Stablecoins, the $300 billion class of digital dollars, may have started as a faster way to move money across the globe, but companies are now asking a different question: what can they actually do with them?
That 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 toward real business uses.
“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 underscored that 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 asset firm behind popular stablecoins like PayPal’s PYUSD (PYUSD) and Global Dollar (USDG). Paxos itself builds stablecoins and the immediate underlying infrastructure, while Paxos Labs intends to build tools for further use of these stablecoins.
With the fresh funds, Paxos Labs is building what it calls a “financial utility stack” that lets companies turn digital assets into products through a single integration.
Its recently launched Amplify Suite includes three core tools: Earn, which provides returns on digital assets; Loans which enable lending against them; and Mint, which supports stablecoin issuance. The idea behind it is to let companies integrate tokens into a business and then add capabilities over time.
Turn costs into revenues
For years, corporate crypto adoption focused on “first-touch” features like trading, escrow or issuing a stablecoin. Those steps 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: merchants typically forgo 2% to 3% in fees, while stablecoin rails can reduce these costs and even generate returns on balances held on-chain.
“You turn what has always been a cost into revenue,” he said.
Some of the newer use cases sit at the intersection between payments and credit. Payment providers already track merchants’ income and cash flow, enabling them to underwrite loans, McCain argued.
It could give merchants access to financing based on real-time performance, while earning returns on incoming payments and settling instantly across borders. These models are still early, but the building blocks are starting to come together, he said.
Not every company needs its own token
To achieve these benefits, not every company needs its own stablecoin.
While companies like PayPal have launched branded tokens to control payments and margins, issuing requires a significant investment in liquidity, compliance and distribution.
“If you just need the economy, you don’t need to build your own,” McCain said.
Many companies can instead integrate existing stablecoins and still benefit from lower costs and increased returns.
The shift may lack the hype of big companies like Western Union announcing their own token, but it’s having a tangible impact on how businesses operate.
Stablecoins are beginning to reshape margins, unlock credit and change how money moves globally, especially where traditional systems remain expensive or slow.
“It may sound boring, but this is the math,” McCain said.
