Over the past decade, stablecoins have been the driving force behind cryptocurrency trading and capital market settlement. They support liquidity on exchanges, facilitate decentralized finance protocols, enable cross-border payments, and allow market makers to move capital quickly. But as the digital asset industry looks toward 2026, industry leaders are increasingly arguing that trading will not be the source of the next wave of sustainable cryptocurrency revenue.
In exclusive comments to Investing.com, executives from FS Vector and Stablecore say that stablecoins such as USDT and USDC, digital tokens typically designed to track the U.S. dollar and issued by private institutions on public blockchains, are evolving beyond their role as trading instruments to become a fundamental financial infrastructure.
This shift will not be driven by the issuance of more stablecoins, but rather by what stablecoins make possible: routing, coordinating, and settling transactions across and off-chain systems. If this migration accelerates, it could reshape how banks, fintech companies, and infrastructure providers generate revenue as stablecoins become more deeply embedded in the flows of the real economy.
From trading guarantees to real-world railways
Nick Elledge, co-founder and chief operating officer of Stablecore, says the initial point of pressure is likely to be regional and mid-sized banks that have historically relied on central bank financial centers and correspondent networks to move dollars internationally.
“By 2026, I expect regional banks to stop relying on central banks for cross-border transfers,” Elledge said. “They will use stablecoins to offer transfers that are 90% cheaper and settlement in seconds, upending the traditional correspondent banking hierarchy.”
In his view, the most disruptive element is not cost or speed, as stablecoins are already well understood in these areas, but availability. Stablecoin rails can settle 24/7, typically outside of traditional banking hours, giving banks a liquidity advantage when legacy payment systems are shut down.
This might look like a consortium of regional banks launching a common tokenized deposit or stablecoin to circumvent FedWire's weekend liquidity window, he added.
While this reflects the real-world use case that stablecoins have long promised, it also creates a second-order effect. Once institutions begin using stablecoins as a railroad, the ecosystem becomes more complex, creating new coordination challenges and new points of value capture.
Bigger view: The communication layer
Emily Goodman, a partner at FS Vector, believes that while the issuance of stablecoins will remain essential, the greater strategic focus in 2026 will likely shift towards regulation. This means increased attention to guiding, coordinating, and settling transactions across a fragmented, hybrid financial system.
The issuance of stablecoins will remain a crucial foundation for the digital asset ecosystem, Goodman said. For 2026, however, the strategic focus will begin to shift toward regulating transactions built on stablecoin infrastructure.
In her view, the emerging opportunity is not just issuing stablecoins, but managing how stablecoin-based transactions move between blockchains, banks, payment networks, and legacy systems, especially when those systems do not natively communicate with each other.
Market participants will seek to leverage the value of coordination, routing, and settlement across on-chain and off-chain environments, Goodman said. We will see an increased focus on interoperability, meaning platforms that span payment networks, decentralized finance protocols, and banking systems.
In other words, stablecoins provide the railroad, but the revenue opportunity lies in the infrastructure that determines how transactions are routed, settled, and managed.
Why this might be a sustainable source of revenue
If stablecoins continue to push towards major financial flows such as bank transfers, treasury movement, and platform settlement, the ecosystem is likely to become more fragmented, with multiple blockchains, issuers, entry and exit points, and compliance systems coexisting.
This fragmentation creates a demand for services that enable connectivity and support this organization: interoperability tools, routing layers, settlement coordination, monitoring, and compliance-compliant transaction management.
The companies best positioned to generate lasting revenue may not be those that facilitate the largest volume of speculation, but those that coordinate how value moves through an increasingly hybrid system.
2026 Summary
By 2026, the most important stablecoin story may not be the launch of a new token, but the infrastructure built around stablecoin rails that connect banks, blockchains, and payment networks into a single transaction fabric.
If Elledge is right, stablecoins will begin to impact the economics of correspondent banking. If Goodman is right, the biggest prize will be one layer above the issue, in regulating how money moves across and off-chain environments.
In that future, stablecoins will not be the product but the infrastructure, with revenues shifting to the companies that manage the routing, settlement, and coordination.
