Agora's Nick van Eck bets on stablecoin boom in enterprise payments
Agora CEO Nick van Eck sees stablecoin adoption shifting to real-world business for cross-border payments.
- Agora, founded by Nick van Eck, is shifting its focus from DeFi growth toward using its AUSD stablecoin for enterprise payroll, B2B and cross-border payments.
- Van Eck argued that traditional companies will adopt stablecoins slowly due to infrastructure, policy and education gaps, but sees the biggest gains in replacing costly, pre-funded cross-border payment systems.
- He said he expects corporate-controlled chains like Circle's Arc, Coinbase's Base and Stripe's Tempo to dominate as the market consolidates, and aims for Agora to become a top-five global stablecoin issuer by building tools that feel more like bank accounts than crypto.
Agora, a startup founded by entrepreneur and VanEck heir Nick van Eck, is positioning itself for a stablecoin market that’s moving beyond crypto-native trading.
While decentralized finance (DeFi) remains a key growth engine – Agora’s total value locked (TVL) grew 60% last month from DeFi launches, he said — his focus is shifting toward a longer-term bet: stablecoin-powered enterprise payments.
“We’re spending a lot of time across payroll, business-to-business, cross-border payments. Problems real companies actually need to solve,” van Eck, who will be speaking at CoinDesk's Consensus Hong Kong conference next month, said in a recent interview.
He believes adoption by traditional firms is inevitable but slow, delayed by unfamiliar infrastructure, lack of internal policies, and basic education gaps. "If stablecoin knowledge in the crypto world is a hundred," he said, then outside of is "a five."
Agora issues AUSD, a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, and also offers stablecoin-as-a-service for crypto projects wanting to mint their own branded tokens. But van Eck doesn’t recommend it for most. “It only makes sense if you have a closed-loop ecosystem,” he said. “Otherwise, use a major stablecoin."
The bigger opportunity, van Eck argued, lies in replacing clunky cross-border payment systems, where pre-funding and transaction costs eat into corporate margins. “If they save 1% on revenue, that might be 5% on EBITDA,” he said. The most likely early adopters? Multinational firms with global vendor networks.
Looking ahead, van Eck sees corporate chains like Circle's Arc, Coinbase's Base or Stripe's Tempo pulling activity away from open-source blockchains. “You’ll see consolidation into a handful of chains,” he predicted, as major firms bring “money, firepower and distribution.”
In this increasingly competitive landscape, Agora’s ambition is to be one of the top five global stablecoin issuers — and to win by building tools businesses actually know how to use.
“They don’t want crypto,” van Eck said. “They want something that feels like a bank account, but better.”
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
Why it matters:
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
