They provide liquidity on exchanges, support DeFi protocols, cross-border payments, and allow market makers to move capital quickly. However, looking to 2026, leading industry representatives are increasingly arguing that trading will not be the source of the next wave of sustainable income in the cryptosphere.

In the exclusive comments for Investing.com The heads of FS Vector and Stablecore state that stablecoins such as USDT and USDC, digital tokens usually pegged to the US dollar and issued by private institutions on public blockchains, are evolving beyond their role as trading instruments into the underlying financial infrastructure.

This shift will not be driven by the release of more stablecoins, but by what their "rails" make possible: transaction routing, coordination, and settlements between systems inside and outside the blockchain. If this migration accelerates, it could change the way banks, fintech companies, and infrastructure providers generate revenue as stablecoins penetrate deeper into the flows of the real economy.

From trade support to real "rails"

Nick Elledge, co-founder and chief operating officer of Stablecore, believes that the initial pressure point is likely to be regional and medium-sized banks, which have historically relied on large banks and correspondent networks to move dollars internationally.

"In 2026, I predict that regional banks will stop relying on large banks for cross—border transfers," Elledge said. "They will use stablecoin for money transfers, which are 90% cheaper and settle in seconds, upending the traditional correspondent banking hierarchy."

In his opinion, the most disruptive element is not cost or speed, where the benefits of stablecoin are already well understood, but accessibility. Stablecoin's rails can operate around the clock, usually outside of traditional banking hours, giving banks a liquidity advantage when legacy payment systems are shut down.

"It could look like a consortium of regional banks launching a common tokenized deposit or stablecoin to bypass the FedWire window for weekend liquidity," he added.

Although this reflects the real-world use case that stablecoin has long been promised, it also creates a second-order effect. When institutions start using stablecoin as a "rail," the ecosystem becomes more complex, creating new coordination challenges and new points where value can be generated.

Deeper understanding: the connectivity layer

Emily Goodman, partner at FS Vector, believes that while the release of stablecoin will remain fundamental, the more important strategic focus in 2026 is likely to "shift towards orchestration." This means more attention to routing, coordination, and settlement of transactions in a fragmented hybrid financial system.

"The release of stablecoin will remain an important pillar of the digital asset ecosystem," Goodman said. "However, by 2026, the strategic focus will begin to shift towards the orchestration of transactions built on the stablecoin infrastructure."

In her opinion, the emerging opportunity is not just to issue stablecoin, but to manage how stablecoin-based transactions move between blockchains, banks, payment networks, and legacy systems, especially when these systems do not initially interact with each other.

"Market participants will seek to gain value from coordination, routing, and settlements between environments inside and outside the blockchain," Goodman said. "We will see increased attention to interoperability, which means platforms spanning payment networks, DeFi protocols, and banking systems."

In other words, stablecoins provide "rails," but the revenue opportunity lies in the infrastructure that defines how transactions are routed, calculated, and managed.

Why it can become a source of sustainable income

If stablecoin continues to infiltrate major financial flows such as bank money transfers, treasury movements, and platform settlements, the ecosystem is likely to become more fragmented, with multiple co-existing blockchains, issuers, inputs and outputs, and compliance modes.

This fragmentation creates demand for services that ensure connectivity and support this orchestration: interoperability tools, routing layers, settlement coordination, and compliance-based transaction monitoring and management.

Companies capable of generating steady income may not be the ones that provide the most speculative volume, but those who coordinate how value moves within an increasingly hybrid system.

The conclusionl for 2026

By 2026, the most important story of stablecoin may not be the launch of a new token, but the infrastructure built around the "rails" of stablecoin, which connects banks, blockchains and payment networks into a single transactional fabric.

If Elledge is right, stablecoin will start undermining the economics of correspondent banking. If Goodman is right, the larger prize will be at a level above the release, in an orchestration of how money moves between environments inside and outside the blockchain.

In this future, stablecoin is no longer a product, but an infrastructure, and revenues are shifting to companies that manage routing, calculations, and coordination.