Stablecoins are evolving from niche crypto tools into digital payment infrastructure, with major players like Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, Visa, Stripe and more exploring their integration to streamline settlement. The traditional issuer-acquirer-merchant landscape is one where every transaction is a dance of communication and trust, usually routed through multiple intermediaries and settlement layers — each adding time, cost and complexity. Stablecoins can promise to rewrite that choreography. In their most immediate and least controversial use case, stablecoins serve as a settlement layer, or a way to move money between parties more quickly and at lower cost than existing bank rails. Stablecoins promise efficiency, speed and reduced costs, particularly in underserved or high-inflation markets, but they raise regulatory and operational concerns, such as the lack of standardized dispute resolution, chargebacks and liability protections. Ultimately, despite the disruptive potential, stablecoins are unlikely to fully displace the issuer-acquirer model anytime soon. More likely is a hybrid future, where stablecoin-based payments coexist alongside fiat rails, particularly in cross-border commerce, digital marketplaces and creator economies.