When Money Goes On-Chain, Cash Stops Being Special
In a duty-free shop in Bolivia, a small laminated sign describes the state of global money more clearly than most policy papers.
Prices are listed in USDT. The shop updates the reference rate from Binance once per day. The Central Bank’s official rate appears only as an input to that calculation. Customers can still pay in bolivianos or U.S. dollars, but the anchor is a dollar stablecoin on a public blockchain. Photos and translations of that sign circulate in crypto media and exchange research posts. Examples: https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/25381745587314 https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/25321539195330 https://www.bitget.com/news/detail/12560604808755
Other reports describe Bolivians increasingly pricing and settling in USDT as inflation bites and dollar notes remain scarce. For context: https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/25320069681377
That single sign in one airport captures a larger transition. Local currency still circulates. Physical cash still crosses counters. The reference point for value has shifted.
A simple statement follows:
Once money lives on-chain, “getting liquid” becomes a swap. Cash stops defining liquidity.
Cash used to hold that role. It no longer holds it alone.
Cash as the default state
For most of the last century, cash sat at the center of the financial map.
Savers held cash for flexibility. Investors described “dry powder” and “cash on the sidelines.” Companies summarized health in phrases like “months of cash runway.” Financial accounts framed everything else as a position relative to that base.
Practical life used the same structure. Salaries landed in bank accounts. Bills and taxes debited from those accounts. Card networks abstracted cash movement but eventually settled into the same ledger. People might own securities or property, but those holdings funneled into cash at the moment of sale.
“I need to get liquid” meant “I need to move into cash and keep it there for a while.”
That arrangement assumes a clear hierarchy: cash as base money, other assets as layers stacked on top.
The on-chain environment changes that hierarchy.
Stablecoins as operational money
Stablecoins express claims on reference assets, usually dollars. Implementations differ, but the user’s perspective is simple: a token balance that behaves like a dollar amount inside a wallet or application.
Banks, consultancies, and research desks now describe stablecoins in direct terms. JPMorgan Private Bank calls them the “cash or base asset for on-chain trading,” with growing use in payments and treasury. https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/apac/en/insights/markets-and-investing/demystifying-stablecoins
McKinsey places them in the broader category of tokenized cash and treats them as core components of next-generation payment rails. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/the-stable-door-opens-how-tokenized-cash-enables-next-gen-payments Supplementary explainer: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-a-stablecoin
The World Economic Forum summarizes their rise with hard numbers: total stablecoin transfer volume reached about $27.6 trillion in 2024, exceeding the combined Visa and Mastercard volume that year. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/03/stablecoins-cryptocurrency-on-rise-financial-systems/
Visual Capitalist and Binance Research present similar figures: stablecoin transfers around $18–27 trillion in 2024 and a market cap that crossed $300 billion in 2025, with volumes adjusted for inorganic activity still surpassing Visa. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-stablecoins-are-now-bigger-than-visa-or-mastercard/ https://public.bnbstatic.com/static/files/research/the-stablecoin-business.pdf
A separate review of the stablecoin market by Economic Times, summarizing a Binance report, points to average daily stablecoin volumes near $3.1 trillion, second only to the U.S. ACH system. https://m.economictimes.com/markets/cryptocurrency/stablecoins-overtakes-visa-in-daily-transaction-volumes-as-market-cap-tops-300-billion-binance-report/articleshow/125326852.cms
For users in fragile monetary environments, these numbers translate into practical behavior. Chainalysis tracks Latin American adoption and finds stablecoin-based flows playing a major role in remittances and savings. https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2024-latin-america-crypto-adoption/ Full regional detail sits in their Geography of Cryptocurrency report and global adoption index. https://go.chainalysis.com/2024-geography-of-cryptocurrency-report.html https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2025-global-crypto-adoption-index/
The Bolivian shop drops into that context. Staff price goods in USDT because they want a stable reference unit, not because they want to make a point about blockchains. The local currency loses purchasing power too quickly, and dollar notes remain scarce. A liquid on-chain dollar with a direct link to global markets solves a pricing problem.
In such environments, stablecoins act as operational money. The local currency becomes one of several settlement formats. The mental unit of account shifts to the token.
When that pattern repeats enough times, cash turns into one format among many, not the defining reference.
Moving money into a new medium
New media tend to reshape their content.
