Cloudflare launches NET Dollar: When the "Internet utilities" personally step in to reshape the global payment system

You may not have heard of Cloudflare, but as long as you use the internet, it’s almost impossible to avoid its services.

This company is an “invisible giant” in the internet world. Whether you’re ordering food delivery, scrolling through short videos, opening your email, or logging into your company system, there’s a high probability your data is passing through its network. Like a massive digital shield and accelerator, it provides security protection and content delivery services for nearly one-fifth of the world’s websites.

When the web pages you visit load in seconds, and your favorite apps withstand hacker attacks, Cloudflare is often working behind the scenes. It is truly the “water, electricity, and gas” of the internet, serving as the underlying infrastructure supporting the efficient and secure flow of global data.

On September 25, Cloudflare made a landmark strategic decision, extending its infrastructure into a brand-new dimension by announcing the launch of its own stablecoin—NET Dollar.

Why issue its own stablecoin?

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince provided the answer: “For decades, the business model of the internet has been built on advertising platforms and bank transfers. The next era of the internet will be driven by pay-per-use, fragmented payments, and microtransactions.”

Cloudflare’s annual revenue exceeds $1.6 billions, processing trillions of requests daily, making it the underlying “water, electricity, and gas” of the internet. But in this vast digital network, payments are the only link not under its control. This sense of being out of control is troubling more and more large enterprises.

Apple settles tens of billions of dollars for App Store developers every year, Amazon handles massive cash flows for third-party sellers, and Tesla maintains payment relationships with over 3,000 suppliers worldwide. All these giants face the same friction: lengthy settlement cycles, high fees, complex cross-border compliance, and, most crucially, a loss of initiative in the most critical closed loop.

As business becomes increasingly digital and automated, this lagging financial infrastructure becomes a bottleneck. Thus, large enterprises are choosing a more direct response: if they can’t change the old system, they’ll build a new one themselves.

Why Do Big Companies Need Their Own Stablecoins?

The emergence of NET Dollar prompts a rethinking of the motivation behind stablecoin issuance. Unlike USDT and USDC, which aim for universal circulation, Cloudflare’s starting point is more pragmatic—it wants to first solve payment issues within its own business ecosystem.

This difference is significant.

USDT and USDC targeted the entire crypto market from the outset, accumulating scale through broad acceptance; NET Dollar, at least for now, looks more like an “internal currency,” tailored for Cloudflare’s commercial network.

Of course, boundaries are not fixed. PayPal’s PYUSD is a typical example: when launched in 2023, it only served PayPal’s own payment system, but now it supports exchanges with hundreds of cryptocurrencies, far beyond its initial scope.

Corporate stablecoins are likely to follow a similar path, evolving from internal efficiency tools to broader circulation scenarios.

The key difference lies in motivation. Traditional stablecoin issuers mainly profit from reserve investments, while corporate-issued stablecoins aim to optimize processes and gain initiative. This different starting point determines their differences in design, application, and future trajectory.

For large companies, payments have always been the “last mile” of the business closed loop, but this segment is controlled by banks and payment institutions, with all the issues mentioned at the beginning of the article. Thus, internalizing payments into their own systems and rebuilding a controllable closed loop with stablecoins has become a strategic choice for big companies.

The true value of corporate stablecoins is that they don’t need to pursue inflated narratives; instead, they can act like a scalpel, cutting into pain points in the process and greatly improving efficiency.

This value is even more apparent in supply chain finance.

International supply chain finance is inherently a friction-filled system. A payment from the US to Vietnam must cross multiple time zones, currencies, and banks. According to World Bank data, the global average remittance cost is still above 6%.

Average transaction cost of remittances to specific countries/regions (%) | Source: WORLD BANK GROUP

Corporate stablecoins can compress this process to minutes. A US company can pay a Vietnamese supplier within minutes, with costs dropping below 1%. The time funds are in transit is greatly reduced, improving the turnover efficiency of the entire supply chain.

More importantly, the ownership of settlement rights also changes.

Previously, banks were intermediaries, controlling the speed and cost of transactions; in a stablecoin network, companies themselves can dominate this crucial link.

Besides efficiency, cost is also a burden companies cannot ignore. Exchange rate losses, bank processing fees, and card network fees in cross-border payments may seem like scattered expenses, but accumulated, they can erode a company’s competitiveness.

This is the significance of corporate stablecoins—they bypass traditional financial intermediaries and restructure the cost structure. The change is not only in the absolute amount but also in the simplification and transparency of the structure. In the traditional model, companies face complex fee systems—fixed fees, proportional fees, exchange rate spreads, intermediary fees—with opaque calculations and unpredictable costs.

In a stablecoin network, costs are almost reduced to a single item: on-chain transaction fees. These are public, predictable, and relatively stable. As a result, companies can more accurately calculate expenses and profits, making decisions with greater confidence.

Comparison of traditional global financial payment processes and stablecoin payment processes | Source: SevenX Ventures

Furthermore, cash flow management itself can be transformed. Traditional methods rely on manual operations and banking systems, which are complex, inefficient, and error-prone.

