Beyond Branded Blockchains - The Case for One Open Payment Network
Stripe is building a blockchain. Circle is, too. PayPal has launched its own stablecoin and is building infrastructure to settle it natively on-chain.
Three of the biggest names in fintech are creating high-performance, payments-optimized networks - each with their own rules, assets, and integration paths.
It’s progress in one sense: faster settlement, better UX, and tighter integration into existing payment flows. But it’s also creating a new kind of fragmentation. If every major player runs its own rails, the future of payments could end up looking less like one global network, and more like a puzzle of walled-off systems.
The fragmentation trap
We’ve seen this before. The early internet was built on open protocols, but the dominant experiences became tightly controlled platforms. In payments, the “last mile”, where onboarding, compliance, and liquidity access happen, often decides who can participate and on what terms.
If corporations each operate their own rails, merchants and users will face a choice: commit to one network, or manage costly integrations across all of them. That’s not efficiency, that’s friction dressed as innovation.
It’s one reason I’ve spent the last years working on the world’s first fully decentralized payment network - one that can connect to any blockchain, handle any tokenized asset, and run on any payment terminal in the world thanks to full EVM compatibility. The idea is simple: build one set of rails that can work with all of them.
The better alternative
Instead of siloed, branded blockchains, we could have a decentralized payment network that’s natively integratable with all major blockchains.
One set of rails. Any asset. Instant interoperability. Merchants could accept payments from any chain without juggling multiple settlement processes. Users could spend from any wallet, in any supported currency, without worrying about which network a merchant is on.
It would mean:
- One integration point for merchants and issuers.
- Accepting all forms of money: fiat, digital, traditional cards, crypto cards - so merchants can meet every customer’s needs.
- True asset-agnostic payments: stablecoins, BTC, crypto, gold, stocks, and any other tokenized asset.
- Governance by participants, not just shareholders.
- The openness and composability that made crypto worth building on in the first place.
The bigger picture
The “payments blockchain” race isn’t just about who moves money fastest. It’s about whether we’re building a truly connected global network - or a patchwork of high-speed islands.
If we continue down this path, payments risk becoming more fragmented, not less. Speed means nothing if liquidity, access, and merchant acceptance break along the way.
The real breakthrough won't come from the fastest chain - it will come from the network that connects them all. An open, decentralized architecture that integrates natively with blockchains, respects user custody, speaks the language of existing payment systems, and scales without forcing value into proprietary rails.
That’s the direction the industry needs to move in, not because it's trendy, but because global commerce demands it. Users don’t want “crypto payments” or “fiat payments.” They just want payments that work, anywhere, with whatever asset they choose.
The question now isn’t who can build the fastest island. It’s who can build the bridge that makes every island part of one global economy.
That’s the race that matters.
And the companies building for openness, not control, will be the ones left standing.