Written by: Shao Jiadian, Li Shuo
The “2023 Cryptocurrency Payment Industry Research Report” released by the Singapore venture capital and research institution Bing Ventures shows that the global cryptocurrency payment market size, supported by Web technology, will reach hundreds of billions of dollars within the next three years. Now that two-thirds of the time has passed, this expectation is gradually becoming a reality.
Disclaimer: This article does not constitute investment advice. Virtual asset trading is considered an illegal financial activity in mainland China, and all related activities should not violate regulatory laws and policies.
- Introduction: Web3 Payments - Capital Surge Under Regulatory Waves
Just last month, Web3 payment service provider KUN announced the completion of its Series A financing, significantly oversubscribed. In addition to seed round investors BAI Capital and GSR Ventures continuing to increase their investment, two new industry investment institutions have also joined: a Hong Kong listed company and Eternium Global. In less than two years since its establishment, the total financing has exceeded 50 million USD.
KUN claims to be a global digital payment service provider, with its business rooted in the licensing and compliance systems of Hong Kong and Singapore, serving emerging markets across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Its uniqueness lies in simultaneously laying out Web2 and Web3 payment licenses, focusing on cross-border trade and the demand for overseas digital entertainment — this is also a key reason for attracting capital attention in a short time.
In fact, KUN is not the only case in the Web3 payment field favored by capital. In 2024, one of the three major payment giants in the United States, Stripe, acquired the stablecoin payment gateway service provider Bridge for a record $1.1 billion in the crypto industry. PayPal and Visa are also not to be outdone; in August 2023, the American payment giant PayPal launched a new stablecoin, PYUSD, based on the Ethereum network, breaking down the connection barriers between fiat and cryptocurrency within the PayPal ecosystem. A month later, Visa also announced a partnership with acquiring institutions Worldpay and Nuvei to use USDC for settlement on the Solana chain.
It can be seen that payments are becoming the forefront for Web3 to enter Web2 and traditional industries.
Coincidentally, under the global wave of legislative regulation on cryptocurrencies, the fastest progress is being made in the regulations related to stablecoins, which were created for payments in the crypto world. From the effective signing of the “GENIUS Act” by Trump to the implementation of the Hong Kong “Stablecoin Ordinance” starting August 1, 2025, a comprehensive legal and regulatory framework for payment stablecoins is taking shape in both China and the United States.
As the global influence of the cryptocurrency industry continues to grow, moving from behind the scenes to the forefront and entering a window of compliance, this article aims to use KUN, which has just received significant funding, as an example to discuss two key questions with readers: Is Web3 payment the next global trend? What kind of Web3 payment services can stand at the forefront?
- Web3 Payment: Global Trend
Du Jun, co-founder of Huobi, chairman of Vernal Group, and executive director and CEO of New Huo Technology, was recently interviewed by the National University of Singapore Business School. When asked about the entrepreneurial directions worth paying attention to in the next cycle, his first answer was, “The first is payment.” He mentioned that many cross-border e-commerce service providers have started to accept USDT for transactions, accounting for over 30%, and this trend is rapidly expanding.
The pain points of traditional payment systems have long been criticized: in the context of cross-border payments, the SWIFT payment system relies on multiple intermediary banks for transfers, which significantly increases costs and reduces efficiency; in the case of small payments, Visa/Mastercard and other payment networks often charge fees ranging from 1% to 3%; and there are limitations due to bank operating hours, while in regions like Africa and Latin America, the low level of financial infrastructure makes it difficult for individuals and small businesses to access banking services, among other issues.
In comparison, the real-time settlement and consensus mechanism of blockchain technology can naturally be used to build a highly efficient and low-cost payment network, while the widespread issuance and application of fiat-backed stablecoins is undoubtedly the final piece of the puzzle in achieving this vision.
In terms of Ethereum, after the maturity of Layer 2 solutions, large-scale payment scenarios are no longer limited by the mainnet’s transaction processing capacity of 15–30 transactions per second. The technical path of “off-chain computation and on-chain confirmation” allows the blockchain to process tens of thousands of transactions per second, with the cost of a single transaction dropping to below $0.01. Therefore, similar “microtransactions” such as “5 cents per chapter for online novels” and “10 cents per episode for popular short dramas” will be feasible and will emerge in the overseas digital entertainment industry.
