Forrester: Most APAC Stablecoin Launches Will Fail in 2026
Research and advisory firm Forrester has released a list of top predictions for the payments industry, including a forecast that the majority of stablecoin launches in Asia will fail.
In Asia Pacific, four out of five local stablecoin launches will fail next year, according to Forrester’s 2026 Payments Predictions. Reasons for failure cited include lack of utility, steep compliance costs and competition from Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and tokenized deposits.
USD-pegged stablecoins are expected to dominate global supply, while regional banks and regulators prioritize scalable alternatives like mBridge, ISO 20022 and CBDCs.
In fact, Forrester predicts that stablecoins as a whole will not find scalable use cases for retail payments in 2026 due to poor user experience, complex infrastructure, trust issues and competition from established digital payment alternatives. It believes that there are more practical applications in B2B cross-border payments and the crypto-native economy.
AI Agents
Aside from stablecoins, Forrester also made predictions about artificial intelligence (AI) agents.
In B2C, true agentic payment – transactions executed autonomously by AI – will debut in 2026 but remain experimental due to technical and consumer trust issues, with widespread implementation to occur in 2027. And in B2B, AI agents will account for one-third of payments as the technology resolves complexities in adjacent processes like invoicing and accounts payable.
«Agentic and stablecoin payments are set to reshape global payment ecosystems by 2026, introducing diverse standards, protocols, business models, and blockchains that will drive significant fragmentation,» commented Meng Liu, senior analyst at Forrester.
