Best practices for stablecoin payouts: what we’ve learned

Chris Harmse, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer of BVNK, shares insights on how stablecoins serve as a fast lane for global payments, based on the company’s experience with international payouts.

 

Stablecoins started as a tool for crypto traders, but it didn’t take long for fintech builders to see their significance: a tokenized dollar that travels the world in an instant, is accessible 24/7, and is viewable on an immutable public ledger. Today, stablecoins have emerged as a fast lane for global payments, a modern alternative to correspondent banking. At BVNK, we help financial institutions integrate stablecoins into their products, giving us a unique view of how stablecoins are being used today. Here’s what we’ve found.

Payouts: the fastest growing use case

Stablecoins payouts make up one-third of our volumes at BVNK and it’s the fastest growing use case we serve. We see demand in three areas:

Freelancer payroll (live)

HR and gig economy platforms enable freelance workers to withdraw wages nearly instantly in stablecoins. Many of these workers are based in the Global South, where there is a demand to hold stablecoins as a hedge against local currency inflation. Global HR platform Deel, for example, uses BVNK to pay out contractors in 100+ countries.

Marketplace payouts (pilot/ testing)

Ecommerce and travel marketplaces are looking at stablecoins as a way to pay sellers and hosts in emerging markets, while tech platforms are looking at creator payouts. For marketplaces, stablecoins reduce costs and complexity associated with regular cross-border bank payouts. With crypto regulation now taking shape in the US, where many global marketplaces are based, I anticipate a flurry of activity in this space in 2025.

Figure 1

With BVNK's embedded wallets, PSPs and fintechs can enable instant stablecoin payouts for their customers.

Source: BVNK 

 

Salary payments (opportunity)

To pay out salaried employees in stablecoins, you’ll first need to pay them in their local currency (to comply with payroll laws), before converting. At BVNK, we’re seeing demand for stablecoin salary payments, especially in the Web 3 sector, where tech-savvy employees are already moving a portion of earnings into digital assets every month. I predict we’ll see the first major implementation here by the end of the year.

Key considerations for launching stablecoin payouts

At BVNK we process USD 12 billion in annualised stablecoin payment volumes. Through this, we’ve learned several practical lessons.

1. You don’t have to handle crypto yourself.

Many of our partners prefer not to handle stablecoins, because they’re not licenced to, or they want to ringfence digital assets from their treasury. The good news is you don’t have to touch crypto. Choose a partner you can fund in your preferred fiat currency, and who can auto-convert to stablecoins for you on payout (or convert stablecoin pay-ins into your preferred fiat currency).

2. Consider your KYB/C model.

If you’re using a partner to pay out stablecoins on behalf of your customers, your partner will need to KYB/C the customer. Let’s say you’re a PSP using BVNK to enable your customer to pay a supplier in stablecoins. BVNK would KYB/C your customers once they set up stablecoin payments in your platform. Your customer simply accepts BVNK’s T&Cs, and you pass BVNK the relevant KYB/C data by API.

3. Don’t force a specific stablecoin on your user.

We’ve found distinct geographic preferences for stablecoins. In Latin America for example, it’s often USDC; in Africa and Asia, it’s USDT. This usually comes down to market conditions, e.g. local liquidity and spending options. If you only offer one stablecoin, you’ll likely limit your global takeup.

4. Go multi-chain for maximum flexibility.

Stablecoins can travel on different blockchains – and different chains are suited to different payment types. Low-cost chains like Solana, for example, work well for micropayments. We’ve found it’s better to give your users the option but incentivise the use of certain blockchains as needed.

5. Consider your fee structure.

If you’re enabling contractor payouts you might choose to pass on network fees to users. If it’s a salary payment, the employer or fintech will likely pay those fees. Choose a payments partner that gives you flexibility on how you charge for stablecoin transactions. The good news is that either way, the base cost of sending money via stablecoins is usually cheaper than the banking alternative.

6. Offer wallets to boost adoption.

To receive a stablecoin payout, a user must connect their blockchain wallet. This works well for crypto-native users but if you’re looking to grow adoption, consider enabling wallet creation at the point of payout. So, if a user doesn’t yet hold stablecoins, they can receive their payout in a newly-created wallet. BVNK enables this for our partners.

Stablecoin and fiat interoperability is critical

Stablecoins are the biggest infrastructure upgrade to payments in decades – but they’re not always easy to integrate and scale. At BVNK, we’re unifying stablecoin and traditional payments to help our customers add stablecoins to their payment stack. You can find out more about how we do that here.

 

This editorial piece was originally published in The Paypers’ Web 3 Payment Acceptance Report 2025. The report highlights the current landscape of Web 3 payments, including their rapid growth, high adoption rates, and underlying drivers. It also explores key players in the field, regulatory advancements, the role of AI in crypto and blockchain, and more.

 

About the author

Chris drives growth and scale at BVNK, leading teams, products, and P&L. A Chartered Financial Analyst with a degree in investment management, he brings over a decade of expertise across equities, FX, and rates. Chris started his career as an FX trader before moving to asset management. An early pioneer in using stablecoins for the global money movement, Chris is passionate about helping businesses transform their payments with new technology.

 

About BVNK

BVNK provides enterprise-grade infrastructure for stablecoin payments, unifying banks and blockchains in a single platform. Processing over USD 12 billion annually, we enable fintechs and businesses to send, receive, convert, and store stablecoins and fiat with ease, accelerating global money movement.