Five founders: Banks to drive next stablecoin chapter

In July, founders from Capital Layer, Coinbax, STABO and Hinkal described a shift in stablecoin design and use: tokens moving from tools for crypto trading into infrastructure that banks can use. They identified banks as the primary route to broader adoption and highlighted programmability, privacy, transaction speed and treasury use cases as key factors in that change.

Capital Layer CEO Justin Wang argued banks, rather than crypto exchanges, will lead adoption in Asia. He pointed to banks’ control of customer on-ramps, compliance processes and existing payment rails. Wang named payments in the AI supply chain-transactions for data, models and compute that need fast, low-cost settlement and programmable controls-as the first large non-crypto use case likely to push banks toward stablecoins.

Coinbax CEO Peter Glyman addressed why banks have been cautious. He described operational and compliance risks tied to public crypto rails and urged adding programmable payment controls. Glyman said programmable rules that govern when, how and to whom tokens move would allow banks to treat stablecoin transfers like standard payments decisions instead of an unfamiliar crypto risk.

STABO CEO James Li and COO Pursuit Li focused on transaction velocity. They argued that stablecoins deliver value only when they are widely accepted and move quickly through commercial networks. For many issuers and institutions, they described treasury use as the end goal: firms holding and moving stablecoins for liquidity management, vendor payments and short-term cash operations rather than for broad market circulation alone.

Hinkal CEO Georgi Koreli discussed how public ledgers limit institutional volume. He explained that visible account balances and transparent settlement histories can reveal counterparties and trading strategies, a disclosure many banks will not accept. Hinkal is building private balance and confidential settlement features to let institutions settle tokenized transactions without exposing sensitive information on a public chain.

The founders identified recurring frictions that have kept banks at arm’s length: price volatility, custody complexity, anti-money-laundering checks and the transparent nature of many blockchains. They described technical responses such as conditional transfers, enforceable payment policies and confidential settlements to reduce those frictions and align stablecoin flows with existing banking procedures.

They outlined a path for bank adoption that includes programmable controls to meet compliance and operational needs, privacy-preserving settlement to protect balance information, and a focus on business use cases such as treasury operations and machine-to-machine payments in AI supply chains that generate frequent on-chain activity.