Anyone Can Launch a Stablecoin in Weeks – Adoption Is the Hard Part

But infrastructure providers, market makers, issuers and analysts all say the same thing: making the token is no longer the hard part. Getting anyone to use it is.

Six weeks is 'step zero'

At least two stablecoin infrastructure providers interviewed by Sandmark said a compliant stablecoin can typically be launched in around a month. But the real work begins after the token goes live.

Abel Seow, managing director and head of APAC at BitGo, a digital-asset custody and infrastructure provider, says issuer requirements vary widely. "Timelines depend entirely on the needs of the end user, which vary widely across the spectrum," he says. "Some clients desire simple, compliant US dollar-backed stablecoins, while others require extensive guidance and have specific deadlines to launch their projects."

Although some projects can launch within weeks, Seow says clients have asked whether they can go live in two, though that is unlikely to be feasible.

Renna Ba, head of ecosystem at Morph, a Layer-2 blockchain network, argues that fixating on launch speed misses the point. "To actually launch a stablecoin – sure, it takes six weeks," she says. "But I think that's step zero."

"Issuers need the distribution, the exchange listings, the market makers and the ecosystem effect." The question worth asking, she adds, is not how fast the stablecoin launches, but how long it takes to grow. "If you're lucky, I think in one year your stablecoin will mature."

Issuance is solved, distribution is not.

For Thomas Probst, a research analyst at data firm Kaiko, the challenge is no longer issuing a stablecoin but making it useful. A stablecoin, he says, is only relevant if it is listed on major platforms and integrated into payment applications and exchanges.

That depends on liquidity. Incumbents such as USDT and USDC have spent years building deep markets through exchange integrations, market makers and trading activity, giving them an advantage that new entrants cannot quickly replicate. "Liquidity can't be decreed," Probst says. "It's built over time through integrations, market-maker volume, and this is probably the most difficult barrier for new issuers to overcome."

Kaiko data shows USDT spot volume running between roughly $9bn and $12bn a day in mid-June 2026, with the Asia-Pacific session accounting for a quarter to a third of activity.

Jasper De Maere, OTC trader and desk strategist at market maker Wintermute, sees the same dynamic from the trading desk. Tether and Circle's tokens won by being early, he argues, building deep liquidity across exchanges and chains alongside seamless mint-and-redeem infrastructure that newcomers struggle to match. The fatal assumption, he says, is that a launch creates its own demand. "People assume that because you launch a stablecoin that people will use it, which I don't think is the case." To earn adoption, a stablecoin needs a genuine reason to exist. It "needs to either bring innovation to the table by design or by what it unlocks."

Costs issuers underestimate

If launching has become cheap, sustaining a credible stablecoin has not. Dave Shin, COO of Korean-won stablecoin issuer KRWQ, says prospective founders routinely underestimate the capital requirement. "In order for you to mint stablecoins, you have to acquire high-quality liquid assets," he says – reserves that must be bought and held before any meaningful circulation begins. "You need capital, a lot of it, to get it going."

His own experience cuts directly against the rapid-launch narrative. Planning began at least six months before the token went live, he says, and that was only the start. "Six months to plan, six months to really get a watertight go-to-market plan, and then another six months to ramp up your supply and transaction activity." That's roughly 18 months from intent to traction.

Exchange distribution has proved especially stubborn. "The exchanges I've spoken to – it's not that they're against it, they just don't know whether that's something that they want to do at this point." Ba reports the same friction: "Exchange listings can take anywhere from a month to a couple of months just to get the commercials."

Why Asia is leading the next wave

The expansion is most visible across Asia. Stablecoins processed more than $27.6tn in 2024, exceeding the combined annual volumes of Visa and Mastercard, according to Huy Pham, associate professor of finance at RMIT University Vietnam. Nearly 60% of the estimated $390bn stablecoin payments market now originates in the region, driven by strong digital-payment adoption, fragmented cross-border corridors, large remittance flows and sizeable under-banked populations.

By his estimate, 43% of B2B cross-border payments in the region already move through stablecoins, against correspondent-banking fees of 5% to 8%.

Interest is spreading well beyond Southeast Asia. Seow says countries including India, Australia, Japan and South Korea are showing strong demand.

Singapore leads on regulatory clarity, with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand all building frameworks. Hong Kong's Stablecoins Ordinance took effect in August 2025, and the territory awarded its first issuer licences in April 2026 – one to HSBC and one to a joint venture backed by Standard Chartered, both banks with global headquarters in the UK.

For Ba, that regulatory clarity is the unlock. "Regulations are finally clearing up," she says, giving institutions greater confidence to commit real resources to stablecoin projects. Banks, fintechs and other financial firms are establishing dedicated teams to explore stablecoin issuance and adoption, she adds.

Can local-currency stablecoins compete?

USD-backed coins still dominate trading, but several interviewees see room for local-currency tokens in payments and settlement. De Maere expects non-dollar coins to find their footing in payment use cases rather than trading markets, as stablecoin-powered cards, merchant settlement and cross-border rails expand.

Shin sees a longer arc. "The dollar has been sitting in every cross-border settlement for decades," he says, but on-chain infrastructure could eventually loosen that grip. "At some point, with all of this technology being on chain, you could – as long as there's enough liquidity – go from local currency to local currency without cutting through the dollar."

For now, Ba sees the strongest demand for remittances, "especially in Asia, in the southeast corridors," alongside payroll and cross-border payouts. Among every use case, she says, "payments specifically, it's the one that has the most potential and most innovation."

The real barrier is trust

The thread running through every conversation is that the constraint has shifted from code to credibility. Technology is no longer the primary challenge; distribution, liquidity and regulation are.

Much of the new demand is commercial. Many clients, Seow says, see an opportunity to challenge USDT and USDC, mainly by offering holders more competitive interest income than the incumbents.

Seow estimates that at least one-third of issuers do not reach the market, defeated mainly by compliance and regulatory obstacles. The fix, he argues, is to plan adoption before launch. "Success requires issuers to reverse-engineer their infrastructure needs by first understanding the requirements for distribution and partner comfort."

The boom has collapsed the barriers to issuance. Building liquidity, securing exchange support and winning user trust takes years. Launching a stablecoin has become a commodity service. Adoption remains the challenge.