Do you see this movement of stablecoins? While Bitcoin is slowly moving around $78.23K, the market is turning in a completely different direction. It’s no longer just about the currency itself; it’s about who controls access.

This week, news came out from all sides. AllUnity launched a Swiss franc stablecoin, SBI Holdings and Startale Group brought out one in yen. Hong Kong will start issuing licenses for stablecoin issuers in March. And there’s more: Meta is getting back into stablecoin-based payments — after that epic failure with Libra back in 2019.

But here’s the plot twist. According to Christian Catalini, one of the creators of Libra who is now a professor at MIT, this is not even close to the same project as before. The difference now is that stablecoins are becoming invisible, offered by multiple providers, and becoming part of the payment infrastructure. Like, no one will be talking about “Meta’s stablecoin” anymore. It will just be one option among many.

Catalini said this very clearly: “Meta, Google, Apple — everyone will use multiple providers, just like they do with regular payments. The market will turn into a commodity; it won’t be about branding. It’s kind of a sign that the market has truly matured.”

And do you know what the real advantage now is? Distribution. Whoever has billions of users in hand captures the value. Meta has 3.6 billion users across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. That’s power.

What’s changing is that before, the game was about issuing stablecoins, converting fiat to crypto and back — that whole sandwich. Now it’s about who is closest to the end user. And is this bad for traditional payment networks? Yes, it threatens those fees that Visa and Mastercard earn. But these networks have a card up their sleeve: they already have the relationship with the user.

There’s also Stripe in this story. The company bought Bridge (specialist in stablecoins) for $1.1 billion and created its own blockchain, Tempo. Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe, sits on Meta’s board. But here’s the problem: why would another big payment player want to build on Stripe’s blockchain? Probably not. That brings us back to the central challenge: how to make these networks truly open and neutral?

Catalini pointed out that the answer might be to build on something that already exists and is trusted, like Ethereum, Bitcoin, or Solana. The commoditization of stablecoins is inevitable — there will be many, many banks wanting theirs. But the infrastructure? That’s where things really get interesting. And that’s where fees, distribution, and control of the user relationship will determine who wins.