Stablecoins threaten legacy payments, forex platforms: Kevin O’Leary

Global foreign exchange and payments platforms are lobbying hard against stablecoins, which stand to significantly disrupt their business models, investor Kevin O’Leary said during a keynote address at Consensus 2025.

Legacy forex and payments platforms often extract large fees for servicing cross-border cash transfers and stand to lose out on revenue if regulated stablecoins become accepted as a cheaper, faster alternative, O’Leary said at the Toronto conference. 

“Currency trading is a multi-trillion dollar market — and it’s old and ugly and inefficient,” O’Leary said, adding that “[ t]he biggest threat to that monopoly or oligopoly is a regulated stablecoin.” 

“Once that’s approved, the multi-trillion dollar FX market becomes efficient, transparent, and inexpensive,” he said. 

Stablecoin legislation

US lawmakers are working on legislation that stands to accelerate global stablecoin adoption, O’Leary added. 

US Senators are aiming to pass the so-called Genius Act — a framework for regulating stablecoins — before the end of May. “As soon as the SEC approves the stablecoin act, every regulator in the US’s circle — Abu Dhabi, Switzerland, England — will follow,” O’Leary said.

“Who’s worried about this? The financial services industry. They hate this idea, and they’re working very hard to stop that bill from happening right now,” he added.

O’Leary said regulatory clarity for stablecoins may be a precursor to broader cryptocurrency reform that could potentially unlock trillions of dollars in institutional capital.

“When this language comes out, people will see really good refinement, a lot of progress, on things like consumer protection, bankruptcy protection, and ethics,” US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said during an event hosted by Coinbase’s lobbying arm, Stand with Crypto.

As of May 15, stablecoins are collectively worth nearly $250 billion in market capitalization, according to data from CoinGecko. Tether’s US-dollar pegged stablecoin USDT is the leader, with a market cap of around $150 million, the data showed. It’s followed by Circle’s USDC, another US-dollar pegged stablecoin with a market cap of more than $60 billion.

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