Newspapers moved onto the web and eventually adapted to hyperlinking, search, and social distribution. The underlying text still reported facts, but the environment changed how it was produced, consumed, and monetized.
Blockchains provide a medium with different properties for money.
A token on a public chain lives on a globally shared ledger. Programs can hold it, move it, and condition its movement. Multiple applications can see and act on the same balance. Users can delegate some actions to software while retaining cryptographic control.
Dollars, when represented as stablecoins, join that environment. They now sit in a context where:
They can integrate into lending protocols. They can serve as collateral. They can move through cross-border payment flows without correspondent banking chains. They can route through decentralized exchanges to connect to other assets.
JPMorgan research notes that roughly 99% of stablecoin supply pegs to the dollar or dollar-based assets, which effectively extends dollar reach into this programmable environment. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-07/stablecoin-adoption-poised-to-drive-dollar-buying-jpmorgan-says
Stablecoins in that sense function as the operational base for on-chain finance. Cash still defines legal tender in most jurisdictions, but stablecoins increasingly define working capital inside crypto-native ecosystems.
Liquidity as a routing problem
In legacy finance, liquidity for an individual meant “How quickly can I turn this into cash in my bank account?” Settlement cycles, market depth, and banking hours constrained that answer.
On-chain, the structure changes.
A holder may keep value across several instruments: major cryptocurrencies, multiple stablecoins, tokenized funds, and application-specific tokens. These assets sit in wallets that connect directly to markets. A swap operation routed through exchanges or aggregators can transform one asset into another in a single interaction.
Liquidity becomes a routing problem.
The relevant question turns into: “Given my current portfolio and the state of on-chain markets, how many steps and how much cost stand between this position and the asset required for this payment or opportunity?”
As long as stablecoins maintain deep markets against other assets, users can treat many holdings as latent spending power. The system performs the conversion at the moment of use.
That structure reduces the need to sit in cash as a permanent default. A person can:
Hold value in a form that fits their risk and yield profile. Rely on reliable routing into a stablecoin when they need to pay. Move back out of the stablecoin into another asset after the transaction if they prefer.
Cash remains part of the graph. Liquidity no longer refers solely to immediate access to cash balances. It refers to access to conversion paths.
Life on the edge of the system
The abstract description gains clarity in places where domestic money and banking prove unreliable.
Chainalysis documents heavy use of stablecoins in Latin America and other regions where inflation, capital controls, and banking frictions affect daily life. https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2024-latin-america-crypto-adoption/
Households there already use multi-step strategies.
They receive income in local currency. They convert a portion quickly into dollars or dollar proxies. They hold some value in goods or alternative instruments. They periodically convert back into local currency to handle fixed expenses.
Stablecoins and on-chain rails fit into that pattern with fewer intermediaries.
A worker can receive a remittance in USDT. They can store savings in that form or move into another asset. At bill time, they can swap back into a stablecoin that matches their preferred off-ramp or directly into local currency. They can keep the bulk of their net worth outside the domestic currency in the meantime.
In this loop, cash appears as an interface to legacy systems rather than as the main store of value. People rely on conversion steps rather than on long-term cash balances.
That usage pattern aligns with global payment trends highlighted by McKinsey and others, where tokenized cash and stablecoins operate continuously and satisfy demand for instant settlement. https://flow.db.com/cash-management/how-fintechs-are-reshaping-payments-lessons-for-corporate-treasury https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/global-payments-report
Design questions for builders
Builders who design financial products on top of this environment confront shifting assumptions.
Legacy fintech architectures assume that the bank account is the center of gravity. On-chain access appears as an endpoint: something that receives funds from the bank or sends funds back.
An on-chain centered view inverts that relationship.
Under that view, wallets and protocols represent primary venues. Bank connections resemble adapters.
A wallet that adopts this view can:
Present a stablecoin balance as the main lens. Treat multiple chains and assets as part of one portfolio. Route spending and saving flows across those assets. Use bank and card connections to top up or off-ramp, not to define the main balance.
A dapp can:
Accept input in several forms. Use routing and swaps to normalize into the asset it prefers internally. Return output in a form the user can use in other contexts.
Developers require infrastructure that exposes these capabilities without re-implementing low-level primitives for each project.
Policy backdrop
Regulators have started to recognize stablecoins as infrastructure at national and international levels.
