About the Development and Entrepreneurial Opportunities in the Crypto Payment Industry:

1. Currently, the distribution of stablecoins has a two-tier structure:

The first tier consists of stablecoin issuers and primary distributors. The more bank channels an issuer has, the more types and numbers of KYC-compliant primary distributors there are. Distributors include market makers, exchanges, institutional OTC desks, major blockchain project teams, bulk trading, etc.

The second tier includes exchanges/brokerages (which provide regional fiat in-and-out services/C2C platforms), Crypto payment apps, and offline OTC networks. This tier will transmit KYC to a broader user base, even reaching anonymous (cash) channels. Exchanges mainly serve users in the crypto space, while other channels cover broader payment/settlement/grey market areas.

2. Traditional fintech is currently retroactively adapting to the crypto ecosystem, where large companies act as gatekeepers, leaving little room for entrepreneurial opportunities.

Companies like Visa/MasterCard/UnionPay choose to collaborate with major crypto nodes such as OKX/Coinbase, allowing crypto to operate within their payment card networks.

Companies with built-in scenarios like PayPal/JD/Stripe issue stablecoins and use their scenarios for cold starts.

Blackrock/Franklin Templeton/Huahsia are using tokenized money market funds and treasury to facilitate crypto trading/settlement and other scenarios for capital accumulation. These directions are compliant/white market-focused, making them difficult for grassroots entrepreneurs to thrive in,

Supporting AI agents to use stablecoins and smart contracts for payment/management of funds is one potential direction.

3. Finally, the integration of stablecoins into the world financial system exists in the gray and white areas, as compliance/sanctions/capital controls/underdeveloped infrastructure/severe inflation/small governments begin to voluntarily embrace crypto payments. This market is fragmented, localized in developing countries, representing the third world, and is a hidden, silent collective on the margins.

There is a large population in this direction, but there is not good data collection, field research, or business integration. This hides enormous commercial opportunities. The occasional media reports on companies like Huiwang are just the tip of the iceberg.

If entrepreneurs choose to enter, they must conduct research and explore business models in cities with a considerable distribution of OTC stores, such as Hong Kong, Phnom Penh, Istanbul, and Buenos Aires.