The stablecoin orchestration problem: Why payment companies are stuck between vendors

Eighteen months ago, if you were evaluating stablecoin orchestration vendors, the expectation was that consolidation would simplify your choices. A wave of multi-billion-dollar acquisition talks signaled that a few major players would absorb the independent vendors and streamline the landscape. One of those deals closed: Stripe finalized its $1.1 billion acquisition of Bridge and has since used it as a foundation to launch stablecoin financial accounts in 101+ countries and unveil Tempo, a purpose-built payments blockchain developed with Paradigm.

But the rest of the consolidation wave didn't materialize. One major deal was called off by mutual agreement. Another chose to remain independent, opting instead to raise $250 million at a $1.5B valuation. Instead of consolidation, the market got divergence, and the vendor landscape is wider than it was a year ago.

If you're a payment company evaluating stablecoin orchestration for cross-border settlement, payroll, treasury, or embedded finance, the decision for who to build with hasn't gotten simpler. It's gotten more complex. Let's break down why.

What is stablecoin orchestration?

Stablecoin orchestration is the mechanism that converts fiat into a stablecoin, routes the transaction across the most efficient blockchain, handles compliance checks, and settles back into fiat on the other side. Think of it as the middleware that makes blockchain resemble the payment rails you already know (ACH, wire transfers, SWIFT) but faster, cheaper, and available around the clock.

The point of orchestration is that your finance team shouldn't have to think about blockchains at all. They should see faster settlement, lower costs, and cleaner audit trails without needing to understand the infrastructure underneath.

Effective orchestration decides which stablecoin to use, which chain to route through, when and how to convert, what compliance checks to run, and how to settle and reconcile. For a deeper look at how stablecoins work under the hood, see our Enterprise Stablecoin Guide.

Why does deciding on a stablecoin vendor matter now?

Stablecoin payments volume roughly doubled in 2025 to approximately $400 billion, an estimated 60% of which represents B2B payments, even as the broader crypto market declined sharply. The teams building on stablecoins today aren't thinking about digital assets. They're solving for settlement speed, cost, and compliance. The same problems they've always had, with new infrastructure underneath.

Three developments have accelerated this shift:

Regulation arrived. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, established the first federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins in the US. The FDIC has approved proposed rulemaking to implement it. In Europe, MiCA is live and imposes Travel Rule requirements on every stablecoin transaction. For the first time, payment companies have clear legal rails to build on.

Payment giants are building vertically. Stripe's acquisition of Bridge and launch of Tempo is part of a broader pattern. Visa is settling transactions in stablecoins. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America have launched stablecoin initiatives under the new regulatory frameworks. These institutions aren't experimenting at the edges; they're integrating stablecoins into core payment infrastructure.

Orchestration vendors didn't consolidate to simplify your purchase decision. The orchestration vendors that many expected to be absorbed into larger platforms chose independence instead. The landscape is wider, not narrower, which means payment companies face more choices.

Why do payment companies get stuck?

Payment companies evaluating stablecoin orchestration tend to run into the same three problems.

The market is fragmented

No single orchestration vendor covers every chain, every corridor, every use case. A company's needs can vary internally: one business line might need a fully managed third-party solution while another requires a custom, self-managed flow.

Liquidity depth varies by provider. What works for a $500 remittance corridor doesn't work for a $50M treasury sweep.

The vendors that many expected to become consolidated platforms are still independent point solutions. The only major acquisition that closed resulted in that vendor becoming exclusive to its acquirer's ecosystem. The rest remain standalone, each with different chain coverage, compliance posture, and geographic reach.

The result is that most payment companies will need more than one vendor. But the more vendors in your stack, the more complex your integration, and the more exposure you carry when the landscape shifts again.

Regulation is evolving faster than enterprises can move

The most important thing to understand about the regulatory landscape is that the due diligence burden falls on you. It's the payment company's responsibility to confirm that each vendor in its stack meets compliance requirements, across every jurisdiction it operates in.

That burden is substantial because the regulatory landscape varies significantly by market. The GENIUS Act (US) established reserve requirements, issuer oversight, and consumer protections. The FDIC is building implementation rules. In Europe, MiCA places any firm providing access to stablecoins under CASP/VASP regulations with Travel Rule requirements. The US, EU, UK, and Japan each have some form of licensing regime, while markets like India have no formal legislation and China remains severely restricted.