Moreover, early Web3 payments had a high barrier to entry for most users. As Du Jun mentioned in a previous interview, “If you tell an ordinary person that you’ll give them 10 coins, they wouldn’t even dare to accept it.” “Because they’ve heard that they need to download a wallet, understand public keys, private keys, and remember a long string of seed phrases, and with one mistake they could lose their coins. Who would dare to use it?” However, L2 projects feature account abstraction, social recovery, and gas fee subsidies, which allows the geeky nature of Web3 payments to qualify as a national-level application similar to “scanning a QR code for payments.”
The rapid proliferation of fiat-backed stablecoins is of great significance, which goes without saying. This special type of cryptocurrency, anchored by cash-like assets and promised by the issuing company to be redeemable at a 1:1 ratio, has transformed the originally highly volatile crypto assets into an efficient and stable medium for exchange between different currencies. Rumors such as “Yiwu’s on-chain liquidity has exceeded 10 billion” are not baseless.
Web3 payment service providers, including KUN, offer acquiring/gateway services that embody the aforementioned characteristics: high efficiency of instant settlement, low cost after L2 reduces gas fees, and convenient usability that can be seamlessly integrated into various digital payment scenarios through API calls.
“The original intention of founding KUN is to effectively serve the unmet needs of cross-border payment segments and optimize the efficiency of global capital flow. Stablecoins and blockchain are the best infrastructure for the new digital payment system. We will provide the optimal solution for Web2+Web3 payments through innovative applications and scenario-based solutions, becoming an effective complement to SWIFT and traditional banking systems,” said Liu Jialiang, the founder and CEO of KUN.
The flaws of traditional payment solutions, the innovation of blockchain technology, and the rapid expansion of stablecoins globally—all these factors point to one conclusion: Web3 payments are officially the next entrepreneurial frontier.
- Service scenarios, Web3 payments that meet customer needs
“KUN, a company with accumulated scenarios and real customer needs, is an important partner for HashKey.” This is how Dr. Xiao Feng defined the significance of KUN to the HashKey ecosystem at the beginning of the official announcement of the partnership between HashKey Exchange and KUN. The reason KUN can be selected by heavyweight partners among its peers lies in the value of its products in addressing real application scenarios and solving customer needs.
Taking the cross-border bulk commodity trade as an example, which is one of the most applicable scenarios for Web3 payment. According to an article from the “Bureau of Commodity Expertise”, in a real trade where a Brazilian buyer procured goods worth 1 million USD from a Hong Kong seller via KUN, the settlement time required by the original SWIFT system, which took 3-7 days, and the cost of wire transfers were significantly reduced by relying on blockchain technology for Web3 payment.
From Brazilian sellers completing deposits through local licensed institutions in cooperation with KUN, to achieving on-chain transfers to Hong Kong buyer accounts via KUN’s application products, and finally, buyers also withdraw or transfer again using KUN’s wallet application. The entire process is not only economical and efficient but also avoids the cumbersome paperwork procedures of traditional cross-border trade, reducing potential litigation risks of various kinds, while greatly helping to address issues such as trade financing difficulties for buyers, especially when the buyers are small and medium-sized enterprises that typically find it difficult to obtain bank letter of credit services.
In the field of service trade, the demand for Web3 payments from users is equally real and visible. Blockchain technology enables low-ticket online transactions (such as game top-ups, service purchases, etc.) to have commercial viability in overseas markets without the need for traditional, higher-cost solutions like opening overseas bank accounts in the host country. The application end of Web3 payments allows users to seamlessly and painlessly access the blockchain payment network.
Image source from KUN official website, same below.
The Web3 industry itself also has native application scenarios. Liu Jialiang, CEO of KUN, introduced that many Web3 companies are using KUN’s products to pay their employees. “Because many Web3 companies are international teams, and many employees are distributed across different countries around the world, how to pay salaries is a problem. This demand can be solved using Web3 methods.”
Freelancers and programmer geeks engaged in SaaS( software as a service ) entrepreneurship can also become loyal Web3 payment users, simply because traditional payment processes are so cumbersome and high-cost compared to it.
