Digital bull and horse start work, stablecoin assembly line ignites a new era of global payments.

1. Digital Pipeline: The "Bull and Horse Era" of Stablecoins

The assembly line once changed the production efficiency of traditional industrial products. Processes that used to require hundreds of people collaborating and consuming a lot of time have been condensed to be completed within a few hours. Entering the digital age, blockchain has shortened fund settlement from days to milliseconds. So the question arises: has efficiency reached its limit?

Not at all. With the emergence of the "digital pipeline", the efficiency of trade and settlement is experiencing another leap.

2. Industrial Production Line vs Digital Production Line

The birth of a modern industrial product goes through several stages, including raw material procurement, process flow, inventory turnover, and shipping rhythm. Standardized industrial assembly lines ensure stability and delivery reliability, helping enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency.

The production of stablecoins is actually similar in principle.

On the surface, it is just "on-chain minting", but the amount of engineering involved behind it is enormous: compliance framework, bank custody, smart contracts, security audits, multi-chain compatibility, KYC modules, account system integration... each of these is not a small project.

If an organization starts from scratch, the initial investment often begins at a million dollars, and most of it is rigid expenses. After going live, the annual operating costs can be tens of millions of dollars, covering legal, auditing, operations, account security, and reserve management.

As a result, a batch of "digital bulls and horses" has emerged.

The term "digital labor" here does not carry a derogatory meaning; rather, it borrows the imagery of "bull and horse workers" from industrial society—silently supporting productivity behind the assembly line. The difference is that these digital bulls are not cheap labor; they are highly profitable and can provide standardized, scalable services as "digital factories" for enterprises.

They package complex processes into standardized modules, allowing banks, payment institutions, and brands to generate stablecoins with one click. This is a replica of the digital assembly line in the financial world.

Three or four ways to unlock digital bulls and horses.

1. Paxos: A combination of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Central Bank, and the four major banks.

Paxos is most like a compliance-oriented factory. It obtained a trust license from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) early on, possessing the full qualifications for custodial funds, operating blockchain, and executing settlements.

In simple terms, when others want to create a stablecoin, Paxos is like the "Ministry of Industry and Information Technology + Central Bank + Four Major Banks combined", providing one-stop solutions for regulation, custody, and issuance.

It first issues USDP itself, then packages the compliance modules to serve Binance (BUSD) and PayPal (PYUSD). Customers only need to manage the brand and users, while the rest of the compliance custody is fully backed by Paxos.

Later, Paxos expanded to Singapore and Abu Dhabi, attempting a multi-jurisdictional architecture, and even launched USDL with yield. It also built a payment platform, hoping to connect different stablecoin networks to form a global clearing infrastructure.

The cost is that it must be deeply bound to regulation, allowing for no ambiguity whatsoever, with heavy costs, but it also builds a very high industry barrier.

2. Bridge: The heavyweight foundry brought by Stripe

After being acquired by Stripe, Bridge became the first digital bull with the genes of a global payment giant.

Stripe has a mature compliance, risk control, and global merchant network. Through Bridge, these capabilities are transplanted onto the blockchain.

Its logic is similar to Stripe's approach to payments: API-driven and platform-based. Customers can issue stablecoins through Bridge just like they call payment interfaces. MetaMask is a typical case, where tens of millions of users' wallets launched mUSD through Bridge within a few months.

The advantage of Bridge is the endorsement and customer resources from Stripe, but it may proceed in a more stable rather than aggressive manner, making it more suitable for traditional finance and corporate clients.

3. Stably: Building a lightweight production line for the mid-market.

Stably's positioning is as a "white-label stablecoin issuance platform." Customers only need to decide on the name and chain, and Stably can help launch it within a few weeks.

Unlike Paxos' heavy model, Stably does not touch customer funds; reserves are held in the customer's own bank, and the interest also belongs to the customer. This provides motivation for small and medium-sized payment institutions and regional banks: they can quickly launch stablecoins while retaining the profits.

Its clients are mostly regional banks, cross-border payment providers, Web3 wallets, and e-commerce payment interfaces. Although it lacks endorsements from major brands, it occupies a niche in the mid-market with its product line of "fast enough, light enough, and cheap enough."

4. Agora: Making issuance as simple as registering a domain name.

Agora was founded by members of the VanEck family, backed by Wall Street resources and investment from Paradigm. Its vision is to "make stablecoin issuance as easy as registering a domain name."

Customers only need to decide the coin type and the scenario, Agora has already packaged the accounts, custody, contracts, and disclosures, seamlessly connecting them like a SaaS platform with one click.

It does not pursue compliance like Paxos but aims to make issuance a standardized public service.

The problem is that compliance remains the biggest challenge in reality, and Agora does not yet have large-scale customer cases. But it represents a possibility: in the future, enterprises issuing stablecoins could really be as lightweight as applying for a domain name.

4. The Significance of Digital Pipelines

If the industrial assembly line is a revolution on the production side, then the digital assembly line is a revolution on the payment and settlement side.

The traditional SWIFT system is slow, costly, and cannot operate 24/7. Especially in Latin America, Africa, and some BRICS countries, with local currencies depreciating and inflation rising, people are more inclined to hold stablecoins pegged to the US dollar.

Through the interface of the foundry, regional banks or payment companies can access the stablecoin settlement network in a short period, allowing cross-border remittances to be received in real-time. The financial infrastructure that once belonged only to giants is now being opened up with lower thresholds.

Furthermore, corporate cash management is also being reshaped. Once stablecoins are embedded in corporate cash pools, supply chain finance, cross-border trade, and daily payments can gain new efficiency tools.

With the gradual implementation of regulatory frameworks such as the "GENIUS" Act and Hong Kong's "stablecoin" regulations, the stage for digital bulls and horses will become increasingly larger. Today, the total market capitalization of stablecoins has just surpassed 280 billion USD, and it is still far from becoming mainstream in payments.

However, as the digital pipeline expands, stablecoins may gradually become the preferred settlement method for enterprises.