Due to the passage of the bill, recently in the primary market, stablecoin-related projects have become quite popular among investors.
Here are a few recent financings:
In cross-border payments:
Conduit @ConduitPay announced a $36 million Series A financing on May 28, led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Sound Ventures, Altos Ventures, DCG, and Commerce Ventures. Combined with the previous $17 million seed round led by Portage Ventures, Conduit's total financing has reached $53 million. Conduit primarily focuses on cross-border payments in regions such as Latin America and Africa.
Additionally, OpenFX @openfx_ completed a $23 million financing led by Accel, with plans to expand into the Southeast Asian cross-border payment market.
BVNK @BVNKFinance also announced strategic investment from Visa's venture capital department on the 7th of last month, collaborating with Visa and Worldpay to integrate stablecoin payments into existing financial infrastructure.
Limited @limitedgrouphq announced a $7 million seed round financing, led by North Island Ventures, and Limited is also integrated with traditional banking payment networks (such as ACH and Visa).
Moreover, there are several on-chain stablecoin projects:
The hottest one is Plasma @PlasmaFDN, which saw its $500 million quota sold out in seconds during a new offering on Echo, and it increased to $1 billion, which was also filled in just 30 minutes. Previously, it secured over $24 million in financing, led by Framework Ventures and BitfinexL. It is a BTC sidechain designed specifically for stablecoins, with highlights including zero-fee transfers and a delayed priority system that allows for zero-fee transfers as long as there are no time constraints.
Avalon @avalonfinance_ announced strategic investment from YZi Labs on May 26, having previously secured $10 million in Series A financing led by Framework, focusing on BTC-collateralized lending protocols. Its stablecoin is USDa, notable for providing fixed-rate lending, offering good predictability.
Hyperdrive @hyperdrivedefi completed a $6 million Series A financing on May 23, led by Hack VC and Arrington Capital, a project in the Hyperliquid ecosystem, providing yield markets for mainstream stablecoins. Currently, the primary source of yield is the lending market.
Opportunities for retail participation in payment-related stablecoin projects are limited, so it’s worth paying attention to on-chain projects.
Currently, the stablecoin landscape is still difficult to shake up; ETH continues to be the chain that supports the most stablecoins, followed by Tron, with large investors still preferring ETH for security. However, even if the TVL of stablecoins on ETH hits a new high, it does not necessarily mean that the price of ETH will rise, as its correlation with ETH's market value is low. However, the market value ratio of stablecoins to ETH can serve as a buy-sell indicator.
In fact, apart from payments, there is another potential application direction for stablecoins, which is on-chain foreign exchange trading. If the on-chain scale of stablecoins from mainstream countries increases and can provide a trading market with lower spreads, it would be very attractive, but it depends on specific compliance costs.
