For years, the loudest crypto narratives centered on corporate treasuries adding Bitcoin to their balance sheets, betting on price appreciation. Meanwhile, a quieter paradigm shift has been occurring with stablecoins. 

Stablecoins are fast becoming the actual rails upon which real-world money moves. This shift is more evident within the TON (The Open Network) ecosystem. 

With Telegram actively supporting the network as its largest validator and boasting a user base nearing one billion, the potential for mass settlement is massive. 

Yet, while retail peer-to-peer payments are native to the platform, corporate and bank treasuries require a regulated gateway to bridge the gap.

To understand how this infrastructure is being built, BeInCrypto sat down with Norman Wooding, Founder and CEO of SCRYPT, the Swiss-licensed digital asset platform chosen as TON’s institutional gateway for stablecoins.

The Back-End Revolution: “The Proof is in the Pudding”

According to Wooding, the evolution of Stablecoins was not an overnight sensation, but a steady accumulation of volume. Today, stablecoins represent approximately 80% of SCRYPT’s processed volume.

“I would say it’s been a slow build-up in the background,” Wooding says. “It’s something that is very clear to us today. Looking back, we see around 80% of our trading volume or processed volume is stablecoins, which is a huge increase year on year.”

This growth is driven by genuine demands for efficiency, ranging from corporate treasury optimization to cross-border remittances. Wooding pinpoints 2023 as the moment traditional finance finally recognized the viability of on-chain settlement.

“If I had to pinpoint it, I would say 2023 is really when the shift happened and when the larger incumbents looked at the crypto industry and said, ‘Hey, I think they might’ve figured something out here.”

With the hype of speculative bull runs stripped away, the core utility of stablecoins remains remarkably simple and highly effective.

“I would say there’s very little hype left because the proof is in the pudding and  I can move a hundred million in five seconds at a fraction of the cost it would take me in traditional markets,” Wooding explains. “Stablecoins allow you to move your money. A little bit more sovereignty, quicker, more efficient, transparent, auditable, immutable, all the benefits of the blockchain in front of you in five seconds.”

The Cross-Border Pain Point: A Broken Legacy System

To appreciate why institutional interest in stablecoins is accelerating, one must look at the friction inherent in legacy correspondent banking.

Wooding describes a fragmented, non-autonomous process when a business attempts to send a standard wire transfer from the UK to Brazil on a Friday afternoon:

“The intermediary looks at it, he decides what fee he’s going to charge you. Mid-market depends on his mood. You don’t really know what they’re going to do… You get FX fees, you get transaction fees, you get payment fees, you get probably compliance fees. Really it’s whatever in the world that they can fit in the middle. You have to remember crypto and Bitcoin were created because of the banks, for disintermediation. And right now when you do FX, you have a lot of intermediaries.”

Ultimately, Wooding argues that legacy banking retains high fee structures simply because it can. “We still have to understand that the banking system is broken, right? This is a bandaid for a problem that they inherently bring because they’re looking for high fees and intermediation.”

By eliminating these intermediate layers, stablecoin gateways can execute these cross-border payments near-instantly, handling the back-end compliance, liquidity, and local FX conversions transparently.

The Fight for Regulatory Calm Seas

For companies trying to build institutional-grade infrastructure, regulatory clarity is the foundation of growth. However, Wooding describes the current global landscape as heavily fragmented, forcing businesses to seek jurisdictions that prioritize collaboration over bureaucratic delay.

For SCRYPT, that jurisdiction was Switzerland. Wooding sharply contrasts the proactive approach of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) with his experiences in his home country, the UK.

“I asked in the UK, ‘Do you have anything on the horizon?’ And they replied saying, ‘How did you get my phone number?'” Wooding recalls. “How can you enter into a relationship or business with someone if you cannot trust their tempo or their volatility? How can I build as an entrepreneur or founder if I have no calm seas? I’m not even asking for guarantees or assurances.”

Despite the UK government’s highly publicized 2021 declarations of becoming a global crypto hub, the execution has fallen short. “It’s 2026 and I’m British and I’m still waiting, right?” Wooding says. “But it’s apathy and laziness because every other jurisdiction that cares has moved quickly.”

Even as comprehensive frameworks like Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) roll out, internal friction persists between participating member states.

“The MiCA countries aren’t even speaking to each other. Some jurisdictions don’t recognize the supervision of other jurisdictions under the same template.”

The On-Chain Future: AI and the Deflationary Equation

Looking to the future, Wooding envisions a landscape where the mechanics of digital finance are entirely managed by automated, artificial intelligence systems. While true agentic payments still require strict human oversight to prevent costly computational errors, the eventual target remains clear.

“I would say everything’s going to be on chain in three years and your AI will book your playdate to your restaurant, to your funeral, to your trade, to your ETF investment,” Wooding predicts. “So I think people will have a lot more time for innovation, family and happiness and less time for groaning about universal income.”

This transition will also fundamentally alter macroeconomics. Wooding suggests that the traditional thesis behind hard-capped digital assets as inflation hedges failed to account for the deflationary pressures of rapid technological advancement.

“Crypto was modeled without understanding the super efficiency and productivity that AI would bring to the economy,” Wooding concludes. “Bitcoin as an inflationary hedge, that argument is still valid and the thesis is still there. But, because of AI, we might produce more than we consume, which would be deflationary.”

Source: BeInCrypto