Are stablecoins and deposit tokens really the next big thing in payments?
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Ashipping container sits idle under the midday sun in the Port of Singapore. Inside lies state-of-the-art electronics worth millions of dollars. But the port won’t release it—not until the company that sent it confirms receipt of funds. Problem is, this will take time. The payment is still moving through the global clearing systems involved in cross-border transactions. All the while, the container’s storage fees are mounting up.
This is precisely the kind of friction in the existing financial system that companies hope to sidestep by paying with blockchain-native digital assets. These include stablecoins, deposit tokens, and other forms of tokenized money. Since these exist on networks that operate globally, geographic borders matter less, and transactions settle near-instantly.
Stablecoin usage, in particular, is rising. In 2025, stablecoin payments for goods and services totaled between $350 and $550 billion—up 55 percent from the year before.1 Combined with major financial services businesses building products and infrastructure around stablecoins, this has made them a hot topic in the future-of-money discussion. But questions remain: Will stablecoins really emerge as a mainstream option for businesses to complete everyday transactions? And how will different types of tokenized money all complement each other and serve different purposes?
First, a quick overview: Stablecoins are digital assets that are designed to maintain a stable value, usually by being “pegged” to a fiat currency like the dollar. Stablecoins are often used by cryptocurrency traders as a way to lock in profits or protect against sudden price drops of other, more volatile, digital assets. This may let them avoid the costs associated with converting their digital assets to dollars.
Regulatory frameworks have boosted confidence in stablecoins, encouraging uptake.2 Rising interest rates have also increased the opportunity cost of cash stuck in transit. But the primary driver of stablecoin adoption is availability, says Ran Goldi, Senior VP of Payments and Networks at Fireblocks, which provides stablecoin infrastructure. Anyone can send and receive them, with increasing ease, even where dollars aren’t readily accessible. “Stablecoins are a backdoor to the USD,” Goldi says.
In addition to speed, stablecoins can be cost-efficient compared to traditional cross-border transfers: On some blockchain networks, sending $1 via a stablecoin can cost less than $0.01 in fees.3 This makes microtransactions viable—something that matters for social media platforms, for example, which compete to pay creators quickly and in small amounts.4
But Goldi acknowledges that stablecoins aren’t necessarily backed by insurance or a central bank, so users have no guaranteed claim on the underlying dollars. “Unless a stablecoin issuer is operating under government regulations, which require them to keep a reserve, you can’t be sure an issuer could handle it if suddenly a lot of people want to redeem at once.”
Concerns about unregulated stablecoins “aren’t just theoretical,” says Amanda Fischer, Policy Director and Chief Operating Officer at Better Markets, a nonprofit promoting a safer financial system. “Where my confidence in stablecoins collapses is the number of depegging events,” Fischer says. “It calls into question whether the stablecoin will actually be worth $1 at the time that they want to redeem it.” While some legislation clarifies the need to have reserve assets backing stablecoins to enhance consumer protections, she adds, “it doesn’t remedy the underlying fragilities.”5
As an alternative to stablecoins, certain financial institutions are exploring another emerging digital asset: deposit tokens. Some finance leaders say these have transformative potential comparable to the early internet in the mid-1990s.6
Deposit tokens exist digitally on a blockchain but represent money actually held in a bank account, meaning they operate within existing banking laws.7 “They therefore carry the same protections as traditional bank deposit safeguards, including fraud and anti-money laundering, while avoiding depegging risks,” says Abhinav Natarajan, Global Commercial Product Lead at Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, the bank’s blockchain platform. Kinexys launched its USD deposit token JPM Coin on public networks Base and Canton in 2025.8 Deposit tokens can earn interest, too, making them attractive to businesses holding large balances or for use as collateral.
As with stablecoins, deposit tokens are valued for speed and cost-efficiency of settlement, and a key feature is programmability. “Clients can link payments and real-world events using an if-this, then-that logic to bridge the gap between payments and business processes,” Natarajan adds. “This kind of automation becomes essential as we move to a 24/7 cross-border world.” Some corporations already use this capability to autonomously monitor their portfolio of bank accounts and automatically move money to ensure each remains properly funded.
Abhinav Natarajan
Global Commercial Product Lead, Kinexys by J.P. Morgan
A differentiating benefit of deposit tokens is enabling interoperability with other blockchain-based financial services. From a user’s perspective, stablecoins are usually siloed on a specific blockchain and require complex “bridging” to move between them; deposit tokens are designed to be orchestrated seamlessly across different banks’ blockchain networks, both public and private. This shields businesses from the complexity of handling multiple wallets and accounts, which is a valuable feature for global corporations operating in multiple markets. “The ability for deposit tokens to work across those networks and currencies is key,” Natarajan says.
Despite their benefits, deposit tokens aren’t as accessible to institutions that have not completed onboarding with the issuing bank. “You cannot send a tokenized deposit to someone who is outside of banking,” says Goldi. Moving funds also requires compliance checks, which make microtransactions impractical, even if the tokens still move faster than traditional payments.
Over the next decade, however, Goldi expects more banks to issue deposit tokens and to create interoperable networks that accept them. He believes ultimately these will “replace stablecoins for institutional payments.”
But this doesn’t mean that stablecoins will die. Goldi sees deposit tokens and stablecoins as complementary architectures. The former allows businesses to hold insured, interest-bearing deposits for larger flows; the latter to make rapid, smaller payments outside banking perimeters.
So, what of the importer, watching storage charges mount by the hour? In years to come, they may settle their bill in seconds using a digital token. The sun will still beat down, but the container will no longer sit idle. In a world of blockchain-based international trade, the only thing keeping pace with the past may be the tide.
https://www.jpmorgan.com/payments/payments-unbound/sources
Illustration: Lauren Joseph
