PayPal’s Crypto Head Says Banks Are Key to Unlock Stablecoin Potential

Banks want to be a part of crypto for stablecoins to succeed—that was the message from Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s senior vp of digital currencies, throughout a panel dialogue at Consensus 2025 in Toronto.

“It might sound counterintuitive, but you do want the banks in this space,” Fernandez da Ponte stated, including that their infrastructure—from custody to offering fiat rails—can be important if stablecoins are to scale past crypto-native circles. “You want that connectivity and that fabric to work.”

His remarks got here amid efforts to carry regulatory readability for digital property within the U.S., with lawmakers inching nearer to go stablecoin laws that would redefine the market and permit banks to enter the area.

Read extra: U.S. Senate’s Stablecoin Push Still Alive as Bill May Return to Floor: Sources

“This is going to be a big unlock,” stated Anthony Soohoo, chairman and CEO of MoneyGram, a cross-border cash switch service. “There’s always hesitation: Can I trust this? [The stablecoin legislation] is going to answer a lot of those questions.”

Both executives stated they count on a wave of recent issuers to enter the market as soon as regulation is in place, adopted by a interval of consolidation. “It’s not going to be 300 stablecoins, and it’s not going to be just two,” Fernandez da Ponte stated.

Currently, Tether’s USDT USDT$1.00 and Circle’s USDC USDC$0.99989 dominate the market, representing practically 90% of the $230 billion asset class. PayPal’s PYUSD PYUSD$0.99953, launched in 2023, lags far behind with $900 million provide. Fernandez da Ponte pushed again on market cap as the first metric for achievement. “We look at velocity, active wallets, number of transactions,” he said. “Those are what drive real usage.”

In international locations with excessive inflation and risky currencies, customers are searching for out dollar-backed stablecoins as shops of worth and instruments for cross-border funds. Soohoo stated MoneyGram, which operates in over 200 international locations with practically half one million cash-access places, helps facilitate that entry.

“We see ourselves between physical finance and digital finance,” Soohoo stated. “A lot of consumers in local economies want to hold value in dollars but still need to access it as cash to spend in places that don’t take digital currency.”

Stablecoin adoption in developed international locations, in the meantime, has been slower. With clear regulation in place, stablecoins can streamline company treasury operations and cross-border disbursement, Fernandez da Ponte famous.

“We used to have this mad rush on Friday to make sure money was in the right places before the weekend,” he stated. “Now we’re sending money to the Philippines and Africa in ten minutes with stablecoins.”

Both executives famous that real-world use circumstances, not hype, will decide if stablecoins might attain the trillion-dollar scale within the subsequent years that is been projected.

“Consumers don’t care about stablecoins. They care about solving problems.” Fernandez da Ponte stated. “We’re five years into a ten-year journey, and regulation will define the next half.”