Stablecoins, the $300 billion class of digital dollars, may have started as a faster way to move money around the world, but companies are now asking a different question: What can they actually do with them?
This shift is driving a new phase of adoption, according to Chunda McCain, co-founder of Paxos Labs, who says the industry is moving beyond basic infrastructure to real business use cases.
“The first step was to get a stablecoin,” McCain said in an interview with CoinDesk. “The next question is: what now?
Last week, Paxos Labs highlighted this direction by raising $12 million in a strategic funding round led by Blockchain Capital, with participation from Robot Ventures, Maelstrom and Uniswap. The lab unit was incubated under Paxos, the New York-based digital assets company behind popular stablecoins such as PayPal’s PYUSD (PYUSD) and Global Dollar (USDG). Paxos builds stablecoins and the immediate underlying infrastructure itself, while Paxos Labs intends to create tools for further use of these stablecoins.
With these new funds, Paxos Labs is building what it calls a “financial utility stack” that allows companies to turn digital assets into products through a single integration.
Its recently launched Amplify suite brings together three core tools: Earn, which offers yield on digital assets; Borrow, which allows you to lend against them; and Mint, which supports the issuance of branded stablecoins. The idea behind it is to allow companies to integrate tokens into a business and then add capabilities over time.
Transform costs into revenue
For years, enterprise adoption of crypto has focused on “first touch” capabilities such as trading, custody, or issuing a stablecoin. These measures opened the door but rarely generated returns on their own, according to McCain
“Stable coins [have been] loss leaders for years,” he said.
The opportunity lies in how these assets are used. Payments are a clear example of this: merchants typically waive 2% to 3% fees, while stablecoin rails can reduce these costs and even generate a yield on balances held on-chain.
“You’re turning what has always been a cost into revenue,” he said.
Some of the most innovative use cases are at the intersection of payments and credit. Payment service providers already track merchants’ revenue and cash flow, which puts them in a position to guarantee loans, McCain said.
This could allow merchants to access real-time performance-based financing, while earning a return on incoming payments and making instant cross-border settlements. These models are still early days, but the building blocks are starting to come together, he said.
Not every business needs their own token
To enjoy these benefits, not every business needs its own stablecoin.
While companies like PayPal have launched branded tokens to control payments and margins, issuing them requires significant investment in liquidity, compliance, and distribution.
“If you just need the economics, you don’t need to build your own,” McCain said.
Instead, many companies can integrate existing stablecoins while benefiting from lower costs and additional yield.
This change may lack the hype when big companies like Western Union announce their own token, but it has a tangible impact on how businesses operate.
Stablecoins are beginning to reshape margins, unlock credit, and change the way money moves globally, especially where traditional systems remain expensive or slow.
“It may sound boring, but it’s a calculation,” McCain said.
