On August 20, Stripe hosted its flagship Stripe Tour event in Singapore, bringing together fintech leaders, developers, regulators, and innovators to explore the future of payments. I had the opportunity to sit down with Mai Leduc — head of products at Bridge, a Stripe company — to discuss the evolving landscape of stablecoins and their role in global commerce.
Mai brings a rich background in payments and fintech, having held leadership roles at Blackhawk Network, Square, Airbnb, and GoFundMe. Her experience spans traditional financial infrastructure and disruptive technologies, giving her a unique perspective on how stablecoins can solve real-world problems — from cross-border payouts to treasury management. Her journey from skepticism to advocacy for stablecoins is rooted in firsthand experience with the limitations of legacy systems.
Market Strategy
Meng: You’ve worked in traditional payments companies like Square, and you mentioned being initially skeptical about stablecoins and crypto. What was the tipping point or key moment that changed your perspective and led you to embrace stablecoins?
Mai: The inflection point came during my time at Airbnb. We were responsible for payments and commerce across 191 countries. I kept reading feedback from hosts in Brazil and Africa begging us to hold funds in USD — but we couldn’t. We were integrated with traditional financial infrastructure that simply didn’t support it. That same pain showed up at GoFundMe, where people raised money for urgent causes but couldn’t get it to recipients quickly. Stablecoins offered a solution — not as speculative assets, but as transactional utility.
What changed my mind was seeing how stablecoins could deliver humanitarian aid quickly and compliantly. When I spoke with Zach (The cofounder of Bridge), he emphasized that stablecoins aren’t about crypto speculation: they’re about speed, utility, and inclusion. That’s what excited me. Bridge’s strategy is built on that utility-first mindset, not crypto hype. We’re not a crypto company — we’re a global payments platform that leverages blockchain.
Meng: Stripe’s core advantage is its vast merchant network. How are you leveraging this distribution to drive stablecoin adoption, and what are the early uptake signals from traditional businesses versus crypto-native ones?
Mai: Stripe gives us scale and distribution. Bridge started as developer-first, but now we can test and learn with enterprise merchants. Stripe’s financial accounts are backed by stablecoin wallets, but businesses don’t need to think about the underlying tech of stablecoins. They just want to accept payments in Vietnam or Argentina. We’re making stablecoins invisible; they’re embedded into existing flows.
For example, we’re integrated into the Visa network, so merchants don’t need to change anything — they just get the benefit of faster, cheaper payments. We’re giving consumers optionality, while keeping the merchant experience seamless. That’s the magic: merchants care about cash flow, cost, and reach — not the underlying tech.
The Trust Imperative
Meng: Traditional card payments are built on a “trust layer” of chargebacks and fraud protection. How is Bridge engineering a comparable trust layer for stablecoins to give mainstream merchants the confidence to adopt them?
Mai: Trust is foundational. Stripe’s brand helps, but Bridge is compliance-first. We have secured money transmission licenses in the U.S., are working on an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license in Luxembourg, and publish transparency reports. We take regulation extremely seriously.
Stripe recently launched a foundational model for payments, trained on billions of transactions. That gives us powerful fraud detection and compliance tools. We’re embedding that into Bridge to strengthen our trust layer. Stablecoins like USDB are backed 1:1 and issued under strict regimes. We’re not just building tech — we’re engineering trust.
Key adoption scenarios
Meng: Stripe offers on/off-ramps, global payouts, and business accounts. Which use case is gaining the most traction?
Mai: Right now, corporate treasury is huge. Multinationals like SpaceX want to repatriate funds from regions with volatile currencies. We call it the “stablecoin sandwich” — using stablecoins as a settlement layer. It’s fast, cost-effective, and avoids holding currencies like Nigerian naira or Argentine peso.
Payroll and cross-border payments are also strong, especially post-COVID. Freelancers need to get paid fast. In Latin America (LATAM) and Africa, stablecoins offer access to USD. We’re seeing fintechs in those regions use Bridge to serve their customers better. On the consumer side, Visa-powered stablecoin cards are gaining momentum. People want faster, cheaper ways to spend and stablecoins deliver that.
