The internet made information global. Crypto is having  a similar impact on money. While recent headlines might fixate on prices of Bitcoin, a deeper and longer-lasting shift is underway in digital payments. This is the year that stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to assets like the dollar, are becoming part of the mainstream for online and international payments.

Call it money’s “WhatsApp moment”. Just as chat apps like WhatsApp collapsed the cost of international messaging from say 30 cents per text to zero, stablecoins are doing the same in financial transactions. The numbers bear this out: Stablecoins moved over $12tn in value last year, after…