Non-dollar stablecoins will rise over next few years, Visa’s Head of Crypto says

“Dollars are great for cross-border, but you then need to be able to convert quickly and efficiently,” Sheffield said. “And there’s a big role for other local currency stablecoins to play in that.”

The Visa executive added that every major fiat currency will be represented on-chain in the future, although currently, the USD stablecoins make up 99% of the total stablecoin market supply. Sheffield also said that it is “exciting” to see more stablecoins entering the market that try to differentiate themselves from USDT or USDC. 

“Now it seems like in most of the use cases, people are explicitly using the stablecoin. They know what the stablecoin is, and there is some direct-to-consumer brand,” Sheffield said. “But we think there are many other use cases that could just happen on the backend where the brand doesn't matter, and then it's all about, you know, the economics.”

Earlier this week at Token2049 Singapore, digital asset custody firm BitGo announced its own stablecoin USDS, which aims to differentiate itself from the two dominant market players by offering financial incentives to institutions that provide liquidity. 

It joins the list of many new entrants into the stablecoin business, such as PayPal’s PYUSD, which became the fourth largest stablecoin since launching last year. On Wednesday, London-based fintech firm Revolut said it is also planning to launch its own stablecoin.

Sheffield said 2024 has been kind of a turning point year where some non-crypto businesses are trying to solve payout challenges to overseas freelancers with stablecoins. 

“That’s one of the biggest use cases that we see over and over, of freelancers in Nigeria, in Argentina. They want to get paid and they prefer dollars,” the Visa executive said. 

Whether stablecoins can become a backend payment rail that links both cross-border and local, domestic payment rails remains both a question and a huge opportunity, said Sheffield.