July 28th – August 3rd
PERSPECTIVES by Eric F. Risley
The original Bitcoin vision of serving both as a payment asset and a universal ledger of truth appears distant. Stablecoins settled on various non-Bitcoin blockchains have demonstrated exceptional product-market fit, dwarfing Bitcoin as a payment mechanism by 1,000× or more, as measured by transaction volume.
However, a new thesis is emerging: stablecoins may remain the dominant payment asset, but the ledger of record could migrate to the Bitcoin blockchain.
This shift is plausible as both users and institutions seek greater security, censorship resistance, and long-term trust—attributes where Bitcoin’s blockchain excels. Some of the industry’s most influential minds and companies are building toward that vision, including Tether, Blockstream, Lightning Labs, Lightspark, BVNK, Block, Stripe, and others.
We are tracking the following signals to validate this theme:
- Announcements of new stablecoins that use Bitcoin as the ledger of choice (e.g., Tether’s recent announcement)
- Stablecoin volumes issued and settled on Bitcoin versus Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains, which are the leading ledgers today
- Transaction volumes on Bitcoin Layer 2s dedicated to Bitcoin payments that now also support stablecoins as a payment asset (Lightning Network, Rootstock, Spark)
- Merchant and processor support for Bitcoin-settled stablecoins and the eventual transaction volumes for these forms of payment
Should strong signals emerge, Bitcoin may yet play an important role in payments, complementing its increasingly well-accepted “store of value” and “appreciating investment asset” use cases.