Stablecoin 'Sandwich' Explained

Cyprx Research unrolled a thread framing “stablecoin payment chains” as a distinct crypto category and mapped custody, chain choice, and middleware as the battleground for next‑gen cross‑border rails. (threadreaderapp.com) FXC Intelligence’s 2025 industry primer pegs the base total addressable market for stablecoin‑based cross‑border payments at about $16.5 trillion. (einpresswire.com) Fireblocks announced a dedicated stablecoin payments network that initially brought together more than 40 participants as part of a push to standardize institutional flows. (blockworks.com) Fireblocks’ own reporting says stablecoins accounted for nearly half of transaction volume on its platform in 2024 and that it processes roughly 15% of global stablecoin volume, over 35 million transactions per month. (fireblocks.com) Circle and Tether already operate multi‑chain deployments—Circle lists USDC on 15+ networks including Ethereum, Solana and TRON, while Tether supports major rails including Ethereum, TRON and Solana—making chain selection a performance and cost decision for operators. (usdc.org) (tether.to) (tether.io) Market incumbents and payments firms are racing to own the “plumbing”: Stripe completed its $1.1 billion acquisition of Bridge to embed stablecoin APIs into merchant flows, while strategic M&A and acquisition talks (including Zerohash and other infrastructure providers) have circulated among Mastercard and major crypto firms. (stripe.com) (coinedition.com) Operational risk remains material on public chains: MEV “sandwich” bots disproportionately target stablecoin swaps — EigenPhi data cited by industry analysts showed a large share of sandwich attacks hit stablecoin pools in 2025, and high‑profile swaps have resulted in six‑figure losses in seconds — adding a security vector that custody and routing layers must mitigate. (lightspark.com)