The Asian Development Bank puts the global trade finance gap at $2.5 trillion, about 10% of merchandise trade. McKinsey and Artemis put B2B stablecoin payments at about $226 billion a year, roughly 0.01% of global B2B payments.
Stablecoin settlement moves value. A letter of credit carries a bank’s credit risk, and it checks the documents. So the question for a trader is which parts of a deal move onto stablecoin rails and who carries the rest?
Public evidence on how many traders have done this is thin, and the sections below flag where.
Why commodity settlement is its own problem
There are two features defining commodity settlement: large tickets backed by shipping documents, and dependence on the dollar. The ADB’s December 2025 brief finds that around 80% to 85% of trade finance transactions are in US dollars, and that the dollar is used for 40% to 50% of global trade invoicing and settlement.
Among the constraints banks cited on supplying more trade finance, insufficient dollar or local-currency funding was ranked first by more than 22% of responding banks.
Africa shows the pressure. The African Development Bank estimates the continent’s trade finance gap averaged $74 billion a year between 2021 and 2024. African banks cited foreign exchange liquidity (36%) and obligor limits with correspondent banks (30%) among their main constraints. In WTO and IFC studies of West Africa, the lower Mekong region and Central America, a letter of credit costs around 2% to 5% of the transaction value. The ADB notes that in low-income and small economies where correspondent relationships have been withdrawn, some firms have turned to prepayment or non-bank financing, effectively bypassing the banks.
What stablecoins change and what they don’t
| Job | What a documentary credit does | What stablecoin settlement does | What still needs a solution |
| Moving the money | Bank to bank, on bank schedules | Moves dollar value on a blockchain at any hour | Conversion into local currency at each end |
| Credit risk | The issuing bank gives an irrevocable undertaking to honour a complying presentation (UCP 600, Article 2), and a confirming bank can add its own | Nothing: a confirmed on-chain transfer can’t be reversed by either party | Escrow, milestone release, a standby, insurance or a bank’s undertaking |
| Document check | Banks examine documents on their face against the credit’s terms, and deal with documents, not the goods (UCP 600, Articles 5 and 14) | Nothing | Someone must verify the bill of lading, inspection and invoice before funds release |
Our guide to crypto vs SWIFT on cross-border B2B payments covers where the payment leg is faster, and wire transfer timing vs stablecoins covers the BIS data on slow corridors.
How a payment moves, step by step
- The buyer funds the provider, in fiat or in stablecoin.
- The provider screens the parties and the transaction. Our guides to KYC for crypto payments and the Travel Rule cover what data travels with the transfer.
- Fiat is converted to a stablecoin, and the transfer goes to the seller’s account or wallet.
- The seller holds the stablecoin or converts to local currency. Our guide to off-ramp vs on-ramp covers what the conversion leg involves.
- Both sides reconcile the payment with the invoice and shipping documents.
The on-chain transfer usually takes minutes, while conversion and local payout set the overall pace.
Compliance in commodity flows
OFAC’s guidance for the virtual currency industry says sanctions obligations apply equally to transactions in virtual currency and in fiat, and that OFAC may impose civil penalties on a strict liability basis in many cases. It covers US persons and, in some circumstances, non-US persons whose transactions involve the United States or cause a US person to violate sanctions. The guidance is written for virtual currency companies, so it shows what a trader’s provider should be doing, and the trader’s own duties depend on its jurisdiction. For commodity trade, the screening questions extend past wallets.
OFAC’s sanctions lists identify blocked vessels as well as persons, its 50 Percent Rule treats entities owned 50% or more by blocked persons as blocked, and it advises screening wallet addresses, and using geolocation and invoice data to spot links to sanctioned locations, with fuzzy matching to catch name variations.
Stablecoin rails don’t change any of this. Haycen’s chief executive, whose company issues a stablecoin aimed at trade finance, told CoinDesk in April that some commodity traders are being debanked over counterparty-risk concerns tied to Iran-related flows, and that USDT is filling the gap. He described stablecoin use as a workaround for the traders affected, and said it does not solve trade finance more broadly. A trader who loses a banking relationship over counterparty or sanctions risk keeps that risk when the payment moves to a different rail.
Our guide to sanctions screening configuration covers the controls in more detail.
Rules differ by corridor
Brazil shows how much corridors differ. Resolution BCB 521, published in November 2025 and largely in force since 2 February 2026, brings virtual asset services into Brazil’s foreign exchange market. Its text makes international payment or transfer with virtual assets an FX-market activity and bars buying or selling virtual assets against foreign currency. It caps international payments with virtual assets at USD 100,000 for virtual asset service companies and at USD 500,000 for another category of authorised institutions, when the counterparty is not itself an institution authorised to operate in the FX market.
A payment above the cap needs a counterparty that is an authorised FX institution, or a different route. Virtual asset service companies already operating may continue only if they apply for central bank authorisation within the set deadlines.
Resolution BCB 561, published on 30 April 2026 and in force from 1 October, adds a separate bar on virtual assets for settlement between an eFX provider and its foreign counterparty. eFX covers purchases of goods and services, withdrawals and small investment transfers, with US$10,000 limits on some categories, so that rule is aimed at that regime. A trader should ask any provider how it handles Brazil.
In the EU, ESMA confirmed that MiCA’s transitional period ended on 1 July 2026, so a provider serving EU clients needs authorisation, as our MiCA CASP guide explains. In the US, Treasury’s proposal treats 18 January 2027 as the expected effective date for the GENIUS Act’s payment stablecoin rules, which matters mainly if you use US-facing providers.
A reality check on scale and evidence
McKinsey found that Asia sent about $245 billion of real stablecoin payments in 2025, North America $95 billion and Europe $50 billion, while Latin America and Africa each accounted for less than $1 billion. McKinsey says activity is driven almost entirely by payments sent from Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, so the regional split appears to be by where payments originate, and inbound commodity receipts in Africa or Latin America aren’t shown as those regions’ volumes.
The method matters too. McKinsey assumes only 20% of tagged custody and treasury activity is real B2B payments, and cross-checks against average B2B payment sizes of about $4,500 to $600,000, so a multi-million-dollar commodity settlement may sit outside what it was built to observe. Its categories don’t isolate commodity trade.
Public announcements are mostly assessments. Davis Commodities, a Singapore agricultural trader, said in August 2025 that it was reviewing stablecoin settlement. Its initial simulations suggested up to a 90% cut in settlement time and 40% to 60% lower transaction costs, and the release said no formal launch or deployment had occurred and that technical pilots were still to be scoped. Treat claims like these as projections until a live deployment is documented.
Six questions to ask any provider
- Which entity and licence cover each step, in which corridors?
- How do you screen counterparties, vessels, wallets and documents, and what happens on a hit?
- Which stablecoins do you settle in, and what is the redemption path if one loses its peg?
- How is conversion priced, and when is the rate fixed?
- What are the escrow or release terms, and who judges the documents?
- What records do you provide for auditors, banks and insurers?
For a commodity trader, stablecoin settlement is a way to move the payment leg faster and at any hour. The credit and document protections stay, and so do the compliance duties.
For how Xchange360 serves this sector, see Commodity Traders and Trade Finance.
This article is general information, not legal or financial advice.