Maksym Sakharov, CEO & Co-Founder of WeFi: “A stablecoin on its own does not change global finance”

For years, stablecoins have been viewed largely through the lens of cryptocurrency markets, promising faster payments, lower transaction costs and a bridge between traditional finance and digital assets. Today, that conversation is changing. As governments introduce clearer regulations, financial institutions explore their own digital currency strategies and enterprises look for more efficient ways to move money across borders, stablecoins are increasingly being seen not as speculative assets, but as critical financial infrastructure.

Yet widespread adoption will depend on far more than the technology itself. Questions around compliance, governance, liquidity and user experience remain just as important as the underlying blockchain, while banks, fintechs and decentralised finance platforms are all competing to define what the next generation of financial services will look like.

As CEO and Co-Founder of WeFi, Maksym Sakharov has a front-row seat to this transformation. His focus is on making blockchain technology effectively invisible to end users, allowing businesses and consumers to benefit from digital assets without needing to understand the complexity beneath the surface.

Here, Sakharov discusses why stablecoins are evolving into core financial infrastructure, how regulation will shape innovation, and why the organisations that succeed will be those that treat stablecoins as part of a broader operating model rather than simply another financial product.

The stablecoin conversation has shifted from speculation to infrastructure. What do you think the industry still misunderstands about the role stablecoins will play in global finance over the next five years?

The industry still misunderstands stablecoins when it treats them as standalone assets rather than operating components of financial activity. A stablecoin on its own does not change global finance. Its value depends on whether it can connect to liquidity, redemption, payment access, compliance, reporting, and familiar user experiences.

Over the next five years, the important role of stablecoins will be less about people choosing to “use crypto” and more about value moving through better payment and settlement paths. That could affect cross-border commerce, merchant flows, treasury movement, and international transfers, but only where the surrounding system works.

This is why the stablecoin conversation has to move beyond issuance. A token can be well designed and still have limited impact if users cannot spend it, businesses cannot reconcile it, and institutions cannot evaluate the risk. The real role of stablecoins will be decided by usability, not novelty.

Many companies are now launching their own stablecoin strategies. What will separate the winners from the firms that simply follow the trend?

The winners will be the firms that treat stablecoins as an operating model, not a marketing announcement. Launching a strategy is easy. Building something that users, businesses, and partners can rely on is much harder.

The difference will come down to distribution, governance, liquidity, off-ramps, compliance design, and customer use. A company needs to know who the stablecoin is for, what problem it solves, how users enter and exit, who carries risk, and how the product fits into existing financial behavior.

Many firms will follow the trend because stablecoins are receiving attention from regulators, banks, and payment companies. The market will reward companies that make stablecoin functionality useful in specific workflows. The firms that disappear will be those with no clear use case beyond participation in the category.

The industry often talks about faster and cheaper payments. Beyond cost and speed, what is the next major innovation stablecoins can unlock that people aren’t paying enough attention to?

The next major innovation is better treasury visibility. Speed and cost are important, but businesses also need to know where value is, when it settles, how it can be moved, and what records support that movement.

Stablecoins can make treasury operations more transparent when they are connected to proper controls and reporting. A company operating across markets may need to pay suppliers, manage liquidity, receive customer funds, and move value between entities. The issue is whether the business has clearer control over cash movement and settlement status.

That is where stablecoins can become more interesting for companies. They can support more direct value movement while giving finance teams a better view of their positions. The strongest use cases may look like better internal control, cleaner settlement records, and more responsive liquidity management.

You often speak about making blockchain invisible to the end user. What does a successful crypto user experience look like in 2030, and how different will it be from today’s banking apps?

A successful crypto user experience in 2030 will feel familiar, but it should be more global, programmable, and less fragmented than many financial products are today. Users should not have to choose networks, calculate gas fees to predict the final amounts, understand settlement paths, or think about which rail is being used.

The product should begin with the action: receive money, pay someone, spend value, move funds across markets, or manage a balance. The technical layer should adapt to that action, not the other way around. That is the difference between crypto as a product category and crypto as underlying financial capability.

Compared with today’s banking apps, the experience may offer broader asset access, faster international movement, and more flexible payment logic. But the best version will not feel more technical. It will feel simpler. Users will trust the outcome because the product is clear, not because they understand every system underneath it.

As governments, banks, and fintechs increasingly enter the stablecoin space, where do decentralized finance and Deobanking fit into the future financial ecosystem?

DeFi and Deobanking will matter because regulated stablecoin adoption still needs open, programmable, and user-accessible financial rails. Governments, banks, and fintechs can bring trust, compliance, distribution, and familiar interfaces, but they may not solve every problem around access, interoperability, and how value moves across different networks and markets.

DeFi has shown what programmable financial infrastructure can do: settlement, liquidity, collateral, payments, and asset movement can operate through transparent systems with fewer closed intermediaries. The challenge is that many DeFi products remain too technical, too fragmented, or too difficult for mainstream users and institutions to rely on directly.

Deobanking sits between those two realities. It takes the useful parts of onchain finance, such as programmability, faster settlement, and digital asset access, and organizes them into account-style experiences with fiat connectivity, payment functionality, and clearer controls. In that sense, Deobanking is not a rejection of banks or regulation. It is a way to make decentralized capability usable inside financial behavior people already understand.

We’ve seen growing regulatory clarity across major jurisdictions. Do you believe regulation will accelerate innovation, or could it unintentionally create barriers that favor large incumbents?

Regulation can accelerate innovation when it gives serious companies the confidence to build, but it can also favor large incumbents if implementation becomes too expensive or complex. Both outcomes are possible.

Clear rules help institutions, payment companies, and infrastructure providers understand what is expected around reserves, redemption, custody, disclosures, compliance, and user protection. That clarity can move stablecoins closer to mainstream financial use because partners and customers know the standards being applied.

The risk is that regulation becomes workable only for the largest firms with the biggest legal, compliance, and banking resources. If that happens, the market may become safer but less competitive. Good regulation should raise standards without closing the door to serious new entrants.

The important issue is whether the rules are clear, proportionate, and practical enough for responsible companies to operate, compete, and build useful products.

If stablecoins become the default settlement layer for payments, what happens to traditional banking institutions? Do they adapt, collaborate, or risk becoming obsolete?

Traditional banking institutions are more likely to adapt around new forms of digital settlement than disappear. Even if stablecoins become more common in payment flows, banks will still have important roles in customer access, fiat connectivity, compliance operations, account services, reporting, and trust.

The mistake would be to assume that stablecoin adoption removes the need for banks. It changes the role banks may play. Some may provide access, some may distribute digital money through existing products, and some may support settlement and compliance around new payment models.

The institutions that adapt early will be better positioned. The ones that wait too long may lose relevance in specific payment and settlement activities, but the banking role itself will evolve rather than vanish.

If you were advising a global financial institution today, what would be the single most important decision they should make to prepare for a stablecoin-driven future?

The most important decision is to define where stablecoins belong in the institution’s operating model before launching a product. Too many organizations start with the public-facing use case before deciding who owns risk, which customers are being served, which partners are required, and how the service will work operationally.

A global institution should first identify the specific problem it wants to solve. Is it treasury movement, cross-border settlement, merchant services, liquidity management, remittances, or customer access to digital value? Each use case requires different controls, partner structures, compliance processes, and user experience decisions.

Stablecoins should not be treated as an isolated innovation project. They touch payments, risk, legal, operations, technology, customer support, and market strategy. The institutions that prepare best will be those that make stablecoin readiness part of their broader financial operating model. Product launch should come after that foundation is clear.