When corporate stablecoins are combined with smart contracts, fund flows can be executed automatically according to preset conditions. After the supplier delivers and passes inspection, payment is automatically released; when a project reaches a milestone, the corresponding funds are instantly allocated. Companies no longer need to manually monitor accounts; instead, they write the rules into contracts.

The changes brought by this mechanism are not just about efficiency. Transparent and tamper-proof payment logic reduces the trust cost between partners and resolves potential disputes in advance.

When more partners are included in the same payment system, network effects begin to emerge. Suppliers, distributors, partners, and even end users all settle in the same stablecoin, and the network’s value grows exponentially.

This value is not only reflected in scale but also creates a locking effect. Once deeply integrated into a company’s stablecoin system, the cost of switching to another system becomes high—not just in terms of technical migration, but also learning, relationships, and even opportunity costs.

This stickiness becomes the company’s most solid moat. In fierce competition, companies with stablecoin ecosystems can not only better control costs and cash flow but also rely on network effects to consolidate long-term advantages.

How Corporate Stablecoins Enter Various Industries

Different industries have their own pain points, and corporate stablecoins are being used as potential solutions. They may not yet be widely adopted, but they already show the potential to address real business needs.

E-commerce Platforms: Automation of Deposits, Commissions, and Refunds

For e-commerce platforms, stablecoins are becoming experimental tools for building next-generation payment infrastructure. The collaboration between Shopify and Coinbase allows merchants in 34 countries to accept USDC settlements, but this is just the beginning.

The deposit paid by merchants when joining can be directly written into a smart contract, automatically deducted for violations, and automatically refunded at the end of the contract. Platform commissions can also be settled in real time—each transaction automatically transfers funds from the merchant’s stablecoin account to the platform.

The refund process is also being reshaped. Previously, cross-border refunds could take weeks and go through multiple banking processes; with stablecoins, funds can arrive in minutes, offering a completely different experience.

Furthermore, stablecoins can support micropayment scenarios. Consumers can pay to browse product pages, pay for personalized recommendations, or even pay for priority customer service. These fragmented transactions, almost impossible in traditional payment systems, can all be realized in a stablecoin environment.

Manufacturing Giants: Unified Network for Supplier Payments and Inventory Financing

The manufacturing industry is the most globalized, with supply chains often spanning dozens of countries. For companies like Apple and Tesla, coordinating payments, financing, and deposits for thousands of suppliers is a massive system engineering task.

If these companies issue their own stablecoins, they can establish an efficient, low-cost internal payment network. Payments to upstream suppliers, inventory financing, and quality assurance deposits—all processes that previously required cross-bank, cross-currency, and heavy manual intervention—can now be completed instantly within the same network.

More importantly, this digital payment system can be integrated with existing enterprise management systems. When ERP detects a shortage of components, it can automatically trigger orders and payments; if the quality inspection system finds a problematic batch, it can instantly deduct from the supplier’s deposit.

Take Tesla as an example: it has over 3,000 suppliers in more than 30 countries. If settlements are unified with stablecoins, suppliers can use “Tesla Coin” directly, with Tesla handling the USD exchange. This not only reduces costs but also means stronger initiative in key links.

Content Platforms: New Paths for Revenue Sharing and Micropayments

The content industry is undergoing a creator-driven restructuring. Whether it’s short video platforms like YouTube and TikTok, or text platforms like Substack and Medium, the biggest challenge is how to efficiently and fairly distribute revenue to global creators.

Corporate stablecoins are seen as a possible solution. They allow platforms to instantly settle revenue shares to creators worldwide, without relying on complex cross-border banking systems or incurring high fees. Furthermore, micropayment mechanisms allow revenue distribution to be even more granular.

YouTube pays creators tens of billions of dollars in revenue shares annually, but payment methods vary by country, exchange rate fluctuations affect actual income, and tax processes are extremely cumbersome. If the platform builds its own stablecoin network, truly unified global settlement can be achieved.

This mechanism could also give rise to new business models: readers can pay per article, viewers can pay for individual video clips, and listeners can pay for a single song. More precise value distribution not only gives creators more direct returns but also incentivizes higher-quality content production.

Cloud Service Providers: Settlement Testbeds for the Machine Economy

Cloudflare’s NET Dollar can be seen as a typical case of a cloud service provider experimenting with stablecoins. With the development of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communication and transactions are becoming increasingly frequent. Their characteristics are high frequency, small amounts, and full automation—something traditional payment systems cannot support.

In such scenarios, an AI model may need to pay for calling another model’s API, an IoT device may need to settle for its consumed computing power, and a self-driving car may need to pay for map services. These payments may be just a few cents or even fractions of a cent, but could be triggered thousands of times per second.

Stablecoins—especially forms like NET Dollar designed for programmatic transactions—can support such high-frequency, low-value automated payments. Machines can autonomously decide when, how much, and to whom to pay according to preset rules, without human intervention.

