Stablecoins, after all, have been able to basically make their name on just their promise alone to innovate and disrupt the cross-border settlement space. As recently as Tuesday (March 17), PayPal expanded the availability of its dollar-backed stablecoin PayPal USD (PYUSD) and now offers it in 70 markets worldwide.

But stablecoin flows represent an infinitesimally small portion of cross-border payment volume. Payments originating from Latin America and Africa, two supposed digital asset hot spots, each account for less than $1 billion. Stablecoin payment activity today is driven almost entirely by payments sent from…