Zach Abrams, the founder of stablecoin company Bridge, admits he was surprised when the bulk of his business ended up coming from non-U.S. markets in Latin America, Europe, and Africa. <\/p>\n
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\u201cWe were very U.S.-centric. We didn\u2019t know what the opportunities were in the Philippines, Africa, or Latin America,\u201d Abrams says. \u201cUnbeknownst to us, there was all this pent up demand outside the U.S. to build with stablecoins.\u201d The firm\u2019s first customers asked it to build cross-border payment infrastructure between the U.S. and Colombia and to facilitate payouts into countries like Venezuela and the Philippines.<\/p>\n
Bridge\u2019s rapid rise was driven by regions that featured high friction across borders, like Latin America. Now part of Stripe, Abrams argues that the next phase of growth could come from tokenizing non-dollar currencies.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s stablecoin sector is dominated by coins denominated in the U.S. dollar, with these tokens making up over 95% of all transactions. That\u2019s unnerved governments outside the U.S., who fear that the rise of stablecoins might reinforce the U.S. dollar\u2019s existing dominance in global trade and financial flows.<\/p>\n
Yet Abrams argues that U.S. dollar dominance may just reflect the immaturity of the stablecoin space. \u201cWe\u2019re in the early stages,\u201d Abrams says. \u201cBut in a world where more and more of our infrastructure is tokenized, it\u2019s going to be incredibly important to have tokenized local currencies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Abrams explains that local businesses will want to hold a local currency stablecoin, and put some of their capital to work in a digital, yield-generating investments.\u00a0\u201cBusinesses in Singapore are going to want to hold tokenized Singapore dollars, so they can convert them into Treasuries or other assets to earn yield,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
Bridge doesn\u2019t yet support the Singapore dollar; it currently supports tokenized euros, Mexican pesos, and British pounds, and will soon allow Brazilian reais stablecoins.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Abrams cofounded Bridge in San Francisco in 2021 with Sean Yu, now the firm\u2019s chief technology officer. The duo made an early bet that stablecoins would become mainstream payment infrastructure, given that they offer a way of moving money that is \u201cway cheaper and faster\u201d than existing rails.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SpaceX, for example, taps Bridge\u2019s technology to repatriate earnings from Starlink, its satellite internet service, back to the U.S. (The technology is especially favored in rural areas in emerging markets, where traditional providers cannot reach.) By 2024, Bridge was processing payment volume at an annualized rate of more than $5 billion., and raised $58 million from VC firms like Sequoia and Haun Ventures.<\/p>\n
Stripe acquired Bridge in 2024 for $1.1 billion, in what was then its largest acquisition. (This has since been surpassed by Stripe\u2019s purchase of OpenRouter, an AI model gateway, for a reported price of over $7 billion.)<\/p>\n
Abrams wants Bridge to do for tokenization what Stripe did for online payments: Provide a single \u201csimplification layer\u201d on top of a complex mess of different options. \u201cBridge is betting that the tokenized world is going to become really important,\u201d he says. \u201cThere will be a complexity of things\u2026Bridge can be that simplification layer.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asia\u2019s key financial hubs, like Singapore and Hong Kong, are rolling out new regulatory frameworks for stablecoins, even as major economies like China and India have taken a skeptical stance on digital currencies in general.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe region is warming to stablecoins, but it\u2019s not as warm as the U.S. yet,\u201d Abrams says. \u201cIt\u2019s all very dependent on what\u2019s permissible\u2026as the regulatory environment catches up, I think there will be a lot more use cases that are made possible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Abrams draws a parallel between Latin America and Asia, two regions which both have growing middle classes, rapid urbanization, and a strong reliance on international trade.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cStablecoin adoption is so big in Brazil because so much of their economy involves cross-border business, while the regulatory environment supports a pretty dynamic crypto ecosystem,\u201d he explains, emphasizing that cross-border money transfer, rather than domestic transactions, is the real opportunity for stablecoins. \u201cSingapore and a lot of other countries in the region share very similar characteristics, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m optimistic that the markets here will be similarly important as stablecoins scale.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Bridge #founder #Zach #Abrams #sees #opportunity #tokenized #local #currencies #Asia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zach Abrams, the founder of st… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6074,382,1205,1009,6078,669,6077,6075,883,6072,3111,6076,6073],"class_list":["post-3352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-abrams","tag-asia","tag-bridge","tag-cryptocurrency","tag-currencies","tag-founder","tag-local","tag-opportunity","tag-sees","tag-stablecoins","tag-stripe","tag-tokenized","tag-zach"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n