The next wave of blockchains is built to settle payments instead of tokens. General purpose chains weren't designed for institutional payment flows. A new wave of chains built for stablecoin payments is filling that gap, and none of them are going after the same market. The two biggest stablecoin issuers are building their own chains. Circle launched Arc as a permissioned network for institutional flows. Tether is backing Plasma, a public L1 optimized for USDT in cross border and emerging market corridors. Fintechs are doing the same. Stripe and Paradigm built Tempo as a merchant focused settlement layer. Stripe then acquired Bridge, Privy, and Metronome to own the issuance, wallet, and billing layers alongside it. Then there are the more specialized plays. Codex is an OP Stack rollup with a native FX engine for banks and remitters that need multi-currency settlement. 1Money is targeting retail payments and remittance with sanctions and AML automation at the protocol level. Payy is built around confidential settlement for institutions that need privacy by default. The settlement layer is fragmenting by use case, and the race isn't just about launching a chain. It's about who owns the full stack from settlement to compliance.