Blockchain Is Booming – But One Major Obstacle Remains

If you’ve been following the news lately, it seems like there’s a new stablecoin announced every day. Almost overnight, stablecoin payments have become a pillar of finance, with traditional institutions significantly accelerating or desperately chasing plans to integrate. To really capitalize on the potential, there are a few critical things that every participant needs to address, including existing blockchains.

The payments industry has traditionally kept blockchain payments at a distance. This was originally somewhat understandable. Anonymous wallet activities can seem like the antithesis of good financial governance for any regulated business. However, in 2024 alone, more than $15 trillion was settled onchain, surpassing Visa and Mastercard combined. And with the growth and explosion of stablecoins — which are ultimately on-chain assets just like your favorite memecoin or NFT — payments businesses have to solve for the key points of friction, rather than marginalize blockchain payments.

Existing blockchains like Sui have struggled to get payment processors and card networks to adapt their technologies to use the superpowers of blockchain. It’s not that blockchains are inherently less compliant; it’s that a form of gatekeeping has been taking place. The plausible argument has always been compliance, but one has to wonder if the real reason was always about the ways in which wallets (not cards), privacy innovations like zero knowledge, and instant settlement might make existing payments businesses lose their incumbent advantage.

But let’s not quibble on how we got here. With stablecoin growth rocketing, it is in everyone’s best interest to get on the same side of the table and fix the barriers between traditional fiat and on-chain payments.

Related: What Every Small-Business Founder Needs to Know About Stablecoins and Digital Dollars

Collaborating for growth — the Blockchain Payments Consortium

As founding members of the Blockchain Payments Consortium (BPC), which is a consortium of L1s and payments services providers, one fact we all wanted to address is that we in the blockchain industry were not making it easy for payments companies and traditional finance to get on board.

Each L1 has different technology stacks, smart contract languages and differing asset models. This variability can be messy — it creates headaches not just for enterprises wading into digital assets for the first time, but for the financial institutions that support them. Combined with endless exclusivity deals that ring-fence users, we may have actually harmed our ability to bring blockchain payments to the world.

It’s time to change that, and to do it, we need to work with each other and the off-chain payments industry.

The BPC aims to provide the frameworks and foundations for common solutions, standards and even interoperability. We all win when we make it easier for compliant and safe payment experiences to use blockchain rails effectively.

Stablecoins make this need urgent. As it stands, even the most popular stablecoins face fragmented liquidity across chains. Measurement of any payment activity is actually very challenging, because it’s still hard to tell which transactions on any blockchain are payments vs. something else. Relying on self-reported data from applications and “trusted entities” won’t help make the case that blockchains bring a valuable and important level of transparency and safety to the payments landscape.

Our initial goals are simple; we will look to sign up more members who care about common frameworks and standards. And together, we will look to publish simple but crucial commitments that all members will meet, starting with definitions of what a payment is on a blockchain and the metadata that identifies it.

This seemingly simple step will enable payments companies, data and analytics businesses, observers and regulators to actually see and understand payments activity on-chain, for any asset type, all without compromising the privacy and rights of individuals. Better applications and services will follow, and a new host of on-chain and x-chain innovation opportunities will rise.

Related: What It Will Actually Take to Bridge the Gap Between DeFi and Traditional Finance

Blockchain innovations, stablecoins and DeFi are inextricably linked

Common standards and interoperability are just one part of the equation. A second part will be showing the world what a future-facing payments ecosystem looks like. One that leverages the best that blockchain technology has to offer. One that offers privacy with verifiability, speed with compliance and assurance, and one that gives businesses flexibility to deploy their financial strategies across both traditional and decentralized financial (DeFi) markets.

The goal of common frameworks and standards is to help create more access to the best that blockchain has to offer. DeFi is the proven product-market fit for blockchains. And whilst dedicated private payments L1s may seem attractive to serve just payments use-cases, they miss a key point of value — stablecoins have blown up because they found product-market fit inside the world of trading and lending.

As they scale, answers to issues such as liquidity fragmentation lie in the broad and rich landscape of DeFi. It is hard to conceive how payments-focused chains will build strong and sustainable DeFi ecosystems where multiple business models, asset types, collateralization and liquidity opportunities exist. Traditional enterprises wanting to access and use stablecoins will soon find themselves looking for solutions to address stale treasuries — DeFi is already here and available on Sui, as well as on many public blockchains today, including all the founding members of the BPC.

Related: The Era of Blockchain Hype Is Over — Execution Is What Will Drive Adoption

A trillion-dollar industry is at stake

Within the BPC members’ ecosystems, more than $10 trillion in annualized payment volume and approximately 5 billion stablecoin transactions are already being processed. In the United States, the Federal Reserve recently said it “roughly [projects] stablecoin uptake reaching between $1 trillion and $3 trillion by the end of the decade.” This is a market experiencing unprecedented growth. But if we want to fully realize the potential of blockchain payments, it is essential to remove existing barriers to entry for everyone.

Defining a common framework for payments doesn’t remove choice or impact decentralization; different chains can continue to operate within their own parameters. What it does is provide a common language for interoperability. If stablecoins are going to be what we all want them to be, then blockchain payments have to grow up. Together with the BPC, Sui has grand plans to lead the charge.

If you’ve been following the news lately, it seems like there’s a new stablecoin announced every day. Almost overnight, stablecoin payments have become a pillar of finance, with traditional institutions significantly accelerating or desperately chasing plans to integrate. To really capitalize on the potential, there are a few critical things that every participant needs to address, including existing blockchains.

The payments industry has traditionally kept blockchain payments at a distance. This was originally somewhat understandable. Anonymous wallet activities can seem like the antithesis of good financial governance for any regulated business. However, in 2024 alone, more than $15 trillion was settled onchain, surpassing Visa and Mastercard combined. And with the growth and explosion of stablecoins — which are ultimately on-chain assets just like your favorite memecoin or NFT — payments businesses have to solve for the key points of friction, rather than marginalize blockchain payments.