The first wave of stablecoins isn't replacing fiat currency, but replacing money movement protocols.
Expect most teams to convert stablecoins once they receive it, but even then it's a cheap/fast money movement layer, especially globally. Even in US, cheaper and faster than wire.
To start, it's great for micropayments globally. There are examples where you want an API once and not again, and you don't want to create an account or link a credit card.
Cloudflare was one of our earliest partners, and they saw a critical need for it for web scraping by AI.
Fast, cheap money movement globally (compared to wire or ACH in US).
At this phase, stablecoins are largely best for easy money movement, but the money ends up in fiat.
We are seeing some examples of teams using it for payouts, e.g., Gusto and Deel both support stablecoin payouts. Expect that to grow, but still very early days.
To start, think that stablecoins are great for money movement, even if fiat is used on both sides. For example, Bridge (now part of Stripe) started with a stablecoin sandwich, where the stablecoin was just the money movement piece and both source and destination were fiat. That was cheaper and faster than the other ways to move money.
Most goods today are denominated in fiat, so stablecoins are a better fit than gold.
And at this stage, stablecoins are great for easy money movement (rather than holding in crypto). I actually think most people won't even know that crypto rails have been used to move their money, with stablecoins like tcp/ip for money movement.
Beyond crypto teams, we're seeing increasing use cases for more teams to use stablecoins to pay. For example, both Gusto and Deel (YC teams) are using stablecoins to offer worldwide payouts.
Expect most teams to convert stablecoins once they receive it, but even then it's a cheap/fast money movement layer, especially globally. Even in US, cheaper and faster than wire.