From Theory to Throughput: What the Stablecoin Moment Means for Emerging Market Infrastructure

The Money Movement 2.0 report from Staystable makes one thing clear: stablecoins are no longer speculative finance tools. They’re becoming core infrastructure for global commerce, especially in markets long excluded from traditional rails.

We’re honored to see Keyrails and our CEO and co-founder, Berhan Kongel, featured in the report as one of the companies operationalizing this shift.

Here’s how we see it—not from the lens of research, but from the trenches of emerging market execution.

‍Stablecoins are powerful but often misunderstood

‍As Berhan notes in the report:

‍“Stablecoins are one of the biggest financial inventions of the last decade, but they’re wildly misunderstood.”

‍Many still cling to the “sandwich model”: convert to stablecoins locally, transfer, then convert back to fiat. In practice, this fails in most markets due to liquidity gaps, regulatory frictions, and FX pricing.

Stable OS was designed with this in mind. Our infrastructure accounts for real-world FX constraints, treasury mobility, and regulatory visibility. It’s not about swapping tokens. It’s about building flows that actually clear.

‍Cross-border is the entry point. Tokenization is the endgame

‍The report outlines stablecoins as a powerful unlock for international payments. But for many institutions, cross-border flows are just the start.

As Berhan puts it:

‍“Stablecoins are not just coming for the cross-border use cases. That’s just the beginning. They are coming for the whole TradFi stack… Services will be seamlessly interconnected on top of stablecoin rails.”

‍Stable OS enables exactly that. Beyond payments, it gives institutions the ability to:

Move idle cash into on-chain, yield-bearing assets like tokenized Treasuries and AAA-rated CLOs
Automate allocation and redemption based on treasury rules
Execute near real-time trading with 24/7 liquidity
Route capital globally without relying on legacy banking infrastructure

A CFO using Stable OS can manage payments and capital markets from the same interface.

This isn’t just faster finance, it’s programmable liquidity at institutional scale.

‍Compliance is the hidden unlock

‍One theme that deserves more attention in the report is compliance.

Most cross-border failures aren’t due to bad APIs. They happen because of regulatory mismatch or operational friction.

That’s why Keyrails is built on:

Embedded KYB, UBO screening, and Travel Rule adherence
Modular licensing structures to support both regulated and unregulated fintechs
Transparent separation between fiat and stablecoin operations

This lets us support clients who can’t otherwise access traditional rails, while giving regulators full auditability.

‍“Unbundling privilege” is not just a tagline

‍The report frames stablecoins as a democratizing force in finance. At Keyrails, we see that democratization takes shape as operational unbundling — giving markets previously locked out of USD rails direct access to yield, payments, and compliance-ready infrastructure.

The real breakthrough is unbundling. With Stable OS, a logistics operator in Lagos can:

Get a named Fedwire account to receive international payments
Convert to USDC and earn yield on idle funds
Pay overseas suppliers via POBO SWIFT
Do all of this without managing a foreign entity or banking relationship

This isn’t democratization. It’s infrastructure doing what it should have done all along.

Final Word: Infrastructure that ships

‍The Money Movement 2.0 report captures a global inflection point. Stablecoins are moving from headlines to balance sheets.

At Keyrails, this is not theory. We’re already powering high-value, cross-border commerce for institutions that were left out of the first wave of financial infrastructure.

This isn’t a pilot. It’s production at scale, built for the markets that need it most.

Ready to move beyond theory?

If you’re a fintech or an enterprise operating in an emerging market and tired of watching your payments get stuck in legacy rails, let’s talk. Keyrails’ Stable OS is already powering programmable liquidity and Tier-1 USD access across emerging markets.

‍Get in touch to deploy real-world stablecoin infrastructure in days, not months.

If you'd like to read the Money Movement 2.0 report, click the button below to download.