Stablecoins are often discussed as a technical upgrade to global payments. Faster settlement. Lower fees. Cleaner cross-border rails. But when we interviewed Matthew Schneider, President and CEO of Building, Inc., it became clear that this framing misses the deeper story.
Schneider’s work sits at the intersection of blockchain infrastructure, geopolitics, and financial access. His perspective is shaped less by Silicon Valley optimisation and more by direct exposure to markets that operate under sanctions, capital controls, and broken banking systems. In those environments, stablecoins are not a convenience layer. They are a workaround for exclusion.
We began by asking why interest in blockchain is emerging so strongly in countries that are often portrayed as technologically or politically isolated. Schneider pushed back on the premise. The motivations, he explained, are not unusual at all.
Every financial system wants the same things. Reliable settlement. A stable unit of account. Predictable access to cross-border trade. What differs is the cost of not having those tools. In sanctioned or fragile economies, that cost is borne by citizens and businesses, not institutions.
Since 2018, Iran’s access to the global financial system has narrowed dramatically. Restrictions on correspondent banking, trade finance, and international settlement have compounded inflation, currency devaluation, and social instability. Regardless of how sanctions are justified at the policy level, their economic effects are felt on the ground.
In that context, blockchain adoption stops looking speculative. It becomes pragmatic.
Schneider described this reality through his first-hand experience engaging with Iranian technologists, financial professionals, and policymakers. The surprise, he noted, was not Iran’s interest in blockchain, but how closely it resembled the priorities of any other financial system under stress.
In November 2025, I presented at the deBlock Summit in Tehran, Iran. As an American citizen, the circumstances were shocking to both the audience and my peers in the industry. Many were surprised that a country like Iran was even interested in blockchain. Yet their interest mirrors that of any financial institution: asset-backed currency, alternatives to the SWIFT system, and cross-border trade and finance without predatory regulation. The difference is that Iran’s interest comes from necessity rather than last-mile optimization.
Since 2018, the United States has imposed increasingly strict sanctions on Iran, which have contributed to economic collapse and civil unrest. The ethics of these sanctions are for others to debate, but the reality is that the Iranian people have paid the price. Today, they are in active conflict with their government to restore access to global trade, using cryptocurrencies and tokenized real-world assets as interim mechanisms for financial relief.
Similar use cases exist across other developing nations where banking infrastructure is weak or disconnected, currencies are highly inflationary, and political instability undermines trust and legitimacy. In these contexts, stablecoins backed by U.S. Treasury bills, or hard assets such as gold, are extremely useful. They provide currency stability relative to local fiat and reserves, while their foundation on immutable, decentralized technology creates unprecedented confidence and trust in the ability to trade.
Stablecoins also provide a global, standardized platform for commerce. This is analogous to the U.S. dollar’s role as a global reserve currency, now expressed in blockchain form. Trading in U.S. dollars is not inherently difficult; holding, settling, and tracking them is. For countries with fragile banking systems, this is a structural weakness. Moving these instruments on-chain resolves that limitation. At that point, the primary constraint on participation in global trade becomes the economics of the goods or services exchanged.
The key takeaway is that stablecoins for cross-border payments are one part efficiency and three parts independence. International banking is more restrictive than it is inefficient. With the rise of BRICS, this dynamic will sit at the center of any serious conversation about stablecoins.
- Matthew A. Schneider, President and CEO, Building, Inc
What Schneider highlights is a structural shift already underway. Stablecoins are increasingly filling gaps left by international banking rather than competing with it on speed alone. For countries with fragile institutions, the problem is not moving money quickly. It is being allowed to move it at all.
This also reframes the geopolitical conversation. As blocs like BRICS explore alternatives to dollar-dominated settlement, stablecoins backed by Treasuries or hard assets begin to function as neutral infrastructure. They retain the trust of established reserves while operating outside traditional gatekeeping mechanisms.
Schneider does not argue that this replaces the dollar or dismantles the current system. Instead, it exposes a long-standing imbalance. International banking is often less limited by technology than by access and permission.
In that light, stablecoins are not just financial products. They are adaptive responses to exclusion. And as global finance continues to fragment, their role as tools of economic independence may prove more consequential than any efficiency gains they deliver.