Stablecoins Chart New Course Through Emerging Markets
We met Wei Zhou in Manila where he heads Coins.ph, a decade-old exchange and e-wallet licensed by Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. He sold financial products at Goldman Sachs before joining Binance as CFO for three years. Zhou acquired Coins.ph in 2022.
The deal closed just six months before FTX detonated, but Zhou saw the crypto winter as a 'renovation window.' He rebuilt the management team, tech stack, brand, and product. The Philippines rewarded his timing: between 2019 and 2021, the share of Filipino adults with a financial account jumped from 29% to 56%, the fastest gain ever recorded by the central bank.
Zhou explained that stablecoins 'banked the unbanked' and are now used for cross-border payments. He uses a shipping metaphor: money moves three ways, by land (banks), sea (e-wallets), or air (blockchains). The US dollar is on blockchains first; other currencies can either build their own runway or let their citizens fly with the dollar.
In emerging markets, stablecoins face different challenges. India and China have a 'gray' market, while Brazil has just started setting up its licensing regime. Zhou said that outside the US, nothing converts one to one; prices fluctuate constantly, making uncertainty a major issue.