‘There’s less fragmentation in stablecoins than there is in any other area of blockchain regulation,’ says former Blockdaemon COO and current strategic adviser Amor Sexton.
Since their introduction more than a decade ago, stablecoins have grown from a niche solution for crypto traders, to acting as a middle ground between traditional and decentralised finance, facilitating around $33trn in annual transactions by volume in 2025.
While much of this volume results from trading and internal flows, last year the stablecoin market supported approximately $400bn in organic payment activity according to Artemis Analytics, up from less than $30bn in 2020, albeit a minuscule number in comparison to the trillions that move annual through global payment systems.
We’re in a period of rapid development in this area, with regulations coming in fast, blockchain infrastructure provider Blockdaemon’s former chief operating officer Amor Sexton told SiliconRepublic.com. But they’re only one part of the equation.
“Is it agentic payments? Is it cross-border payments? Is it real-time 24/7 liquidity management for corporate treasures?” she asked. “Regulation is one part of the puzzle, but you need to have all of the other components there and able to operate at scale for you to get adoption.
“So whether that’s looking at compliance processes that are digitised, treasury management functions, or even things like agentic workflows, money always moves as one part of the leg of a transaction.”
Sexton recently established her own consulting service for senior business executives and continues her work with Blockdaemon in an advisory capacity.
Stablecoins can be incredibly useful. Businesses and individuals use stablecoins for faster, cheaper international transfers, for decentralised finance and digital commerce, and to even transfer money internationally with lower fees and faster settlements.
These digital assets issued by private companies are generally pegged to fiat currency, with big-name examples including Circle’s USDC, Tether’s USDT and PayPal’s PYUSD.
In contrast, tokenised deposits are bank-issued digital representations of fiat deposits, recorded on a blockchain. These are minted and backed by regulated banks.
McKinsey recently noted that a larger transformation is unfolding within the traditional banking system, where tokenised deposits already facilitate trillions of dollars in annual transfers, far more than stablecoin payments.
Right where I thought we would be
The US maintains a heavily dominant position in the global stablecoin market, with USD-denominated stablecoins accounting for nearly all transactions. Parts of Asia, including business hubs such as Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore are also heavy adopters of stablecoin payments, according to McKinsey’s analysis.
Recently, the US Treasury Department proposed rules defining what counts as issuing, offering or selling stablecoins in the country, building on top of the Genius Act enacted last year. Effective starting 2027, this new legislation will make it unlawful to issue a payment stablecoin in the US without an appropriate federal or state licence.
Meanwhile, Wells Fargo announced that it would offer tokenised deposits to corporate and commercial clients, and BlackRock introduced two tokenised money market products.
“I personally have probably a different view to a lot of other people in the industry in that I think it’s happened quite quickly,” Sexton said when I asked her about the pace of development in the sector.
“I think a lot of other people in the industry would say it’s happened slowly. That’s probably because I came from an institutional banking background. I understand how long it takes for evolution in this space.”
Regulating stablecoins means taking an approach that balances innovation with appropriate safeguards. “Competing priorities, regulatory clarity – that’s needed. [So] we’re about where I thought we would be.
“The thing about programmable money is that you can program business rules into it. So, I think it’s about thinking through all of those workflows that are necessary in order to have agentic payments actually operate practically.”
Unsurprisingly, AI is playing a key role in fastening the pace of development in this space. “I think we’ll move quicker from here on now because when you have automated workflows.
“You need automated movement of value, and that’s where this technology really comes into play, whether it’s a stablecoin or it’s – you know – tokenised money that’s issued by a bank or even a central bank,” Sexton said.
“It’s a mixture of both the unprecedented proliferation of AI throughout society – not just business – on top of the actual evolution of the technology itself, which is also unprecedented.
“The fact that we’re even having this conversation now shows that there’s a lot of people talking about it and looking at it.
“I think we’re going to see rapid development in the next six to 12 months [in this space],” Sexton said in the interview which took place in May. “It’s a very short time. I wouldn’t have said that a few years ago.”
Rules not so fragmented
“I actually think there’s less fragmentation in stablecoins than there is in any other area of blockchain regulation,” Sexton said.
Over in the EU, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) began regulating stablecoins back in 2024, ahead of developments in this area elsewhere.
Euro-denominated stablecoins, however, have not been able to capture much of the market, though attempts are being made to change that.
Late last month, Revolut launched announced its first stablecoin, a euro-backed token called EURR, available to select customers in Denmark, Poland and Portugal. Meanwhile, Bank of Ireland and AIB recently joined a consortium of 35 other European banks to work towards issuing a euro-denominated stablecoin.
“Where you have a little bit of fragmentation is around questions of yields and things like that, but to me they’re important discussions to have – but they they’re not an absolute barrier to adoption,” Sexton said.
“What I think needs to happen from a regulatory perspective is recognition of stablecoins as legitimate payment methods that have been issued in other jurisdictions.
“It’s less about fragmentation of ‘how do we regulate the issuer?’ and more about ‘how do we actually treat the stablecoin itself as a means of payment?’”
The future of tokenised money isn’t going to be in just stablecoins, she explained. “You exchange your fiat for stablecoins, and to get out of a stablecoin you exchange the stablecoin for fiat too.
“We’re not talking about a world at the moment where people are necessarily staying in stablecoins for the entire time,” she said.
She believes acceptance is just around the corner. “I’m pro-programmable on-chain money. Stablecoins is one way of achieving that. So yes, I would like a world where we can have finance be more efficient.
“Not just tokenised money, but tokenised equities, tokenised identity.”
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