In a new investment thesis, Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto division repositions stablecoins as the foundational layer for a global financial operating system, with its portfolio company Arc serving as the platform that abstracts this infrastructure into programmable services. The firm argues that stablecoins have matured beyond simple payment rails into an economic OS that powers accounts, payments, foreign exchange, and credit on public blockchains.
According to a16z, the scale of stablecoin usage has reached systemic levels. Their research indicates that adjusted stablecoin transaction volume hit roughly $9 trillion over the past year, an 87% increase year-over-year. This volume now exceeds half of Visa’s and is about five times PayPal’s on a comparable basis. Meanwhile, the supply of USD-pegged stablecoins has surged past $270 billion, with some estimates topping $300 billion as tokenized dollars increasingly replace traditional bank wires and card networks in remittances and B2B payments.
The firm describes stablecoins as the fastest and cheapest method to transfer dollars globally, settling in under a second for less than a cent. This positions them as an internet-native alternative to correspondent banking, a view echoed by bankers and regulators who see stablecoins as a macro force. For instance, U.S. community banks recently warned Congress that yield-bearing stablecoins could drain insured deposits by offering returns outside the banking system.
Within this landscape, Arc is designed as the operating system layer that treats stablecoins as core primitives for financial products. Instead of renting bank licenses or relying on legacy cores, companies can build directly on Arc’s wallet infrastructure, programmable stablecoin balances, and APIs that combine account management, merchant payments, FX, and lending into end-to-end solutions. This approach mirrors broader trends in on-chain finance, where tokenization and stablecoin infrastructure are being adopted by both startups and incumbents, such as the DTCC’s tokenized securities platform involving 50 firms and Kraken’s xStocks for parallel equity rails.