Arthur Firstov on Stablecoins and Crypto’s Shift to Real Utility

Arthur Firstov is the Chief Business Officer at Mercuryo, a global leader in crypto payments infrastructure. With over seven years of experience in fintech, B2B partnerships, and digital assets, Arthur has helped Mercuryo scale past $50 million in annual revenue and secure partnerships with more than 300 companies — including Circle, Coinbase, Mastercard, Revolut, and Polymarket.

He has become a recognized voice and expert on stablecoins, digital banking, and the convergence of Web3 and traditional finance.

Q1: You’ve been in crypto payments since 2017 — before it was fashionable, and long before ‘tokenized Treasuries’ were a headline. Looking back at 2025 so far — how would you describe the industry’s trajectory?

Arthur Firstov: The market’s matured. The noise is gone, and what’s left are real rails — stablecoin settlement, tokenized assets, on-chain treasury systems, regulated custody. We’ve moved from narrative to utility. Crypto isn’t trying to replace traditional finance anymore; it’s quietly wiring itself *into* it. At Mercuryo, that’s been our thesis from the start — connecting the crypto economy to the financial infrastructure the world already runs on.

Q2: Many experts call tokenization ‘crypto’s killer app.’ What’s different this time?

Arthur Firstov: Regulation and yield. In 2023, tokenization was a demo — now it’s a product. Regions like the EU and Singapore have clear rules, and high yields make tokenized Treasuries attractive. Beyond that, we’re seeing wallet-native issuance. Look at what MetaMask did with M0 — launching its own stablecoin infrastructure. Wallets aren’t just gateways anymore; they’re becoming issuers of financial products.

Q3: Let’s talk about payments. Stablecoins processed around $46 trillion this year. What does ‘mainstream’ actually look like?

Arthur Firstov: It looks invisible. Stablecoins will stop being the story — they’ll just be the plumbing. We’re seeing this with Revolut — integrating rails that let users move money directly from bank accounts into self-custodial wallets. Mercuryo plugs into that flow, turning multi-day processes into instant transactions.

Q4: 2025 is being called ‘the year institutions arrived.’ What changed?

Arthur Firstov: Infrastructure and mindset. Custody is regulated, liquidity deep, and compliance automated. When you can tokenize a Treasury and settle it globally in minutes, it’s no longer an experiment. We work closely with MasterCard, which now issues crypto cards letting users spend stablecoins from wallets directly at merchants. That’s real-world adoption — not speculation.

Q5: Multicoin says crypto now competes for attention, not just capital. Do you agree?

Arthur Firstov: Absolutely. Attention drives liquidity. Memecoins onboard users, but stablecoins and RWAs keep them. It’s the same funnel social media followed — attention first, utility next.

Q6: What’s next? What will prove that crypto has become infrastructure by 2026?

Arthur Firstov: 1. Tokenized Treasuries cross $500B. 2. Stablecoin settlement volume surpasses Visa. 3. A neobank runs stablecoin rails by default — and doesn’t even market it as ‘crypto.’

Q7: And for the average person?

Arthur Firstov: Money moves like data — borderless, instant, programmable. You’ll send value as easily as sending a message. That’s when crypto truly disappears — and that’s what we’re building toward at Mercuryo.