX charges may come on top.

KAST’s public fee page offers one example of how that structure can work. It says non-USD card purchases carry a foreign exchange fee of 0.5% to 1.75%, depending on the countries involved. It also says ATM withdrawals cost $3 plus 2% of the withdrawal amount, with the same 0.5% to 1.75% FX fee added for non-USD withdrawals.

That example does not make crypto cards unusually expensive. It simply shows that the total cost often comes from several layers, not one headline fee.

If you want to see how a real fee schedule is laid out before you travel or spend abroad, take a minute to explore KAST.

The main point on cost

Crypto cards are easier to understand when each cost is separated clearly. The main ones to watch are network fees, conversion costs, FX fees, DCC markups, ATM charges, and temporary holds.

Among them, DCC remains one of the clearest traps because it can make a transaction more expensive without adding any real benefit for the cardholder. BEUC’s findings underline that point.

So the simplest rule is this: check how the card handles conversion, read the fee page before using it abroad, and choose the local currency when a terminal gives you the choice.

Enhanced Labs raised a $1 million pre-seed led by Maximum Frequency Ventures to expand options-based yield strategies across on-chain and tokenized real-world assets.

U.S.-based DeFi infrastructure startup Enhanced Labs has closed a $1 million pre-seed funding round to expand its options-based yield products across a wider range of on-chain assets, including tokenized real-world assets. The round was led by Maximum Frequency Ventures, with market-making and trading firms GSR, Selini and Flowdesk joining alongside a group of undisclosed angel investors. According to the company, the capital will be used to support product development, operations and go-to-market efforts.

Enhanced Labs positions itself as a provider of “options-based yield strategies” designed to sit on top of existing DeFi and tokenization rails, rather than competing directly with spot lending or simple staking. By extending these structured strategies to tokenized real-world assets, the firm is effectively betting that on-chain treasuries, credit, commodities and other RWAs will need the same kind of yield engineering and risk-transfer mechanisms that already exist in traditional markets. The goal is to package those exposures in a way that can be deployed programmatically, but still remain accessible to institutions that need clearer risk parameters than typical DeFi products offer.

Backing from names like GSR, Selini and Flowdesk suggests Enhanced Labs is targeting the intersection of market-making, derivatives and on-chain liquidity rather than retail-facing savings products. For these investors, options-based yield on tokenized assets is not just a new narrative but a potential source of structured flow if RWAs continue to move on-chain. The pre-seed size is modest by bull-market standards, but at this stage the more important signal is that specialized trading firms are willing to seed infrastructure aimed at making RWAs behave more like fully featured, hedgeable collateral.

If Enhanced Labs executes, it could help close one of the gaps in today’s tokenization pitch: plenty of projects can put a bond or a real-estate claim on-chain, but far fewer can offer a robust menu of ways to hedge, lever or generate predictable income on top of those assets. Whether a $1 million war chest is enough to build those tools—while navigating the regulatory and risk constraints that come with engineering yield on real-world exposures—remains an open question.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) and Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) asked a federal court to block Arizona from enforcing state gambling law against Kalshi’s event contracts, arguing that they fall under the CFTC’s exclusive authority over swaps markets.

The Wednesday filing argues that event contracts listed on federally regulated platforms such as Kalshi are swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act and therefore fall within the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction.

The filing says Arizona’s enforcement effort unlawfully intrudes on the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction over federally regulated event-contract markets.

If granted, the order would block Arizona from applying its gambling laws to prediction markets that are listed as federally regulated event contracts. An arraignment in the criminal case against Kalshi is currently scheduled for Monday.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced charges against the companies behind Kalshi on March 17, accusing them of operating an “illegal gambling business in Arizona without a license” and offering illegal election wagering.

Kalshi co-founder and CEO, Tarek Mansour, claimed the charges were a “total overstep” and “not about gambling.”

Federal and state regulators clash over prediction markets

The dispute has become a major test of whether prediction market contracts belong under federal commodities law or state betting rules.

On April 2, the CFTC filed three separate lawsuits against the gaming regulators of Illinois, Connecticut and Arizona, claiming that the event contracts offered by the platforms violated state gambling laws and licensing requirements.

In those suits, the CFTC says it has exclusive jurisdiction over CFTC-registered designated contract markets that list lawful event contracts. Kalshi is the clearest example in the current litigation.

Related: Kalshi, Polymarket face trading halt in Nevada after court rulings

Prediction markets are facing growing regulatory pressure in the US, where 11 states have pursued legal action against them.

Prediction market activity has been rising since the beginning of the US and Israeli military conflict with Iran, fueling renewed insider trading allegations, after six Polymarket traders netted $1 million by accurately betting when the US would strike Iran.

In response to insider trading concerns, Democratic Party Senator Adam Schiff has introduced legislation seeking to ban prediction markets on war, death and terrorism.

Magazine: Train AI agents to make better predictions… for token rewards