I recently attended a roundtable discussion at the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival, where several industry insiders talked about the "golden closed loop" of DePIN — machines generate assets, and stablecoins complete the payments. This topic is quite interesting and seems to touch on certain aspects of the future economy.

First is the issue of ecosystem collaboration. Stablecoins are evolving from simple payment tools into interest-bearing assets. Imagine that when DePIN devices generate revenue, these earnings can be directly distributed to holders via stablecoins. This isn't a new concept, but in the context of the machine economy, it becomes especially important. The programmability of stablecoins, 24/7 trading, borderless features — these qualities are perfectly suited for machine-to-machine payments. Someone mentioned that in the future, each robot might need a crypto wallet, and the settlement layer for that wallet is very likely to be stablecoins.

But the real problem is that the existing stablecoin infrastructure is not yet mature enough. Fragmentation is a major issue — there are too many types of stablecoins, cross-chain friction exists, and regulatory frameworks vary across countries. On the technical side, everything is actually ready: sub-second settlement, high-frequency trading, micro-payments (even at the $0.0001 level), these are not difficult. But there’s still a big gap between having individual technical modules ready and achieving coordinated, unified, large-scale adoption.

Interestingly, the true driver for large-scale adoption isn’t just educating users about what blockchain is, but the application value itself. Just like compliant digital currencies first gaining popularity in countries with weaker fiat currencies, the large-scale adoption of the machine economy will happen when there’s real economic return. When users shift from thinking “I am using a device” to “this device is making money for me,” the entire narrative changes. Device manufacturers will also move from one-time sales to long-term revenue sharing models.

The discussion also highlighted a key gap — machine identity and application protocol layers. Machines lack identity, just as people in underdeveloped regions without IDs can’t access traditional financial systems. This requires mapping to legal entities. At the same time, payment authorization, pricing, valuation rules, and other processes need to become machine-readable protocols. This is the real bottleneck.

Someone pointed out that developing countries like Laos are actually already prepared. They are less constrained by existing systems and could become pioneers of new technology. Coupled with local industry advantages (such as solar energy), machine-to-machine payment modes might be adopted more quickly there. Stablecoins play a bridging role in this process, connecting the value generated by machines with the real-world economic system.

The core of the entire discussion is really about one thing: stablecoins are not just payment tools but the infrastructure of the machine economy. But to truly realize this vision, multiple issues need to be addressed — fragmentation, cross-chain friction, machine identity, application protocols, and more. This isn’t just a technical problem; it’s an ecosystem coordination challenge.