Enterprise Stablecoins Require Regulated Liquidity
Bhanu Kohli, CEO of Layer2 Financial, on stablecoin-backed payments for platforms
This is why enterprise stablecoin payments end up looking more like FX dealing than crypto trading. A retail user can split a small swap across a DEX and tolerate some slippage. A payments company moving $1M to $10M needs one tight quote, deep inventory on both sides of the corridor, and a counterparty that can also handle the fiat leg, settlement timing, and compliance checks in the same workflow.
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For cross border payments, liquidity is not just tokens in a pool. The real job is buying stablecoins in one market, selling them in another, and turning them into local currency fast enough to complete payroll, supplier payouts, or platform disbursements. That pushes providers toward exchanges, market makers, and custodians with larger balance sheets and tighter operational control.
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DEXs solve routing for onchain swaps, but large tickets still face fragmented liquidity and price impact, which is why aggregating across venues is a product category of its own. That extra execution work is acceptable for traders, but not for an infrastructure provider whose value is moving money reliably in the background for fintechs and platforms.
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The second constraint is regulation. A payments company operating between fiat rails and blockchain rails has to know who sent funds, who received them, and whether a transfer can satisfy Travel Rule and AML requirements. That is much easier when the crypto counterparty is another regulated intermediary, not an anonymous wallet interacting through a DEX.
The market is heading toward a hybrid model where stablecoins handle the fast value transfer, while regulated exchanges, custodians, banks, and compliance vendors handle identity, liquidity, and fiat conversion. As enterprise volumes grow, the winners will be the networks that make a $10M transfer feel as simple as a card swipe, while hiding the trading, treasury, and compliance machinery underneath.