Emerging markets are poised to leap into the era of agency business

Countries with the most imperfect traditional banking services have inadvertently created the best conditions for the innovation and adoption of agency commerce. Among the top 30 countries with cryptocurrency and stablecoin adoption rates, 24 are emerging markets. These countries have long faced currency instability, high cross-border remittance costs and stringent bank access requirements, making alternative financial technologies backed by dollars a way to survive. Today, artificial intelligence is entering these markets with the same influence. The GSMA predicts that by 2030, there will be approximately 290 million advanced AI smartphone users in India and more than 80 million in Indonesia, which means autonomous agents will be directly embedded in the dollar infrastructure already running in these economies. When these agents started trading, they inherited a trajectory tempered by years of real financial stress.

Monetary instability drives the adoption of alternative infrastructure

Many emerging markets have independently embraced digital assets as a practical alternative to volatile currencies. The exchanges, peer-to-peer channels, and fintech applications that fill this gap tend to persist once they are built, and each fluctuation further consolidates them. This persistence was particularly evident in early 2026, when a broad contraction in the cryptocurrency market hit advanced economies hardest, while emerging markets such as Turkey continued to grow-suggesting that demand stems from necessity rather than speculation.

An obvious example occurs in sub-Saharan Africa. When the naira suddenly devalued in March 2025, monthly on-chain transactions in the region jumped to nearly US$25 billion, and households and businesses converted their savings into dollars. Absorbing this surge in infrastructure has now become an indispensable part of the region's financial flows.

This money-driven demand is not limited to a single continent. stablecoins now account for more than half of all exchange purchases in Argentina and Brazil, which the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) attributes to continued inflation, foreign exchange volatility and capital controls. The continued depreciation of the Turkish lira will bring stablecoin purchases to approximately 4.3% of GDP in 2024.

Economic uncertainty caused by local currency instability has also driven adoption in other fintech areas. Mobile money processed more than US$2 trillion in transactions in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 23%, mainly due to regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, where the density of bank outlets has never approached market demand. P2P lending fills a similar credit gap, allowing borrowers and lenders to trade directly, as traditional underwriting and branch networks have proven too slow to meet demand.

In short, these markets already have digital-first consumption habits and dollar-denominated infrastructure, ready for agency commerce. With digital wallets already high penetration in most emerging economies, AI agents are increasingly connecting directly to mobile money APIs and programmable payment tracks, which will reshape the financial landscape.

Places where the gap is greatest have the greatest room for growth

The wider the gap between what traditional payment providers can handle and the actual needs of the market, the greater the room for growth in that market once better alternatives emerge. This gap is most obvious in markets that are already building U.S. dollar stablecoin infrastructure, which means that growth opportunities are concentrated precisely where existing gaps are most prominent.

According to World Bank data, sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the highest cost of cross-border payments in the world, with an average cost of 8.46%. This cost creates the conditions for the adoption of cheaper, continuously settled tiers, and this is because of necessity. stablecoins now account for approximately 43% of all cryptocurrency transactions in the region. The process of transforming from serving human users to a borderless and efficient operating track has also created conditions for the vigorous development of agency commerce.

Chainalysis's research on emerging proxy payment frameworks found that AI agents need tracks built for autonomous transactions with transaction volumes and price points that traditional systems have never been designed to handle. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) reached the same conclusion, describing stablecoins as a settlement layer that enables continuous, smart contract integration. These findings are particularly true in regions where alternative financial tracks have been adopted because of necessity and where these tracks are deeply integrated into the daily transactions of ordinary people.

Platforms building agent payment platforms have seen this trend

Agency commerce works best on the continuous, low-cost, programmable settlement layer, which is what stablecoins currently offer. This means that adoption rates will be concentrated where stablecoins have already penetrated deeply. More and more companies are beginning to realize that there are huge opportunities in areas where traditional tracks fail first.

Google launched its proxy payment protocol last fall, with support from more than 60 partners including MasterCard, Coinbase and dLocal. dLocal is a payments company built specifically for emerging market corridor operations. At the launch event, dLocal CEO Pedro Arnte described the payment environment in emerging markets as "fragmented and complex" and pointed to a stablecoin-based proxy track as a framework to address this issue.

This real need for better solutions ultimately drives rapid innovation in these regions. Payment companies operating in multiple emerging corridors have to piece together the cards, wallets and stablecoins involved in each market rather than relying on a single national card network or mobile money operator. This complex process has prompted local users to turn to wavefield-based dollar tracks and purpose-built mobile wallets and exchanges.

Emerging markets will define the future acceleration of

regional stablecoin adoption and guide builders to markets where new financial products are most likely to take root. Most teams chasing agency commerce still focus on the bright path of institutional finance and corporate use cases. The path with higher potential runs through regional markets from sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia.

These emerging markets operate on a digital-first, decentralized financial model that was born out of necessity. This combination prepares them for the explosive growth of agency commerce, because building a new system from the beginning is less detours than transforming a system designed for others 'trading models.

This first-mover advantage is hard-won. The people and businesses that are rebuilding their financial lives around U.S. dollar stablecoins are already operating on the same settlement model used in agency commerce. When agents arrive, economies that are forced to adapt temporarily will have the least to learn again.