At the San Francisco Stablecon Salon on August 21 — hosted by This Week in Fintech, Stable Sea and Kindred Ventures — thought leaders from Stable Sea, Mastercard, and Paxos came together to unpack how stablecoins are crossing the chasm from crypto infrastructure to real-world financial utility. In a 30-minute fireside discussion, the panel explored the concrete use cases emerging across merchant payments, treasury management, and cross-border settlements and what it will take to drive mainstream adoption.

Below are highlights from the conversation and provocative insights from each speaker.

Mastercard: Stablecoins as Enablers for Consumer and Merchant Utility

Raj Dhamodharan, EVP of Blockchain and Digital Assets at Mastercard, highlighted how Mastercard is working with regulated players to enable real-world use of stablecoins through card-linked programs and merchant integrations. He stated, “Consumers don’t care whether it’s a stablecoin or not – they care about whether it works where they shop. We’re focused on enabling that experience through partners and infrastructure.” 

When discussing the broader benefits of stablecoins, Raj emphasized their role in expanding opportunities:

“Stablecoins are expanding the play area, bringing in new entities who never had access to correspondent banking.” 

He also articulated the importance of balancing speed and security in stablecoin innovation. “Velocity is a friend of fraud. But velocity is also a friend of utility and productivity. Our job is to keep the utility and remove the risk.” 

On network advantages, he noted, “With 3.4B cards and 160M merchants, we’re simply adding stablecoin optionality to existing infrastructure.”

Stable Sea: Infrastructure for Enterprise Treasury Teams

Tanner Taddeo, CEO of Stable Sea, spoke directly to the friction that treasury and finance teams face today when trying to operationalize stablecoins at scale.

“It’s easy to send a stablecoin. It’s hard to manage one. Treasury teams are stuck managing OTC deals in Telegram and reconciling across five systems. We’re solving for that last mile.”

Stable Sea’s Terminal platform aims to bring enterprise-grade control, FX visibility, and seamless stablecoin-to-fiat conversion for global treasury teams. Tanner pointed to a growing shift from curiosity to execution:

“We’re seeing treasuries move from asking ‘What’s a stablecoin?’ to ‘How can I use this to reduce pre-funding and unlock trapped capital?’”

Paxos: Compliance-First Cross Border Settlement

Horacio Diaz Adda, Head of Finance at Paxos, positioned the company as a regulated backend stablecoin issuer and infrastructure provider enabling banks, fintechs, and platforms to move dollars globally via stablecoins.

Horacio highlighted the significance of programmable settlement, noting, “Cross-border is where the inefficiency is the worst. Stablecoins let us rethink how value moves globally.” 

Addressing the broader regulatory landscape, he remarked:

“Regulatory clarity in the U.S. has flipped the script. Now regulators globally aren’t asking ‘should we allow stablecoins?’ but ‘how do we manage their inevitability?’” 

Looking toward the future, Horacio shared his long-term vision: “Success is when we stop talking about stablecoins. It’s just dollars, moving instantly, quietly in the background.”

Final Thought

As Tanner Taddeo put it:

“Stablecoins are no longer just speculative tools. They’re becoming the connective tissue for how money moves in the modern financial stack.”

Stay tuned for more updates from the Stablecon community and if you’re curious how your organization can operationalize stablecoins, reach out to our team for a strategy consultation.