From cross-border B2B trade to SaaS, Web3 payments need to have rich and solid application scenarios to serve real customer needs in order to seize opportunities and sail far.
- Safe, secure, and compliant Web3 payments
The security of funds and compliance requirements are the cornerstones for any payment system to gain trust, and they are also the top priority that Web3 payments must face in the complex and diverse regulatory environment of the Web3 world, as well as the incessant theft, fraud, and financial crimes.
First, there is the issue of fund security. Safety is the premise of compliance, and demonstrating to regulatory agencies that you have sufficient AML/KYC/KYT technical capability is one of the keys to obtaining a license. It is also to assure customers that their money is safe in the accounts you provide. To address this issue, efforts have been made by exchanges and specialized security service providers. In the field of Anti-Money Laundering (AML), parties including exchanges primarily rely on Blockchain Analytics Tools (BATs)), such as Chainalysis and Elliptic. By using BATs and binding the KYC information of users on their platforms with KYA wallets +KYT assets, relatively compliant anti-money laundering measures can be implemented, thereby promoting the security of funds.
For example, from a technical perspective, Safeheron has tailored infrastructure for Web3 payment enterprises. This includes eliminating single private key risks using MPC technology, with multiple people holding private keys and jointly managing assets, as well as managing API Keys and wallet private keys through TEE KMS Nodes, ensuring private key security through hardware-level isolation, thus providing a layer of safekeeping for the funds of payment service providers and their customers.
Even with the support of various specialized technical tools, the research conducted by the licensed digital asset service provider MetaComp in Singapore still points out that after tracking over 7,000 real on-chain transactions, they found that if they only relied on 1-2 KYT (Know Your Transaction) tools for screening, about 25% of high-risk transactions would be misjudged as “safe” and allowed to proceed. Therefore, there are calls to combine blockchain analysis tools (BATs) with the AML transaction monitoring systems that are widely applied in the fiat currency domain. It is evident that in terms of fund security, the Web3 payment industry still has a long way to go.
Secondly, compliance is a necessary condition for enterprises to operate steadily and sustainably in the long term. Currently, providing Web3 payment services in mainland China, especially gateways or acquiring services that allow virtual currency as a payment method to unspecified masses, faces significant legal obstacles. Violating Article 45 of the Foreign Exchange Management Regulations could lead to administrative penalties such as fines and confiscation of illegal gains for conducting foreign exchange business without the approval of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. This could even constitute illegal business operation or money laundering offenses, thus facing criminal liability.
Despite the legislative space left for Web3 payment businesses by jurisdictions such as the United States, Hong Kong, and Singapore, the high compliance thresholds are enough to deter ordinary speculative followers and provide builders focused on development with a moat. Although payment service providers can address part of the cryptocurrency-to-fiat conversion by collaborating with licensed exchanges in their business location, they still cannot avoid the need for licensing to conduct cryptocurrency payment services. For example, in the EU, a CASP license is required to provide cryptocurrency asset transfer services on behalf of clients according to MiCA regulations; in Hong Kong, an MSO (Money Service Operator) license is needed under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Ordinance; in Singapore, a DPT license is required under the Payment Services Act to facilitate token transfers, and so on.
Regarding security and compliance issues, Liu Jialiang, the founder and CEO of KUN, stated: “KUN will fully utilize this round of financing to continuously increase its investment in technology research and development, focusing on the construction of cross-border transaction security, underlying blockchain, and wallet technology, and accelerate the iterative upgrading of AI-Driven intelligent risk control systems and compliance capabilities such as KYC, AML, and KYT. At the same time, the company will focus on the existing licensing systems in Hong Kong and Singapore while simultaneously advancing global license applications and the establishment of a global underlying financial institution network.”
The international Web3 payment provider Bridge, which has been acquired by Stripe, has also put a lot of effort into security and compliance. According to a report by Sequoia, Bridge’s advantages lie in its compliance and partnerships. Bridge adheres to all U.S. and European financial regulations and anti-money laundering laws, holds remittance licenses in 22 states, and collaborates with the U.S. State Department and the Treasury for asset transfers. Before integrating with Bridge, businesses must provide ownership and incorporation documents to prove their credibility.