In the United States, the GENIUS Act creates a federal framework for payment stablecoin issuers. The bill text and commentary describe requirements for reserve backing, supervision, and issuer categories. Bill text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/394/text World Economic Forum explainer: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/07/stablecoin-regulation-genius-act/ Brookings analysis: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/stablecoins-issues-for-regulators-as-they-implement-genius-act/
Press coverage tracks its progress through Congress and its eventual passage. https://www.axios.com/2025/03/13/stablecoin-bill-senate-genius-act https://www.theverge.com/cryptocurrency/688903/genius-act-stablecoin-senate-federal-crypto-regulation https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/genius-act-how-senate-bypassed-trumps-crypto-ties-bill-regulates-stablecoins/articleshow/121925494.cms https://nypost.com/2025/07/18/business/crypto-market-cap-surges-past-4-trillion-on-landmark-genius-act-law/
In Singapore, stablecoin payments now run through mainstream consumer payment platforms. Reuters reports on OKX enabling USDT and USDC spending at GrabPay merchants, with conversions into a local SGD-pegged stablecoin and then into SGD for merchants. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/okx-singapore-launches-stablecoin-payments-local-grabpay-merchants-2025-09-30/ Regional outlets carry the same story. https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2025/09/30/okx-singapore-launches-stablecoin-payments-at-local-grabpay-merchants https://finance.yahoo.com/news/okx-singapore-launches-stablecoin-payments-040146528.html
These developments do not settle every question. They indicate that stablecoins now sit inside major policy and commercial frameworks.
Why UTXOS exists in this context
UTXOS grows out of this environment where:
Stablecoins operate as base assets on-chain. Liquidity depends on routing, not just on static cash balances. Users and applications interact with multiple chains and assets. Regulation and mainstream platforms now recognize on-chain money.
UTXOS focuses on UTXO-based blockchains and on practical integration for applications and users.
The system targets several requirements.
First, onboarding. Many users will arrive from Web2 habits: social logins, device-based credentials, and app stores. They will not start with hardware wallets and seed phrases. UTXOS provides ways to bind keys to devices, use familiar login flows, and sponsor network fees so that first interactions do not stall on missing gas.
Second, asset-agnostic flows. Applications should not break when users hold different tokens than designers expected. UTXOS offers primitives to inspect holdings, swap between assets, and complete operations while abstracting UTXO-level details.
Third, custody and recovery. As states and institutions search for revenue, assets on traditional ledgers remain exposed to taxation, controls, and seizure. On-chain holdings offer more control if managed correctly. UTXOS works on sharding keys, defining recovery paths, and fitting those into real-world behavior: device loss, travel, and normal churn.
Fourth, alignment with multi-rail payments. Stablecoin usage across consumer and corporate contexts now appears in reports from McKinsey, Deutsche Bank, and central-bank research blogs. https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2025/11/the-future-of-payment-infrastructure-could-be-permissionless/
UTXOS integrates with that trajectory by providing infrastructure for chains that can host these flows, including UTXO-based networks where transaction models differ from account-based chains.
Cash after the transition
Cash continues to serve roles: small offline payments, edge cases, and legal constructs.
Its position changes.
Stablecoins and tokenized cash handle growing portions of transfer volume and settlement, as documented by WEF, Binance Research, Visual Capitalist, and bank reports. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/03/stablecoins-cryptocurrency-on-rise-financial-systems/ https://public.bnbstatic.com/static/files/research/the-stablecoin-business.pdf https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-stablecoins-are-now-bigger-than-visa-or-mastercard/ https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/global-research/currencies/stablecoins
Shops in places like Bolivia reference a stablecoin price list and use local currency as one interface. https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/25381745587314 https://www.bitget.com/news/detail/12560604808755
Merchants in Singapore accept stablecoins at everyday merchants through GrabPay. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/okx-singapore-launches-stablecoin-payments-local-grabpay-merchants-2025-09-30/
Emerging-market users adopt stablecoins for remittances and savings. https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2024-latin-america-crypto-adoption/
In that environment, cash becomes one node in a larger graph. The center of gravity shifts to programmable money and liquid routing.
UTXOS exists because that graph now matters more than the single node. The system offers tools for builders who treat on-chain money as primary and who design for a world where “getting liquid” means “finding a path,” not “waiting for cash.”