Bridge founder Zach Abrams sees an opportunity for ‘tokenized local currencies’ across Asia

Zach Abrams, the founder of stablecoin company Bridge, admits he was surprised when the bulk of his business ended up coming from non-U.S. markets in Latin America, Europe, and Africa.

“We were very U.S.-centric.

We didn’t know what the opportunities were in the Philippines, Africa, or Latin America,” Abrams says.

“Unbeknownst to us, there was all this pent up demand outside the U.S. to build with stablecoins.” The firm’s first customers asked it to build cross-border payment infrastructure between the U.S. and Colombia and to facilitate payouts into countries like Venezuela and the Philippines.

Bridge’s rapid rise was driven by regions that featured high friction across borders, like Latin America.

Now part of Stripe, Abrams argues that the next phase of growth could come from tokenizing non-dollar currencies.

Today’s stablecoin sector is dominated by coins denominated in the U.S. dollar , with these tokens making up over 95% of all transactions.

That’s unnerved governments outside the U.S., who fear that the rise of stablecoins might reinforce the U.S. dollar’s existing dominance in global trade and financial flows.

Yet Abrams argues that U.S. dollar dominance may just reflect the immaturity of the stablecoin space.

“We’re in the early stages,” Abrams says.

“But in a world where more and more of our infrastructure is tokenized, it’s going to be incredibly important to have tokenized local currencies.” Abrams explains that local businesses will want to hold a local currency stablecoin, and put some of their capital to work in a digital, yield-generating investments.

“Businesses in Singapore are going to want to hold tokenized Singapore dollars, so they can convert them into Treasuries or other assets to earn yield,” he explains.

Bridge doesn’t yet support the Singapore dollar; it currently supports tokenized euros, Mexican pesos, and British pounds, and will soon allow Brazilian reais stablecoins.

Abrams cofounded Bridge in San Francisco in 2021 with Sean Yu, now the firm’s chief technology officer.