The recent acquisition of Bitwage by B2B payments company Paystand was among the news at the latest edition of the conference LABITCONF in Buenos Aires, Argentina. More than a corporate merger, its protagonists describe this move as a decisive step towards the maturation of on-chain finance and the expanded use of Bitcoin (BTC) and stable cryptocurrencies (or stablecoins).
In an exclusive interview with CriptoNoticias, Paystand CEO Jeremy Almond and Bitwage CEO Jonathan Chester explained how the integration of both platforms is called for. Combining the efficiency of traditional financial systems and Bitcoin technologyand why stablecoins will play a temporary but fundamental role in this evolution.
During the conversation, Chester laid out his long-term vision for currency adoption and offered a powerful analogy for the relationship between the digital dollar and the major digital currencies on the market. “I think of stablecoins almost as a Trojan horse for Bitcoin,” he said.
Alliances forged in the “prehistoric times” of this field
The relationship between the two companies is not new. Almond said the connection goes back 10 years, when the Bitcoin community was a small niche. “Like in any good marriage, you want to know your partner for a long time,” joked the Paystand executive, noting that his company is already a user of Bitwage’s infrastructure for payroll and contractor payments.
Almond emphasized, “They are the ideal couple.” Complementarity between Paystand services ～Focusing on B2B payments and cash flow of large companies～ Bitwage specializes in payroll and payments to foreign workers.
Jonathan Chester agreed that the merger was a natural result of a common vision, saying, “For him it was the company, and for me it was the workers of the world through on-chain technology: elements of financial sovereignty and facilitating efficient, low-cost, instant payments.”
When asked about the future of the Bitwage brand, Chester revealed: This business is not an absorption that eliminates a company’s identity, but rather an expansion of its capabilities.. “This is not about absorbing a company, but about investing in Bitwage’s vision and scaling it beyond what we know today,” he explained, pointing to new horizons such as supply chain payments, treasury and foreign exchange.
Stablecoins and Bitcoin: Modernization and Freedom
One of the high points of the conversation was The dichotomy between using stablecoins and using Bitcoin as a medium of exchange. For those interviewed, both assets serve different functions, but are now integrated.
Mr Almond explained: stable coin like The tools needed to update a financial system rooted in last century’s technologySWIFT transfers and checks. “Stablecoins modernize the financial system at a lower cost. “That’s great and it’s important for our economy,” he said. However, he made a crucial difference:
“Bitcoin is a technology of freedom. “Our belief is that Bitcoin is for the other 7 billion people on the planet who don’t have any access to the financial system.”
Jeremy Almond, Paystand CEO.
It was in this context that Chester took a closer look at the psychological and technological transition facilitated by the digital dollar. Bitwage CEO says Bitcoin’s initial technical complexity may be a barrier; Stablecoins allow users to experience financial sovereignty within family unit accounts Like a dollar.
“What a stablecoin allows you to do is capture the value of a self-sovereign currency in dollars,” Chester explained. “But at some point in the future, that global movement could change from “We want autonomous money in dollars” to “We want autonomous money in a new form of money that is essentially non-political and has no ties to any government.” That’s where Bitcoin comes into the spotlight.”
Bitcoin may already be in a bullish “super cycle”
When asked about how Bitcoin’s price fluctuations would impact their companies’ business models, both executives dismissed concerns about short-term volatility and focused on the technology’s practical utility.
“I think the best thing is not to buy Bitcoin, but to earn Bitcoin and spend Bitcoin,” Almond said, emphasizing that customers prioritize the speed and low cost of transactions over speculation.
Mr. Chester had some interesting thoughts on current market movements. he suggested this The industry may be abandoning a violent cycle Booms and busts (bull and bear cycles) Entering a phase of sustainable growth.
“I think we are actually in a ‘supercycle’ phase,” Chester analyzed. This concept implies a long-term bullish trend with low volatility, where Bitcoin becomes “increasingly stable over time” and establishes itself as an anti-inflationary asset for value accumulation.
The Future: A Decade of Hyperbitcoinization and Stablecoins
Towards the end of the interview, the discussion focused on Bitcoin’s future role in the global economy. Jeremy Almond believed so. Digital assets follow in the footsteps of money’s evolution: First as a reserve of value (at its current stage, the market capitalization is over $2 trillion), then as a medium of exchange and a unit of account.
“Saving technology is an important part of economic empowerment,” Almond said. For him, the combination of global payments infrastructure and universal access means that Bitcoin is integrated as money in every sense of the word.
In an increasingly dollarized and increasingly politicized world, Chester said, Demand for neutral assets is inevitable. “The world needs a solid, rare form of currency that is apolitical and military-resistant, and Bitcoin is the only technology that has been battle-tested and exists in this form,” he argued.
But in the short and medium term, Chester predicts: Absolute excellence of assets related to fiat currencies. “I think we are well into the decade of stablecoins,” he concluded, predicting that over the next five years there will be massive integration of governments and traditional financial institutions into on-chain infrastructure.
The merger of Paystand and Bitwage appears to reflect this trend: addressing today’s instant payments infrastructure with an eye toward tomorrow’s monetary sovereignty.