To this end, Cloudflare and Coinbase have jointly established the x402 Foundation, developing a protocol that allows machines to complete payments directly. When one AI model calls another’s service, fees are settled instantly. Such explorations are building the payment infrastructure needed for the future machine economy.

Cloudflare’s x402 testbed real-time demonstration interface | Source: Cloudflare

Stablecoin Swaps and the New B2B Payment Network

Once every large enterprise issues a stablecoin, the next question is how these “corporate currencies” interoperate. The answer points to a brand-new B2B payment network.

In such a network, different corporate stablecoins can be seamlessly converted via swap protocols, possibly relying on liquidity pools from decentralized exchanges. After a supplier receives payment in “Tesla Coin,” they can instantly exchange it for “Apple Coin” or USD, without going through cumbersome banking systems.

Several hurdles must be overcome for this system to truly function.

First is exchange rate pricing. How are exchange rates between different corporate stablecoins determined? This may require a supply-demand pricing mechanism similar to the forex market.

Second is liquidity provision. Who provides sufficient liquidity? Will it rely on professional market makers, or will companies set up channels with each other? There is no definitive answer yet, and the industry needs further exploration.

Finally, risk management. How to guard against credit and operational risks during exchanges? This is not only a technical issue but also requires clear compliance guidelines.

Stripe has already started experimenting in this direction. In May 2025, it launched the world’s first payment AI model and rolled out a stablecoin payment suite. Enterprises can enable it with one click on the platform and use USDC to settle on Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, and other public chains.

Stripe’s approach is clear: rather than issuing its own coin, it enables more enterprises to easily access stablecoin settlement, thereby making itself the underlying infrastructure for stablecoin payments.

More interestingly, “industry alliance stablecoins” may emerge in specific sectors. For example, several major automakers could jointly issue an “Auto Coin,” covering the entire chain from parts procurement to vehicle sales. Such a unified currency system can significantly reduce transaction costs and promote industry collaboration.

The complexity of the automotive supply chain makes it the ideal testing ground. A car involves tens of thousands of parts, with suppliers worldwide. If the entire chain settles in the same stablecoin, it bypasses redundant multi-currency and multi-bank processes, greatly simplifying payments.

The advantages of alliance stablecoins are also clear: the industry’s scale supports liquidity, transaction models are standardized, and the closed loop reduces the impact on the traditional financial system. But challenges remain: how to balance the interests of different companies, whether large enterprises will use this to strengthen control, and whether governance mechanisms can remain transparent—all these can only be answered in practice.

All corporate stablecoin concepts ultimately hinge on regulatory compliance. Whether it’s a single company or an industry alliance, to gain real market acceptance, they must establish transparent reserve custody, regular third-party audits, and full disclosure to regulators.

In July 2025, the US “GENIUS Act” will take effect, for the first time drawing clear legal boundaries for stablecoin issuance. Stablecoins with issuance exceeding $10 billions must be subject to federal regulation, with reserves limited to US dollars, bank deposits, or short-term US Treasuries, and completely segregated from the issuer’s other assets.

In August of the same year, Hong Kong’s “Stablecoin Ordinance” will be officially implemented. It requires issuers to hold at least HK$25 million in paid-up capital, accept ongoing supervision and annual audits by the HKMA, and establish comprehensive anti-money laundering and customer identification systems.

For companies, compliance is not just a “must-do” requirement but the prerequisite for winning trust. Without transparent and credible reserve management, even the strongest business logic will struggle to convince suppliers, partners, and customers to follow.

Stablecoins and the New Commercial Order

The emergence of corporate stablecoins is not just a change in payment tools but a harbinger of the restructuring of future commercial order.

They deeply couple payments with systems, endowing devices and programs with independent economic capabilities. Self-driving cars can autonomously complete charging and settlement when low on power, industrial robots can automatically order parts when worn, and machines thus transform from “tools” into true economic agents.

Micropayments provide new distribution logic for the content industry: videos can be charged by the second, novels by the chapter, and software by the function. Income is split more finely, and incentive mechanisms change accordingly.

Combined with artificial intelligence, the imagination space expands further. Once AI agents have stablecoin budgets, they can autonomously purchase data, computing power, or other services to accomplish complex tasks.

In September 2025, Google will launch the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), partnering with sixty institutions to build payment channels for AI agents, enabling them to settle directly when performing tasks. This means AI will no longer be just a tool but a “digital employee” with economic capabilities, forming new collaborative relationships with humans.

For banks and payment companies, this is a structural challenge. If companies can build their own payment and clearing systems, the role of traditional financial institutions in cross-border settlement and treasury management will be weakened. In the future, banks are more likely to shift to roles such as reserve custody, compliance, and auditing, while payment companies will need to become stablecoin infrastructure providers.

From a broader perspective, corporate stablecoins may mark the emergence of a new commercial order. In this system, value creation and distribution will be completed with unprecedented efficiency, and business relationships will become more transparent and efficient.

From medieval Venetian bills of exchange to today’s stablecoins, the logic has always been the pursuit of more efficient exchange media. In this technology-driven transformation, any company wishing to secure a place in the future digital economy cannot stand aside.