Stablecoins are fusing with the financial system.
Which is key for overcoming the cold start problem.
A dollar on the internet is superior to dollars in the traditional system because it can move 24/7 to anyone with an internet connection, unconstrained by banking hours and geography.
But traditional currencies and systems have a multi-hundred year head start on distribution.
They’re accepted nearly everywhere. Stablecoins are not.
@raincards first solved this by fusing stablecoins with traditional card networks to make stablecoins spendable.
You buy a cup of coffee, Rain settles with the card networks in stablecoins, while merchants get paid in fiat.
@Visa published today that these programs are one of the fastest-growing parts of their network.
The model has some obvious advantages: daily settlement makes these programs more capital efficient to run, Rain lets partners launch globally from day one, and critically, none of it requires new behavior from merchants. They don't need to know or care that stablecoins were involved.
In other words, stablecoins for efficiency, and traditional systems for reach.
Global Payouts as the next step
Rain's newest product brings that same philosophy to international payments.
Stablecoins on the backend for efficiency, fused with the traditional system for distribution.
From a single
@USDC balance, you can pay someone in 50 different currencies in 80+ countries.
Just as with stablecoin cards, this doesn't force new behavior on the recipient. The payment lands in local currency in their bank account. They don't need to know or care that stablecoins were involved.
For businesses that want to launch any kind of global financial service (neobanks, marketplaces, contractor platforms, etc.) this is superior in obvious ways.
Historically, getting this kind of coverage could take years of country-by-country expansion. Now it can be done with one Rain integration.
On top of that, it often meant holding working capital in every currency you wanted to support.
Now, a single stablecoin balance can support payouts in the local currency the recipient already uses, without forcing new behavior on them.
Another beautiful fusion between new and old.