Stablecoins Overtake Visa and Mastercard on-Chain, Becoming the Internet’s Default Settlement Layer

Stablecoins have overtaken the old guard of card networks in on-chain volume, marking a hard pivot in how money moves online. 

Noam Hurwitz, head of engineering at Alchemy, says adoption has been “explosive”, describing stablecoins as “the default settlement layer for the internet”.

Traditional rails are bending to fit. PayPal and Stripe now run stablecoin rails for faster, cheaper payments. Onchain stablecoin volume has already edged past Visa and Mastercard by 7%, Hurwitz told Cointelegraph, calling it a clear signal that the tide has turned.

Alchemy sits at the center of the shift, providing backbone infrastructure for giants like Visa, Stripe, Circle, and PayPal. Hurwitz points to Robinhood Wallet as one example, calling Alchemy “the onchain provider” for its stablecoin flows.

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As Crypto News Australia reported, the US Senate has cleared the GENIUS Act, locking in federal guardrails for stablecoins for the first time in the country.

With the recent passage of the GENIUS Act, the regulatory landscape is becoming clearer and more structured, which benefits established financial players while also encouraging innovation.

Noam Hurwitz, head of engineering at Alchemy.

Are Stablecoins Making Things Simpler?

Cross-border remittances show the clearest impact. Conventional systems bleed senders dry with fees of 4–10%, worse in rural regions. Stablecoins cut that to 1–3%, putting more cash in the hands of families who need it. 

Developing economies feel it most. Unbanked households can receive funds straight to mobile wallets, dodging banks that don’t exist or don’t work. Platforms like Onafriq already link 500 million wallets and bank accounts across 40 African markets.

Programmable stablecoins let businesses wire payment logic directly into transactions with no middlemen, and oftentimes it’s just cheaper than using traditional rails. Additionally, there’s a lot of new use cases taking shape quite fast. 

For instance, micropayments for digital content, automated recurring billing through smart contracts, and real-time settlement for high-frequency trades are now possible, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg for now.

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