Airwallex CEO questions the value of stablecoins: Are the "old forces" panicking?

"Stablecoins cannot reduce the cost of remittances between mainstream currencies, and cryptocurrencies have not shown clear practical use cases in the past 15 years."

On June 7, a tweet from Jack Zhang, founder and CEO of Airwallex, triggered a heated discussion about the actual value of stablecoins. The reason why this "short" voice attracted attention is that Jack Zhang is at the core of global financial technology.

Airwallex is the world's leading cross-border payment platform for enterprises, with business covering more than 50 countries. Its core products include international collection accounts, multi-currency corporate cards, and global transfers. In May this year, Airwallex completed its F round of financing, with a valuation of US$6.2 billion and a total financing of US$1.2 billion. The investors behind it include well-known capitals such as Tencent, Sequoia China, DST, and Hillhouse.

At a time when stablecoins are entering the mainstream financial field, Jack Zhang's "tone" seems particularly harsh. But his view is not an isolated case, but reflects the views of some traditional payment practitioners and even the financial elite on the rise of stablecoins.

The following is Jack Zhang's tweet (compiled by ChainCatcher):

Investors always ask me about stablecoins and how they can reduce foreign exchange fees; but if you are sending money from US dollars to euros, and the recipient still requires the euros in the bank account, then I really don't see how stablecoins can reduce fees - the cost of exchanging from stablecoins to the receiving currency is much higher than the traditional interbank foreign exchange market.

Cryptocurrency is an area that I have never understood. In the past 15 years, I still don't see where cryptocurrencies have really helped. Even if stablecoins are less volatile, I don't see what benefits they can bring in B2B transactions, unless they are used in some very niche currency markets, but the liquidity of these markets is very low.

Unlike AI, its applications are real, and each of us uses various AI tools every day. What about stablecoins? How many people are actually using them?
I remember in 2021, I was like a fool, watching everyone talking about cryptocurrencies, and the market went crazy because of it, and even a16z released a white paper on the future of Web3. But I still can't see that "future".

And this year, I feel like a "complete fool" because I still can't see the prospect of using stablecoins for cross-border transactions between G10 currencies. The cost of cross-border transfers is now less than 0.01%, and it arrives in real time. You can't get cheaper than "free" or faster than "real time".
The only real use case I can see is that Stripe, through the acquisition of Bridge, provides stablecoin wallet infrastructure to consumers in Latin American or African countries...but that's really just regulatory arbitrage.

If someone wants to refute me with transaction volume, here is a carefully processed chart showing only stablecoin transaction volume related to real economic activities (such as payments, remittances, and commercial transactions), by region from 2021 to 2025 year-to-date data.

In the exchange with netizens in the comment area, Jack Zhang further clarified his position on stablecoins:

• Stablecoins may serve as a supplementary option for payment tools and financial infrastructure in the future, rather than a disruptive change.

• Stablecoins are over-hyped, and their development path is still long. Excessive publicity and hype can easily mislead the public's judgment of their real value.

• The issuance of currency should be led by the central bank, and pure financial products will not create any real value for society.

• Cross-border regulatory restrictions and developing countries' resistance to dollarization make the prospects for the global compliance of stablecoins dim.

These views have triggered fierce rebuttals from the financial and crypto circles:

Financial analyst Simon Taylor pointed out that stablecoins are indeed just "another option" at present and have not yet constituted a mainstream financial track, but he believes that the key turning point is coming. With the upcoming stablecoin regulatory rules in the United States, stablecoins are expected to usher in an institutional turning point. He pointed out that similar to the path of "Eurodollars", stablecoins may also become an alternative to SWIFT for some countries. Driven by the G20, multilateral institutions such as the OECD are promoting a "functional equivalence" regulatory framework to lay an institutional foundation for its globalization.

VanEck Ventures partner Juan Lopez said that real innovation is often born in marginal markets. Stablecoins have great potential and should not be denied simply because they are "mainly hype." Because it is the attractiveness of the potential market (TAM) that inspires continued exploration. He emphasized that although the services of Airwallex and Wise are excellent, they still cannot meet the many needs of stablecoin users in global transactions, and these market feedbacks just prove that stablecoins are solving real pain points and represent a necessary innovation path.

Interests determine positions, defense of old forces?

With the key breakthrough in the US stablecoin legislation and several states taking the first step in issuing stablecoins, this crypto asset, once regarded as an "on-chain tool", is evolving into a frontier force in the global financial game. Stablecoins are no longer just a part of the technology stack. They carry the struggle for capital power, the reshaping of the regulatory framework, and the profound collision of geopolitical patterns.

Therefore, in response to Jack Zhang's statement on stablecoins, many people believe that this is not only a technical view or market judgment, but also a true projection of the discourse position of the old financial interest groups.

Crypto KOL Tuao Dashixiong BroLeon pointed out that Airwallex's business model is not complicated, and its core competitiveness comes from the financial licenses held in multiple countries and the capital pool advantages brought by the deposited funds. Through multiple rounds of large-scale financing, Airwallex has actually been deeply bound to the global traditional financial vested interest groups and has become part of the old system.

BroLeon further stated that the current rise of stablecoins, in addition to relying on the technical transformation of backward financial infrastructure by blockchain, the deeper driving force comes from the game within the US political ecology. The emerging political forces represented by the Trump camp are challenging the traditional financial groups represented by the Federal Reserve, and stablecoins have become the product and tool of this "new finance vs. old finance" conflict of interests.

Tastingo.eth/.sol, co-founder of OHDAT Labs, also expressed a similar view. He believes that Jack himself is a representative figure in the vested interest system, and his position on the issue of stablecoins naturally reflects this reality. The development of stablecoins is not a simple technological innovation to a large extent, but a redistribution of power between new and old financial forces in the context of global game. In the United States, stablecoins have become a tool for the MAGA camp to challenge the dominance of the Federal Reserve to some extent.

Stablecoins lie between financial innovation and regulatory reality. Jack Zhang's doubts are in sharp contrast to the temptations of emerging forces. Can the new political impetus that is quietly gathering really shake the foundation of the global payment system?