What changes? Investors and operators must prioritise owning the primary account relationship, because market leadership among stablecoin neobanks will depend on retention and revenue per user, not headline transaction volumes.
SBI Group’s $68 million Series C round that priced Fasset at $1 billion in August is widely framed as a play on stablecoins, but Alvin Kan, chief operating officer of Bitget Wallet, says the deeper bet is on wallets that can perform a bank’s everyday functions in jurisdictions where traditional banks move too slowly.
Transaction volume can be misleading. Stablecoins move large sums on thin margins, so durable business signals come from retained balances, active usage, enterprise retention and revenue per user. A wallet that quietly handles paychecks, local spending, cross-border transfers and card payments creates multiple monetisable touchpoints, from FX spreads and interchange fees to treasury services and lending.
Cards and settlement rails matter, but they are not permanent moats. The lasting advantage lies in owning recurring money flows that pass through a primary account. That distinction is especially acute in Nigeria, where the virtual asset tax framework applies a 1.5% stamp duty to conversions in both directions, effectively taxing conversion-only providers twice on each round trip. Firms that capture diverse revenue streams can absorb that friction; pure swap businesses cannot.
Bitget Wallet points to product moves that illustrate the account-first approach. In November, the platform connected stablecoin balances directly to banks across Nigeria and Mexico, enabling on-ramps and direct off-ramps of USDT and USDC from five blockchains straight into bank accounts without peer-to-peer workarounds. In April, the company launched a USDC-funded Mastercard dollar card across South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, built with Immersve, which spends directly from a self-custodial balance. Together, those features aim to make a stablecoin wallet a default destination for bills, payroll and remittances; the user base served has just passed 100 million.
None of these developments guarantees which platforms will dominate. Fasset’s scale shows real financial activity is already routing through these rails, but the test in three years will be how many of those 3 million wallets keep balances month after month and how many enterprises use the accounts for core payroll and treasury functions. For investors, the priority should be retention metrics, bank integrations, practical spending products and native treasury services, because market leadership will be decided by recurring relationships, not monthly transaction headlines.
Alvin Kan is chief operating officer of Bitget Wallet.
