From Stablecoins to Global Equities: How StableStock Builds Verifiable Security on Safeheron

“Security is not a promise. It is an architecture that can be audited and verified. Users should be able to answer three questions themselves: What backs my balance? Where is it held? And how can I verify it?”

Stablecoins have already made the U.S. dollar internet-native. Almost anywhere in the world, people can now hold and move dollars without a correspondent bank in the middle. But the moment those dollars need to go to work — to buy a share of Nvidia — a long chain of steps reappears: open a brokerage account, open a bank account to fund it, convert currency, wire the money across borders, and wait for it to land.

StableStock was built to close that gap: 

StableStock was built to take the friction out of investing in global equities. In a little over a year, this stablecoin-native platform has grown to more than 23,000 users, with cumulative trading volume in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

That growth created a problem of StableStock’s own. A single account sits on top of three entirely different financial systems — digital assets, fiat and equities — each with its own custody, settlement and security requirements. Asset security could not be bolted on after the fact. It had to be a layered architecture, designed in from the start, and one users could verify for themselves.

We sat down with StableStock CEO Zixi Zhu to talk about building trust into the foundation of a platform that connects two financial worlds.

Q: Could you give us a brief introduction to StableStock?

StableStock is a stablecoin-native platform for investing in global equities. Users can fund their accounts with stablecoins and invest directly in real U.S., Hong Kong, and Korean stocks and ETFs, with trades executed, cleared, and custodied through licensed financial institutions.

We launched a little over a year ago, and today we serve more than 23,000 users, largely across emerging markets, with cumulative trading volume reaching hundreds of millions of dollars.

Q: Compared with traditional cross-border investment channels, what sets StableStock apart?

What StableStock changes is not the stock itself, but how investors access the stock market.

Stablecoins have already made it much easier for people around the world to hold and transfer U.S. dollars. But when those funds need to enter the stock market, users often have to return to traditional processes — opening brokerage and bank accounts, converting currencies, making cross-border transfers, and waiting for funds to arrive. For an investor in an emerging market, that is where the friction is concentrated: account thresholds, FX costs, and payment rails with unpredictable timing.

StableStock connects stablecoin rails with licensed financial institutions under a compliant framework. The platform holds a New Zealand FSP registration and a U.S. FinCEN MSB registration, and our equities business is conducted through a licensed institution in Australia. Users fund with stablecoins, complete the required KYC and AML checks, and invest directly in real global equities, with clearing and custody handled by licensed institutions.

Our goal is not to replace traditional capital markets, but to build a better bridge for a new form of global capital to access them.

Q: What key day-to-day operational challenges does StableStock face?

One of the biggest challenges is that a single StableStock account connects several completely different financial infrastructures.

Imagine a user deposits USDT and uses it to buy Nvidia shares. From the user’s perspective, it is one simple transaction. Behind the scenes, the stablecoins first need to be securely managed and processed, the corresponding fiat funds move through the banking system, and the stock order is then executed, cleared and custodied through licensed financial institutions.

So even a single investment can involve three different layers of assets — stablecoins, fiat and equities — each with completely different custody, settlement and security requirements. As we expand into products such as funding-rate strategies, this becomes even more complex, because derivatives positions and exchange accounts introduce another layer of infrastructure again.

For the user, however, all of this still needs to feel like one seamless account.

That is why we built a layered asset-security architecture from the beginning, matching each class of asset to the custody and risk-control rules appropriate to it. For the digital-asset layer specifically, our requirements were explicit: no single person or device should control a complete private key, every fund movement must follow predefined authorization policies, and all critical operations need to be traceable and auditable.

That was also an important reason why we chose Safeheron.

Q: What has StableStock done to earn user trust in the security of assets held on the platform?

We believe security should not depend on asking users to trust us. It should be something they can verify.

A very practical example is how we handle large fund movements. As our user base and trading volume grew, we increasingly needed to move digital assets between different operational accounts and financial counterparties. In a traditional wallet setup, this can create significant operational risk — a compromised private key, a mistaken transfer, or excessive authority given to one individual can each become a single point of failure.

We designed our system so that this should not happen. There are three mechanisms behind the digital-asset layer.

First, the key itself. With Safeheron’s MPC-TEE architecture, no single person or device can access a complete private key or independently move funds.

Second, authority. Through the policy engine, different transactions can require different approval policies based on factors such as amount, business purpose and personnel roles, so fund permissions are tiered rather than concentrated. Every critical operation is recorded and auditable.

Third, compliance. AML and KYT screening is embedded into the transaction process itself, so payments are screened before they go out rather than reviewed after the fact.

But security is also about proving that the assets actually exist. For equities, the underlying shares are held through licensed clearing and custody institutions. We reconcile brokerage records with our transparency system and provide third-party statements alongside our own proof-of-reserves data.

Ultimately, users should be able to answer three questions themselves: What backs my balance? Where is it held? And how can I verify it?

For us, security is not a promise. It is an architecture that can be audited and verified. What Safeheron solved for StableStock was not simply “wallet security” — it helped us turn the digital-asset layer into infrastructure capable of supporting the business at scale.

Q: In three words, how would you describe working with Safeheron?

Verifiable, professional, and responsive.

Q: What is StableStock’s strategic focus going forward?

We are focused on three areas: improving the product experience, expanding market coverage, and building more products around global equities.

Our mobile app is now live, offering access to U.S., Hong Kong, and Korean stocks, with more markets, including Japan, on the horizon. We are also preparing to launch new investment products built around stock funding-rate opportunities. Looking ahead, we will continue to expand our stock-focused offerings, bringing users more ways to invest in global markets.

Ultimately, we want one stablecoin account to become a simple gateway to global markets.

Q: How do you see the convergence of digital assets and traditional capital markets playing out?

Today, a great deal of digital-asset activity still sits in trading, payments and on-chain finance. We think the next step is a very natural one: stablecoins have already made the U.S. dollar internet-native and globally transferable, and as more people hold those dollars for the long term, their needs will move from simply holding to allocating.

Stocks and ETFs represent one of the largest asset pools in the world. But convergence does not necessarily mean putting every stock on-chain. An equally important path is making stablecoins a new gateway into existing capital markets.

That requires solving the less visible but critical pieces: compliance, custody, clearing, fund security and user experience.

Stablecoins can change how capital reaches financial markets without changing the markets themselves. We want StableStock to become part of the infrastructure connecting those two worlds.