Cross-border payments are broken. High fees, slow settlement times, and zero transparency have frustrated businesses for decades while traditional banks drag their feet on modernization.
Stablecoins offer a way out. They settle in minutes instead of days, cost a fraction of wire transfers, and let you track every transaction. But we're caught between two worlds: a future where money is mostly digital, and today's reality where most businesses still need fiat on both ends.
Enter the "Stablecoin Sandwich" – using stablecoins as the fast, cheap middle layer even when transactions start and end in fiat. It's how businesses are capturing the benefits of digital assets right now, without waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.
The Stablecoin Sandwich, at its core, is a model for managing stablecoin-based payments to provide seamless experiences across borders. It comes in two primary forms: the Full Stablecoin Sandwich and the Open Stablecoin Sandwich. While both approaches improve on the current cross-border payments stack, we'll explore how the Open Stablecoin Sandwich can be a powerful growth engine for remittance companies looking to expand into new geographies.
Full Stablecoin Sandwich
The Full Stablecoin Sandwich represents a fully automated approach where funds follow a predetermined path:
- Fiat On-ramp: The sender converts traditional currency to stablecoins
- Stablecoin Transfer: Digital assets move across blockchain infrastructure
- Fiat Off-ramp: Stablecoins automatically convert back to local currency for the recipient
This model is particularly useful for businesses that need to maintain the appearance of traditional payment rails while benefiting from the efficiency of blockchain infrastructure behind the scenes. Recipients might never know stablecoins were involved at all.
Open Stablecoin Sandwich
The Open Stablecoin Sandwich takes a different approach by eliminating the automatic off-ramping:
- Fiat On-ramp: The sender converts traditional currency to stablecoins
- Stablecoin Transfer: Digital assets move to the recipient's wallet
- Recipient Choice: Funds remain as stablecoins, giving recipients control over how and when to use or convert them
The open stablecoin sandwich approach is particularly effective for slow or expensive cross-border payment corridors as it eliminates the need to connect international ledgers or rely on correspondent banks. Instead, the method creates instant cross-border payments through two fast domestic transactions: efficiently on-ramping and off-ramping stablecoins. Whether a transaction is best executed in fiat or stablecoins depends on the specific cost structure of that payment corridor. For many transfer routes, the cost and latency of executing payments are significantly reduced through this stablecoin sandwich approach, making it a better alternative to conventional international money transfer methods.
Implementing the Open Stablecoin Sandwich as a Growth Engine
Cross-border payments companies that implement an Open Stablecoin Sandwich can gain a competitive edge when it comes to expanding globally.
When people abroad receive a payment, they are opening an embedded stablecoin wallet instantly with the remittance company. This means that they’re effectively becoming a customer of the remittance company who can upsell them other financial products & services anywhere in the world. Each money transfer then becomes a chance to connect with a potential new customer.
How It Works
Imagine a US remittance company that wants to break into Southeast Asia. Here’s how they would expand with the Open Stablecoin Sandwich:
- Existing users onramp fiat to stablecoins
- As those users send stablecoin remittances, embedded wallets are generated for the recipients
- Remittance companies can then offer financial products & services to these new users
Result? Faster expansion, faster transactions, lower costs, and happy users with financial control. The Open Stablecoin Sandwich gives companies four extra advantages:
Enter markets immediately. Skip years of banking partnerships and regulatory hurdles. Start serving customers in new countries tomorrow by spinning out wallets in any non-sanctioned geography.
Allow users to hold US dollars anywhere in the world. Enable users to protect against local currency devaluation and inflation and obtain interest on their balances.
Generate Yield. Stablecoin reserves are invested in US T-bills and generate interest which can be offered to users or kept as revenue.
Acquire customers cheaper. Stablecoin referral rewards cost far less than typical marketing campaigns in new markets.
Crossmint: Powering the Stablecoin Sandwich
Implementing a Stablecoin Sandwich to unlock growth and customer acquisition requires a full stack stablecoin solution. This is where Crossmint's all-in-one stablecoin platform comes in. Crossmint offers a comprehensive suite of tools that make implementing this growth strategy straightforward:
1. Programmable Wallet Architecture
For the Open Stablecoin Sandwich to work effectively, companies need secure, programmable wallets. Crossmint's wallet infrastructure enables:
- Creating embedded non-custodial wallets for users instantly
- Automating stablecoin distributions for referrals and bonuses
- Managing treasury operations seamlessly
- Enabling secure transactions across multiple blockchains
- Providing users with the flexibility to manage their stablecoin holdings
2. Complete Onramp/Offramp Infrastructure
Crossmint provides headless APIs and plug-and-play widgets that allow users to convert fiat to stablecoins and back. This includes payment processing, chargeback protection, KYC/KYB compliance, and AML screening—all essential components for a seamless user experience.
3. Global Compliance Built In
One of the biggest challenges in global expansion is navigating regulatory requirements. Crossmint's platform includes built-in compliance tools, supporting operations across multiple jurisdictions without requiring companies to build separate compliance infrastructure for each market.
Ready to explore how Crossmint's flexible custody solutions can transform your cross-border payment infrastructure and help accelerate user acquisition? Visit our Stablecoin solutions page or contact us here.
