OpinionStablecoin
|6 min ReadCloudflare joins the stablecoin race with NET Dollar
Lucca Menezes
Senior Analyst
Published
Jan 16, 2026
The web’s hidden giant builds its own money
You might not know Cloudflare, but you use it every day. It powers roughly one in five websites, securing and accelerating traffic for everything from food delivery apps to company logins. It’s the invisible utility of the internet — the water, electricity, and gas behind the screen.
Now it wants to add money to that stack. On September 25, Cloudflare announced plans to launch its own stablecoin: NET Dollar.
CEO Matthew Prince explained the logic. “For decades, the internet’s business model has relied on ads and bank transfers. The next era will run on microtransactions.” Cloudflare handles trillions of requests a day and earns over $1.6 billion a year, but payment has always been the one piece outside its control. That dependence bothers more than one tech giant.
Apple, Amazon, Tesla — all face the same friction. Long settlement times, high fees, and complex compliance slow their global networks. The answer, many believe, is to build new payment rails instead of waiting for old ones to change.
Why big tech needs its own stablecoins
Unlike USDT or USDC, NET Dollar is not chasing global adoption. It’s designed first to serve Cloudflare’s own ecosystem, a closed loop of services and partners. Think of it as internal currency before it becomes external liquidity.
PayPal’s PYUSD followed the same path — starting inside, then expanding to broader markets. The motive is different too. Traditional stablecoin issuers earn yield from reserves. Corporate issuers want control and efficiency. They’re rebuilding the last mile of commerce — the payment — so it belongs to them again.
Stablecoins cut costs and speed up settlement. A cross-border payment that takes days and costs 6 percent can settle in minutes for under 1 percent. Banks lose their gatekeeping role; companies regain it.
Traditional finance has layers of intermediaries, each taking a fee. In a stablecoin system, only one cost remains — the network fee. It’s transparent, predictable, and programmable. CFOs can finally plan cash flow without hidden friction.
Smart contracts make it even cleaner. A supplier delivers goods, the contract verifies delivery, and payment releases automatically. Rules replace trust. Disputes fade. Once suppliers, partners, and customers all transact in the same token, network effects lock in. Leaving that network gets expensive — not just in money, but in relationships and learning curves. That stickiness becomes a moat.
How corporate stablecoins enter the real world
E-commerce: automation for deposits and refunds
Shopify already lets merchants settle in USDC through Coinbase. Stablecoins simplify everything from deposits to commissions. Security deposits can sit in contracts and release automatically. Platform fees clear in real time. Refunds arrive in minutes, not weeks. Even micropayments — paying for a page view or a support priority — suddenly work.
Manufacturing: unified payments and financing
Global supply chains are chaos. Thousands of suppliers, dozens of currencies. A Tesla or Apple could issue its own token to pay and finance parts worldwide. ERP systems could trigger payments the moment stock runs low; quality systems could deduct from supplier bonds when defects appear. One coin, one network. Faster, cheaper, and fully auditable.
Content platforms: micro rewards for creators
YouTube, TikTok, and Substack face the same payout problem. Billions in creator earnings move through banks, payment gateways, and tax systems. A platform-issued stablecoin could streamline global payouts, slash fees, and unlock per-view or per-clip payments. Readers pay per article. Viewers pay per minute. Artists get paid instantly.
Cloud services and the machine economy
Cloudflare’s NET Dollar may also fuel the “machine economy.” As AI models and IoT devices transact with each other, payments must be tiny and instant. One AI pays another for an API call; a self-driving car pays for a map update; a drone rents compute power for a task. Each payment might be fractions of a cent, executed thousands of times a second.
Cloudflare’s x402 Foundation, built with Coinbase, is testing this with a protocol for machine-to-machine payments. When one AI model uses another’s service, it settles instantly in NET Dollar.
From company coins to a new B2B network
Once every major company issues a stablecoin, interoperability becomes the next problem. That means a new B2B payment network — a kind of decentralized FX market where “TeslaCoin” swaps seamlessly with “AppleCoin” or dollars through liquidity pools.
Challenges remain: exchange rate formation, liquidity sources, and credit risk management. Stripe is already testing similar ground, offering stablecoin payments in USDC across Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon. It chose infrastructure over issuance — enabling others instead of minting its own coin.
Industry alliances may follow. Imagine automakers launching a shared “AutoCoin” that settles parts, logistics, and sales. A unified token could cut cost and speed coordination, but governance — who controls it, who audits it — will decide success or failure.
Regulation is catching up fast. The U.S. GENIUS Act, effective July 2025, brings large stablecoins under federal oversight, requiring dollar or T-bill reserves and third-party audits. Hong Kong’s new Stablecoin Ordinance adds capital and AML requirements. For corporations, transparency isn’t optional — it’s the ticket to trust.
The new order of digital commerce
Corporate stablecoins are more than payment tools. They’re the foundation of a new commercial order where code runs cash flow. Machines become economic agents. AI can hire, pay, and procure on its own budget.
Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) launched in September lets AI agents settle tasks directly — a step toward “digital employees” with wallets.
For banks and payment processors, this is a structural shift. As corporations internalize settlement, traditional finance moves to the edges — custody, compliance, and audit. Payment firms become infrastructure providers.
From Venetian bills of exchange to stablecoins, the goal has always been the same: faster, cleaner value exchange. In the digital economy ahead, no serious enterprise can afford to stay out. Cloudflare’s move just made that future a little clearer.
Disclaimer: This document is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed in this document are not, and should not be taken as, investment advice or recommendations. Recipients should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance, which are not considered here, before investing. This document is not an offer, or the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned.