The Ripple–Flutterwave deal has largely been read as an XRP story. But look past the token, and it points to something bigger: stablecoins are quietly becoming embedded payments infrastructure for real businesses, not just crypto-native ones. For enterprises, the hard question is no longer "which blockchain or coin do we use?" It's "how do we actually move, custody, govern, and reconcile this value once it lands?"
To unpack that shift, we spoke to Will Harborne, who wrote the original USDT smart contracts at Tether and now runs Rhino.fi, focusing on how value moves — routing, settlement, and cross-chain connectivity.
Q. Before we get into the infrastructure side of things — could you briefly share what first pulled you into crypto and payments, and what your companies do today in a nutshell?
I’m an engineer by background and studied at Cambridge in the UK. I joined Tether early, at a time when stablecoins were still a very niche part of crypto and almost nobody appreciated how important they would become. I worked on launching USDT on Ethereum, which gave me an early view of how programmable digital dollars could evolve from a crypto trading tool into financial infrastructure.
Today, I’m the founder of Rhino.fi. We build infrastructure that helps fintechs, payment companies, neobanks, and other businesses use stablecoins without having to build the full multi-chain stack themselves. The aim is to make stablecoin payments and settlement simple, reliable, and enterprise-ready.
Q. What's your reaction to the Ripple–Flutterwave deal? Do you see it primarily as an XRP story, or does it signal something bigger about how stablecoins are being adopted by mainstream businesses?
There is certainly an XRP and Ripple ecosystem angle to it, but I think the bigger story is the combination of an established African payments network with blockchain-based settlement infrastructure. Flutterwave has already built access to businesses and consumers across multiple African markets, so this is about embedding stablecoin settlement into existing financial workflows rather than asking users to become crypto-native first. We’ve seen plenty of acquisitions of companies in the crypto/stablecoin space being acquired by payments players i.e. BVNK by Mastercard, but this is the reverse.
For me, the significance is that the conversation is moving toward “how do these assets become useful inside real payment networks?” That is a much bigger opportunity than any individual chain / token / crypto narrative.
Q. For readers who aren't deep in crypto — in simple terms, what's the difference between "picking a blockchain or token" and "building the stack around it"? Why has that distinction become more important recently?
Choosing a blockchain or token is like choosing a road. You decide whether a payment should use USDC, USDT, another asset, Base, Tron, Ethereum, or some other network.
Building the stack around it is everything that happens before and after the payment: creating deposit addresses, detecting incoming funds, checking the transaction, managing liquidity, moving between chains, handling fees, reconciling balances, and making sure the recipient receives the expected amount.
That distinction has become more important because businesses are no longer experimenting with one asset on one chain. Their customers may use different stablecoins and different networks, and the business still needs to deliver a simple, predictable experience. The underlying complexity is increasing even while the customer experience needs to become simpler.
Q. Will, you've called this a shift toward stablecoins as "embedded payments infrastructure." What does that actually look like for a business that isn't crypto-native — say, an e-commerce company or a fintech expanding into new markets?
For a non-crypto-native business, embedded stablecoin infrastructure should not feel like adding a crypto product. It should feel like adding another payment method or settlement option.
An e-commerce business might allow an international customer to pay in a stablecoin while receiving settlement in the asset or currency it prefers. A fintech expanding into a new market might use stablecoins to move treasury between countries, pay contractors, or settle with local partners more quickly than through traditional correspondent banking.
The business should not need to understand every blockchain or manually manage liquidity across them. That is the role of the infrastructure layer. At Rhino.fi, we abstract away much of that complexity so customers can integrate stablecoin functionality into their existing products and workflows.
Q. Will, could you explain — in plain terms — what "deterministic settlement" means, and why it matters more for enterprises than just fast transaction speeds?
Deterministic settlement means that the sender and recipient know in advance what is going to arrive, when it is going to arrive, and what it will cost.
Fast settlement is not enough if a transaction takes 30 seconds but the recipient receives a different amount because of slippage, fragmented liquidity, or unexpected fees. For a consumer, that may be frustrating; for an enterprise, it can create reconciliation problems, accounting issues, customer disputes, and financial losses.
If a merchant is expecting 100,000 USDT, they need to receive 100,000 USDT, not an amount that varies depending on the route the transaction happened to take. That predictability is what turns a blockchain transfer into something a finance team can actually build a business around.
Q. For a CFO or founder who's cautious about crypto but curious about stablecoins, what's the simplest first use case you'd recommend they try?
For a cautious CFO or founder, I would start with a controlled cross-border supplier-payment use case rather than immediately redesigning the entire customer payment experience.
For example, a business could use stablecoins to pay an overseas contractor or supplier, or to move treasury between entities in different markets. It is a clearly defined flow, the cost and timing can be compared directly with existing banking rails, and the company can begin with a limited number of corridors and counterparties.
That gives the business a practical way to test the benefits (speed, cost, availability, and transparency) without taking on unnecessary complexity. Once the operational processes are proven, stablecoins can be introduced into more customer-facing products.
Q. Regulation and compliance vary a lot by country. How do you both think about building infrastructure that works across 50+ jurisdictions without becoming a compliance nightmare?
The key is not to pretend that one global compliance model exists. Different jurisdictions have different rules around payments, custody, money transmission, stablecoin issuance, AML, sanctions, consumer protection, and data.
The infrastructure therefore needs to be modular. It should support configurable transaction monitoring, wallet screening, limits, approvals, reporting, audit trails, and jurisdiction-specific controls, while allowing businesses to work with the appropriate licensed entities and local partners.
At Rhino.fi, we’re pursuing our own licenses as we scale so that we can broaden out our offering and tailor it even more to specific jurisdictions, but from the product side we aim to build a common technology layer that can support different regulatory and operating models. Our embedded and configurable compliance model allows our clients to set their risk and compliance parameters the way they need to be set.
Q. Where do you think the stablecoin payments space will be in two to three years — will "stablecoin infrastructure" even be a separate category, or will it just be invisible plumbing behind normal payments?
In two or three years, I expect stablecoin infrastructure to become much less visible as a standalone category. The technology will increasingly sit behind normal payment, banking, treasury, and commerce products.
That does not mean the infrastructure stops mattering. It means it becomes more important and more dependable, in the same way that nobody thinks about card-network plumbing every time they pay for something online.
There will still be specialist infrastructure providers, but the customer experience will be “pay,” “receive,” or “settle.” Users and businesses will not necessarily know (or care) that a stablecoin was involved underneath. The companies that win will be the ones that make the complexity disappear while preserving reliability, compliance, and control.
Q. Outside of work, is there anything — a habit, a book, a routine — that's shaped how you think about building in such a fast-moving industry?
A book that has shaped how I think about building a company is Good to Great by Jim Collins. It is an older book, but I still find the core ideas highly relevant, particularly the emphasis on execution and getting the right people on the bus.
In a fast-moving industry, it is easy to become distracted by every new technology, narrative, or competitor. The book is a useful reminder that having a clear direction matters, but disciplined execution and the quality of the team are what determine whether the company actually gets there.
For me, that means focusing on hiring excellent people, putting them in the right roles, and building a culture that can execute consistently even as the market changes around us.
