GENIUS Act Clears Way for Stablecoins in Supply Chains, B2B Payments

The regulatory momentum around stablecoins has led to the first tangible piece of successful crypto policy in the U.S., the GENIUS Act which President Trump signed into law Friday (July 18).

And with the news that BVNK and Bitwave have partnered to help enterprise finance teams send and receive stablecoin invoice payments, many B2B and enterprise firms are wondering just what role the new payment mechanism could play in their operations.

After all, stablecoins were never meant to replace your credit card at the corner store. That’s a nice story for crypto optimists, but it misses the real utility taking shape in the shadows of the global economy. Where central banks wobble, currencies inflate and cross-border wires take days, stablecoins offer something more basic: a dollar global firms can actually use.

The GENIUS Act gives stablecoins legal legitimacy, so long as they play by traditional financial rules of 1:1 reserve backing, anti-money laundering (AML) compliance, and dual charter options through state or federal regulators. The potential of stablecoins as an instrument for the transfer of value has already caught the attention of the world’s biggest banks.

For enterprise users, the evolving landscape signals a new era of trust. It means the digital dollars they’re using to pay contractors in Venezuela or settle trade balances in Nigeria may no longer be Wild West tokens but federally recognized financial instruments by the world’s leading economy.

But at the same time, for businesses leveraging stablecoins, whether for global B2B payments, instant invoice payments, or even payroll, the irrevocability of the mechanism, and the new-ness of its end-user experience, could create a new battleground.

See also: Stablecoins Fuel $36 Billion in B2B Payments as Issuers Eye Mature Markets 

Stablecoins aren’t exactly poised to upend Visa. It’s tremendously unlikely that they could replace the dollar. But they might just change how global enterprises access, store and move that dollar — especially in places where trust is scarce and banking is broken.

Currency.com CEO Konstantin Anissimov told PYMNTS in an earlier interview that there has been “a big shift in terms of adoption of stablecoin payments that is being driven by uncertainty in geopolitics.”

“I am personally seeing a big increase of small to medium enterprises utilizing stablecoin payments because banking rails are harder and harder to use,” Anissimov said.

Consider a mid-size exporter in the Philippines buying electronics components from Taiwan, selling to distributors in Kenya. That’s three currencies, two central banks and at least four intermediaries.

Enter stablecoins. Instead of routing through correspondent banks or relying on volatile forex pairs, companies can denominate invoices in stablecoins, settle within hours and avoid the friction of legacy payment rails.

This isn’t theoretical. Platforms like Circle, Fireblocks, and Stripe’s USDC integrations are already facilitating B2B payments for marketplaces, suppliers and remittance providers across Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa.

It’s not about replacing Swift but about skipping it when firms can. Similarily, through USDC or other compliant coins, firms can also pay their employees or contractors in dollar equivalents, settled in minutes, recorded on-chain. Workers are happy when they get paid in a currency that holds value, while employers can benefit from predictability and ease of reconciliation.

“Stablecoins represent a revolution in digital finance,” said U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a statement provided to PYMNTS. “The dollar now has an internet-native payment rail that is fast, frictionless, and free of middlemen. This groundbreaking technology will buttress the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency, expand access to the dollar economy for billions across the globe,

Read more: Stablecoins ‘Perform Poorly’ as Money and Could Face Uphill Payments Battle 

One of the most persistent misunderstandings about stablecoins is the belief that they’re aiming to replace legacy payment systems like Visa or Mastercard. This framing creates an artificial sense of conflict — crypto versus the card networks, disruption versus incumbency. But the truth is far more nuanced, and far more strategic: stablecoins aren’t competing with existing payments infrastructure. They’re integrating with it.

Just as the internet didn’t replace telephony overnight but made it digital (VoIP), stablecoins digitize and modernize how value moves, even if the user interface (Visa card or Apple Pay) stays the same.

In hindsight, this mirrors past tech transformations. Cloud computing didn’t replace enterprise software — it redefined how it was deployed and scaled. APIs didn’t replace databases — they unlocked new interoperability. Likewise, stablecoins aren’t the end of card networks; they’re the beginning of a more flexible, interoperable money stack.

Still, risk remains. Not all stablecoins are equal. Tether, for example, has long avoided full disclosure on its reserves. The GENIUS Act will force clarity — at least for U.S. issuers.

Yet regulatory arbitrage is real. Some jurisdictions may remain lax. Issuers might shop for soft-touch regimes. And market shocks could test the liquidity promise behind the 1:1 peg.

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