The 24/7 nature of perpetual futures (“perps”) is attractive to traditional markets for assets like the S&P 500. This shift requires 24/7 settlement infrastructure, making stablecoins essential collateral and creating a massive, non-speculative demand driver for them.

As AI agents become sophisticated, they'll need to pay for services. Traditional banking is too slow and fragmented for them. Crypto, as the internet's native money, provides the instant, global, low-fee rails for AI agents to transact with each other and with web services, creating a major new use case.

The recent explosion of stablecoins wasn't due to a new financial innovation, but the maturation of underlying blockchain infrastructure. Cheaper and faster transactions on Layer 2 solutions and improved Layer 1s finally made large-scale, low-cost payments practical for real-world use.

Widespread adoption of blockchain, particularly stablecoins, has been hindered by a "semi-illegal" regulatory environment in the U.S. (e.g., Operation Chokepoint). Now that this barrier is removed, major financial players are racing to integrate the technology, likely making it common within a year.

For hundreds of millions in developing nations, stablecoins are not an investment vehicle but a capital preservation tool. Their core value is providing a simple hedge against high-inflation local currencies by pegging to the USD, a use case that far outweighs the desire for interest yield in those markets.

Unlike past crypto cycles characterized by widespread retail hype, the current market's energy comes from institutional adoption. Traditional financial firms are moving beyond pilots and using crypto rails in production. This shift signifies a more mature, robust, and potentially more sustainable phase for the industry.

Western teams often focus on technology, but the highest-volume users of real-world crypto applications like stablecoins and perpetuals are in Asia and Latin America. Their adoption patterns—not theories from New York or Silicon Valley—dictate which solutions ultimately succeed.

Multicoin's central thesis is that crypto's ultimate purpose is creating "Internet Capital Markets"—the ability to trade any asset, from anywhere, 24/7, via any software. This broad vision of permissionless, programmable finance is seen as the most significant long-term impact of blockchain, destined to supersede more niche consumer applications or "Web3" concepts.

Contrary to the popular narrative, the dominant use case for stablecoins in emerging markets is not remittances or savings. Survey data suggests overwhelmingly (88% in one study) that they are used as an entry and exit point for the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem, reframing their role in EM finance.