Stablecoins and Digital Wallets: Hype or the Next Upgrade in Merchant Payments?

The biggest disruption in merchant payments may not come from banks or card networks.

In a recent interview with Merchant Payments Ecosystem, Rapyd’s VP of Acquiring Partnerships, Sarel Tal, shares his perspective on why stablecoins and digital wallets are moving from experimentation to infrastructure, and what that means for merchants in 2026 and beyond.

For years, stablecoins were discussed as a future concept. Today, the infrastructure is maturing. Merchants can now accept payments, manage payouts, and settle funds globally in stablecoin or fiat, through a single platform. That shift changes the economics and speed of cross-border commerce.

The advantages are clear:

Near-instant settlement, 24 hours a day
Lower transaction costs by reducing reliance on legacy rails and intermediaries
Expanded access for cross-border and underbanked markets

For merchants operating across multiple geographies, these capabilities are no longer theoretical. They are operational.

At the same time, stablecoins are not a silver bullet.

Adoption depends on liquidity, regulatory clarity, reliable on and off ramps, and strong compliance frameworks. Reserve transparency and consumer trust remain critical. Without these components, stablecoins remain limited in scope.

In the interview, Sarel explains why stablecoins and digital wallets represent a structural shift rather than a speculative trend, and what merchants should consider before integrating them into their payment stack.

Watch the full interview with Merchant Payments Ecosystem here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDDLkW_mVuo

TRANSCRIPT

00:00

2026, the biggest change in merchant payments will be the move from checkout to intent, where AI agents decide, authenticate, and execute payments across any rail instantly and invisibly. >> 2026, the biggest change in merchant payments will be the adoption of stable

00:16

coin and digital wallet. By 2026, money movement is redefined um by um accountto rails going fully mainstream, reinforced by broad adoption of Vero and a deliberate further push to European autonomy in the payment rails with SEPA at its core. Instant payments

00:38

become the default uh rather than than the exception today uh in the EU. So in the SEPA instant enables zero settlements in seconds in the US um Fed now reaches scale and normalizes realtime treasury payouts and liquidity use cases. Uh when it comes to um the

00:58

whole discussion about the digital euro this so there was quite a movement this year. However, what CBDC’s or digital euro promises instant settlement, efficiency, policy control and programmability um is going to deliver and this arrives um without a new currency, without the

01:16

digital euro. It’s delivered through orchestration layers on top of existing rails. Cards come to account that stable coins don’t compete, they are coordinated. network tokenization becomes foundational not just to lift uh authentic uh authorization rates uh and

01:33

to reduce fraud but to enable a gentic commerce where AI agents authenticate decide and execute payments um stable coins take on focus role in B2B and treasury where 24/7 settlement matters but the real shift is architectural payments become softwaredefined policy engines money no

01:52

longer waits to clear it settles instantly across the most efficient rail available delivering what CBDC promised but uh without deploying the CBDC. In 2026, the biggest disruption in merchant payments will not come from banks or card networks. It will come

02:08

from stable coins and digital wallets quietly replacing the infrastructure we all take for granted. Stable coins and digital wallets are more than just a hype. They represent a true inflection point in merchant payments. Both the technical infrastructure and the

02:24

regulatory framework have finally matured to support compliant end-to-end funds flow. Platforms like Rapid already offer complete solutions allowing merchants to accept payments and process payouts globally in stable coins or fiat via unified customer checkout experience

02:41

and on the same merchant dashboard. The benefits are compelling. near instant payments, 247 settlements, lower costs and bypassing the legacy rails, and of course far better and cheaper crossber access. For many other banks regions, this is a transformative solution.

03:02

We’ve been conditioned by the banks to accept the costs, delays, and having to handle blocked payments. We’re entering now a new era where RFIs and block payments are something of the past. That said, stable coins are not a silver bullet and cards, bank transfers, and

03:19

other payment rails will coexist alongside stable coins for the foreseeable future. Success of the stable coin adoption relies on efficient liquidity management, regulatory clarity, and mainly consumer acceptance. To make stable coin practical for mass adoption, companies need robust

03:37

compliance, reserve transparency, and seamless and compliant on and off ramp and offramps. And here is the reality. The old payment rails are aging out. And stable coins are not the future. They are the upgrade the history has been waiting for.