IOSG says fintech’s next phase will run on crypto rails and stablecoin infrastructure
IOSG argues that a structural shift is underway across global fintech: major firms are no longer treating crypto as a speculative side business, but as backend financial infrastructure. In the report, companies including Stripe, Mastercard, Robinhood, PayPal, Visa, Block, Revolut, Nu, Adyen, Coinbase and SoFi are assessed through the lens of business model durability, revenue mix, and how they are folding stablecoins, blockchain settlement, custody, staking and DeFi-linked services into core products.
The central claim is that stablecoins are emerging as the bridge between traditional finance and onchain markets. Rather than exposing retail users directly to native DeFi, the strongest fintech players use crypto in the background to speed up settlement, lower cross-border frictions, support programmable money movement and build new revenue layers such as reserve income, subscriptions, custody and infrastructure services. The report also draws a sharp distinction between high-margin infrastructure businesses and more cyclical, regulation-sensitive consumer platforms.
IOSG’s conclusion is that the firms best positioned to capture value in digital finance are the ones that combine large-scale distribution, regulatory trust and control over the underlying rails. In that framework, the long-term opportunity is not simply retail trading. It is building compliant middleware that makes blockchain complexity invisible to enterprises and end users.