Compliance maturity varies across providers. Not every vendor is equally equipped to meet enterprise needs across this patchwork, and the landscape continues to evolve.

Blockchain integration is genuinely complex

Adopting stablecoin orchestration means engaging with an entirely new infrastructure stack: chain access, gas fees, smart contracts, on-chain compliance. For many payment companies, this is net-new capability, not an extension of what they already do.

Existing payment rails were not designed for instant, programmable money. SWIFT transactions can cost anywhere from $35-$100 per transaction with 1-5 day settlement. But transitioning to new rails isn't immediate. During the transition, teams are maintaining two parallel infrastructure stacks.

Time-to-value is a consistent pain point. Onboarding takes longer than expected. The talent market for blockchain engineers with enterprise payments experience is thin.

Consumer protection adds another layer. Stablecoin transactions are generally irreversible once settled. Refund workflows, chargeback alternatives, and customer support processes all need to be redesigned. For more on how cross-border stablecoin flows work in practice, see What Is the Stablecoin Sandwich?

What this looks like in practice

Some payroll platforms use a third-party orchestration vendor for stablecoin payouts. They want embedded wallets but don't want to run infrastructure or hold crypto directly. A vendor's decision to remain independent can raise questions about long-term roadmap alignment.

Several checkout and payments companies rely on an orchestration vendor for crypto capabilities. Almost all are exploring whether to pursue their own stablecoin issuance, but face the same uncertainty about vendor direction and whether the technical complexity is worth taking on.

For an enterprise payment processor handling card and crypto flows through multiple vendors is likely. They need enterprise-grade blockchain infrastructure and gas sponsorship to go deeper into stablecoin pay-ins and payouts, but typical orchestration layers for enterprise payments are coupled to their infrastructure layer. Adapting one means rebuilding the other.

Consumer finance applications want orchestration across multiple stablecoins on multiple chains without running their own nodes. These firms need a neutral infrastructure layer that doesn't constrain their orchestration choices.

In each case, the core challenge is the same: their blockchain infrastructure is coupled to their orchestration choice. When the orchestration landscape shifts, they need the ability to adapt without a full rebuild.

Decouple your infrastructure from your orchestration

Just as cloud computing didn't eliminate data centers but made them programmable, blockchains are making payment systems more flexible. You wouldn't build your entire cloud strategy on a single vendor's proprietary stack. The same logic applies to blockchain infrastructure.

The infrastructure layer (chain access, transaction data, gas sponsorship) should be independent of your orchestration vendor. That independence is what allows you to add, swap, or run multiple orchestration providers without rebuilding from the ground up.

Alchemy was designed for exactly this. A neutral infrastructure layer that stays consistent regardless of which orchestration vendors sit on top:

Chain access across 100+ networks through a single integration, managed independently from your orchestration vendor.

On-chain data and indexing for audit-ready reporting and compliance trails that persist when you switch or add orchestration vendors.

Compliance-ready architecture where AML/KYC and Travel Rule hooks connect at the infrastructure level, not just through individual orchestration providers.

How to evaluate your options

Get clear on your goals. Are you experimenting, solving a specific use case (cross-border payroll, treasury settlement), or building long-term strategic exposure to blockchain rails?

Map the markets you want to serve today and develop a cross-border roadmap. Select orchestration providers that support those corridors, but keep your infrastructure portable.

Determine whether each use case is best served by a third-party managed flow or a custom in-house build. This decision should be revisitable without a full rebuild. A neutral infrastructure layer gives you that optionality, including the option to build your own orchestration capabilities on top of it.

For a deeper look at the chain-by-chain landscape, see The Stablecoin Landscape Across Different Chains.

What to look for in an infrastructure layer?

Your orchestration strategy is only as strong as the infrastructure underneath it. The base layer needs to deliver reliability (99.99%+ uptime), enterprise-grade security (SOC 2 Type II or equivalent), and broad chain coverage so you're not locked into a single network. But equally important is neutrality. If your infrastructure is tightly coupled to one orchestration vendor, switching costs compound fast, and a decision that should be strategic becomes a technical constraint.

That's the principle we built Alchemy around. Visa, Stripe, Robinhood, and many orchestration vendors themselves run on us. Whatever orchestration path you choose or build yourself the foundation is already there.

The orchestration layer is fragmented. Your infrastructure layer doesn't have to be. Read more here