Roadblocks & Catalysts
Meng: With recent regulatory clarity from frameworks like MiCA and the GENIUS Act of 2025, how have your conversations with clients evolved? Has regulation become the primary catalyst for adoption?
Mai: Absolutely. Regulatory clarity gives institutions confidence. In APAC, Hong Kong is leading the way. Regulation isn’t a hurdle: it’s a catalyst. It protects consumers and gives us a clear framework to operate. We work closely with regulators to help them understand the real benefits and structure of stablecoins. It’s a partnership.
For example, we’re working with MAS in Singapore to align on standards. The difference between this wave of stablecoins and the previous crypto boom is that we’re building with regulators, not around them.
Meng: Beyond regulation, what’s the biggest barrier to adoption?
Mai: Operational complexity. Blockchain settlement varies by protocol, and reconciling that with financial plumbing is tough. For example, a PSP wants to accept crypto at the point of sale—but card swipes are sub-second, while blockchain confirmations can take minutes. That’s a poor experience.
We’re solving for speed, interoperability, and treasury management. Blockchain hasn’t fully contemplated the speed of payments, and that’s where we’re innovating. We’re also working on interoperability across chains, which is critical for global adoption.
Product Vision & The Future
Meng: Why launch USDB alongside USDC? What makes it unique?
Mai: USDB is a closed-loop token designed to let businesses earn rewards. Think of it as a global digital gift card. Unlike USDC, where the issuer earns the yield, USDB passes that value to the business. We orchestrate issuance and redemption, and we believe in a multi-stablecoin future.
We’re not trying to compete with USDC or Tether — we’re building the orchestration layer that makes it all work. USDB is issued across multiple blockchains and regulated under U.S. and European regimes. We’re also working on custody solutions in Europe via CASP and EMI licenses. Our goal is to make stablecoins programmable, compliant, and composable.
Meng: What is the single ‘North Star’ metric your product team is using to measure the success and adoption of Bridge?
Mai: Bridge prioritizes customer obsession and direct engagement with its developer community. Success is measured by the team’s ability to solve developer problems and improve APIs. Growth in volume and revenue are considered lagging indicators. The company’s growth has been largely organic, driven by word-of-mouth.
Developer empathy is actually one of the most exciting parts of our culture. At Bridge, every developer we work with has a dedicated Slack channel that includes engineers, product managers, and support. There’s no abstraction layer — we’re in direct conversation with our users. That intimacy helps us understand pain points and iterate quickly.
Before Stripe acquired us, 100% of our growth was inbound, driven purely by word of mouth. We didn’t do any marketing. That’s because we were solving real problems for developers in regions like LATAM and Africa, and they spread the word.
What’s fascinating is that Patrick Collison himself said Bridge reminds him of Stripe 10 years ago: how we operate, how we think, and how we engage with developers. In fact, before the acquisition, we used to pitch ourselves as “the Stripe of stablecoins.” That synergy in mission and culture made the acquisition feel natural.
Meng: Fast forward to 2028 — what will surprise us most about stablecoin adoption?
Mai: Hopefully, we won’t even talk about stablecoins — they’ll just be part of how money moves. With regulatory clarity, banks will adopt tokenized deposits, and outdated infrastructure will evolve. Standards will emerge, and blockchain will be embedded into everyday financial operations.
Think about SWIFT — no one talks about it, it just works. That’s where stablecoins are headed. Invisible, seamless, and transformative.
What to read next
Forrester has dedicated research reports on digital assets and blockchain technologies, such as:
Navigating The Terminology Jungle Of Cryptocurrencies, Stablecoins, And Other Constructs
Digital Asset Custody: A Primer
HSBC’s Gold Token Exemplifies Customer-Centric Innovation
Invent The Future With Asset Tokenization
We will publish new research around stablecoin real-world use cases and the regulatory landscape soon. Stay tuned!
