'2026 is the year of stablecoin payments — RWA is next, and wallets will play a bigger role': Squid founder Fig

"Seventy percent of our revenue currently comes from swaps, but the market I'm most excited about is real-world asset tokenization. A market where you can invest in assets from anywhere in the world is opening up."

Fig, the founder of Squid, shared this view on the future growth drivers of the digital asset market in a recent interview. While digital asset swaps and stablecoin payments are the fastest-growing segments right now, he sees even greater medium- to long-term potential in the RWA market — where traditional financial assets such as shares and bonds migrate onto the blockchain.

Launched in 2023, Squid is a cross-chain infrastructure platform that enables users to exchange and transfer assets across different blockchains. It connects more than 100 chains — including Bitcoin, XRPL, Solana, EVM and Cosmos — and more than 130 decentralized exchanges. Cumulative transaction volume has reached $6.2 billion, with about 2 million users and more than 1,000 integration partners.

Fig studied medicine at university before moving into finance and software. His firsthand experience with the friction of moving assets between blockchains while developing and trading in the crypto market led him to found Squid. "If the internet is a network that connects information, I thought there needed to be a network for assets as well," he said. "I wanted to create an environment where businesses only need to integrate a single API and users don't have to worry about the complexity of blockchain architecture."

Squid's largest revenue source remains swaps, but its payments segment has been growing sharply. "Payments have lower margins than swaps, but they're growing fast," Fig said. "2026 is shaping up to be the best year yet for stablecoin payments."

He noted that as stablecoins spread across multiple blockchains, demand for cross-chain connectivity is rising in tandem. Because the networks used for payments — Tron, Base, Tempo and others — differ from one another, users need infrastructure that ties them together into a seamless service.

Squid has received investment from Ripple and is also working with the company as an official interoperability and payments partner. It is developing an on-chain payments software development kit for Ripple's dollar stablecoin, RLUSD, with the core function being the ability to swap RLUSD against USDC, USDT and other stablecoins on different chains.

The scope is expanding into foreign exchange as well. "We're also discussing FX use cases with Ripple," Fig said. "The idea is to use RLUSD as an intermediary when converting euros to dollars, or pounds to Mexican pesos." The structure ties on- and off-ramping together with cross-chain swaps in a single flow.

Alongside expanding use cases, broadening the retail user base is another priority. While RLUSD transactions have so far been concentrated in institutional, B2B demand, Fig said the key is improving accessibility for everyday users through neobanks, crypto cards and wallet services.

The market Fig is even more bullish on than payments is RWA. "Regulations not just in Korea but around the world are shifting in a direction that allows real transactions to happen in RWA," he said. "What excites me most is that people will be able to invest in global assets from anywhere."

Squid already works with tokenized asset providers including Ondo and xStocks. A prominent example is MiniPay, a wallet from the Opera group. MiniPay has about 16 million users and is growing rapidly, primarily in Africa and Latin America, where access to bank accounts and traditional investment products is limited.

MiniPay currently offers a tokenized gold product, with a US stock investment product also in development. "Right now there are only four asset types available, and we're already seeing about 30,000 purchases a day," Fig said. "We plan to add far more assets going forward."

He also sees RWA becoming a core growth area in the South Korean market. While domestic investors rely heavily on centralized exchanges for both trading and custody, he said the ability to quickly connect global assets with on-chain liquidity can generate distinct demand of its own.

Squid has been expanding its domestic footprint through a partnership with AhnLab Blockchain Company (ABC), a virtual asset service provider that recently joined the Open Blockchain and Digital Intelligence Association. The two companies are currently collaborating on cross-chain swaps, with the possibility of extending the scope to simplified deposit and withdrawal processes and payment settlement. As wallets evolve beyond simple custody tools to incorporate payment functions, Squid's role is expected to grow alongside that shift.

Squid has also verified interoperability between Danal's private chain, Pay Protocol, and public blockchains. If the STO and RWA markets take off in earnest, that could generate demand from financial institutions and payment companies looking to connect assets issued on their own private chains to external liquidity.

"Domestic financial institutions, like their counterparts globally, are leaning toward payments," Fig said, "but given that South Korea's regulations could change starting next year, we're also keeping a close eye on the RWA market — particularly what kinds of investment products could be offered through banks."

He added that Squid is currently running proofs of concept, including asset issuance on XRPL and USDC linkages with other chains. "The technology is already ready," he said. "What's needed most right now is regulation."