From the above, it can be seen that Web3 payments, from survival to long-term development, cannot be separated for a moment from the two “firewalls” and “safes” of security and compliance. This relies not only on the risk control and compliance department construction of payment companies themselves but also on the support of external partners such as security technology companies and law firms.
- Web3 Payment with Integrated Full Industry Chain
Web3 payment is not just a single track, but a complete ecosystem where providers of different types of services can find their own ecological niche within this ecosystem.
From upstream stablecoin issuers such as Tether and Circle, underlying infrastructure providers like Alchemy, Infura, and Safeheron, and the most basic blockchain public chains that provide payment networks, such as Ethereum and Solana; to the midstream application layer that acts as a bridge, including various service providers such as e-wallets, U cards, OTC, and payment gateways; and finally to end-users of various Web3 payment services on both B-side and C-side, which means embedding Web3 payments (often primarily in stablecoins) into their own products for use by the final unspecified consumers. This embedding will benefit operators in the overseas entertainment industry, cross-border e-commerce merchants, cross-border traders, and more.
A single hand cannot clap, and players in the Web3 payment industry must start from their own ecological niche to engage in deep cooperation with the upstream and downstream of the industry chain, whether it is looking for real markets and customers downstream or seeking more comprehensive infrastructure service levels upstream.
Taking Stripe as an example. In October 2024, Stripe acquired the stablecoin payment gateway service provider Bridge for $1.1 billion, marking its largest acquisition ever. Recently, a now-removed job posting indicated that it is secretly collaborating with the crypto venture capital firm Paradigm — both parties are building a high-performance payment-specific blockchain named Tempo. In addition, on April 30, Stripe’s Bridge partnered with Visa to launch the U Card product, allowing developers using Bridge to issue Visa cards related to stablecoins in multiple countries/regions via API. In June 2025, Stripe also acquired the embedded crypto wallet developer Privy. From Layer 1 blockchain to digital wallets, then to payment gateways, and finally to the U Card in everyday consumption scenarios, Stripe’s intention to cultivate power in the entire Web3 payment ecosystem is evident.
Kun KUN also chooses to work closely with industry ecological partners. Going back two years, at the very beginning of its debut, this innovative fintech company attracted significant attention: during the 2023 Hong Kong FinTech Week event, Kun KUN officially announced its business to the public and declared a strategic partnership with HashKey Exchange, which is a benchmark in the Hong Kong Web3 industry. At that time, Dr. Xiao Feng, Chairman and CEO of HashKey Group, who rarely appeared at the partner’s press conference, announced that Kun KUN would be embedded into the entire ecosystem of HashKey. As a virtual asset exchange in Hong Kong holding a full set of licenses, HashKey Exchange undoubtedly can provide Kun KUN with a wealth of specific application scenarios and various support needed for conducting payment business, including fiat currency exchange.
It is evident that Web3 payment is the intersection and integration of Web3 and the payment industry. If Web3 payment service providers want to stand out from the competition, they must rely on deep integration with the upstream and downstream of the industry.
- Conclusion: Two questions, one answer
Some people compare Web3 payments to the invention of corporate systems, claiming that corporate systems have redefined capital formation; whereas stablecoins/cryptocurrencies turn fiat currencies into programmable digital objects that can be settled globally 24/7, reshaping payments and clearing/settlement. Can Web3 payments profoundly change the structure of human society like corporate systems? It’s still difficult to conclude. However, according to a report from the year before last, the “2023 Cryptocurrency Payment Industry Research Report” published by Singapore’s venture capital and research institution Bing Ventures, the global cryptocurrency payment market, supported by Web technology, is expected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars within the next three years. Now, two-thirds of the time has passed, and this expectation is gradually becoming a reality.
One thing is for sure, we need Web3 payments, and Web3 payments are the next big opportunity.
But in the path of opportunities, who will rise and who will fall? What kind of Web3 payment service provider can take off in the wave of opportunity and stand firm after the tide recedes? The answer given in this article is that it must at least meet three conditions: having real application scenarios, ensuring security and compliance, and being deeply integrated with the entire industry chain.
But better answers await entrepreneurs, investors, and all adventurers in the Web3 world to explore deeply through practice and research in the extraordinary years that are bound to come.
