Woofun AI reports that the strategic convergence of Airwallex and Metal addresses the complex cross-border finance challenges emerging for AI agents, with Airwallex and Capital49 leading the seed round as announced by KarenZ of Foresight News. This partnership positions Airwallex not merely as an investor but as the first design partner for Metal, leveraging a decade of built infrastructure to solve the critical friction points of approval, compliance, currency conversion, and final settlement as stablecoins and tokenized assets enter corporate finance systems. The core issue extends beyond simple speed in transactions from New York to Singapore; it involves determining fund accessibility, currency conversion targets, regulatory adherence, and the ultimate destination bank account, complexities that will intensify as AI Agents assume control over ordering, payments, and accounting tasks.

On June 25th, Airwallex completed a $320 million Series H financing round, establishing a valuation of $11 billion, with funds explicitly allocated to financial intelligence, agent-based business models, global infrastructure, and compliance initiatives. This capital injection signals a deliberate pivot toward the underlying infrastructure required for the agent economy, moving beyond the company's historical focus on making cross-border payments cheaper and faster. The strategic direction was clarified by the announcement that the same day Metal secured its seed round, led by Airwallex and Capital49, an independent venture capital fund founded by Airwallex's founders. The funds are designated to accelerate the development of financial intelligence and agent-based business products, expand global infrastructure and compliance in new markets, and strengthen the team to create the next generation of AI-native financial software. Jack Zhang's remarks in the official announcement highlighted that while the company could not clearly envision the shape of the agent economy ten years ago, the financial licenses, local network integrations, and API-driven financial infrastructure built over the past decade are precisely suited to meet the needs of today's agent economy.

The operational scale supporting this strategic shift is rooted in Airwallex's history, which began in 2015 when Jack Zhang and several entrepreneurs encountered inefficiencies, delays, and high costs associated with traditional banks and foreign exchange systems while running a coffee shop in Melbourne. Today, the company connects banks, payment services, software, and AI across over 200 countries, covering more than 120 local transfer destinations and having processed over $287 billion in global payments. Performance metrics indicate that 92% of transfers are settled on the same day, with 50% processed instantly, underpinned by a workforce of more than 2,300 people operating from 27 international offices and holding over 85 licenses and registrations. The Series H financing round on June 25th was led by existing investor Addition, with follow-up investment from current shareholders such as Baillie Gifford, Hummingbird, QED Investors, T. Rowe Price, Hedosophia, Haun Ventures, Washington University in St. Louis, and Amex Ventures, alongside new investors. This broad investor lineup underscores the confidence in Airwallex's evolution from a payment facilitator to a comprehensive platform handling complex tasks like procurement, payments, reimbursements, foreign exchange, subscriptions, and revenue management for businesses.

The partnership with Metal originated half a year ago when Loong Wang, co-founder of Metal, met Jack Zhang through a mutual friend and investor, leading to discussions on a new kind of financial infrastructure that needed to be global, neutral, and ready for institutional use. Metal defines itself as an "infrastructure for tokenized financial products," distinguishing itself from single stablecoin payment scenarios by supporting a broader range of assets including stablecoins, tokenized bank deposits, money market products, U.S. short-term Treasury bonds, stocks, and securities. The application areas listed on Metal's official website encompass tokenized financial products, stablecoin payments, inter-institutional settlement, micro-payments, AI Agents, and embedded finance. While stablecoins have proven the efficiency of on-chain dollars, enabling cheaper, faster, and 24/7 dollar liquidity, corporate finance involves far more complexity, including bank deposits, securities, money market funds, foreign exchange conversions, accounts receivable, anti-money laundering checks, regional regulations, internal risk controls, and local fund transfers. Jack Zhang noted that Metal is a Layer 1 blockchain designed for "large-scale compliant global settlement," filling the gap in infrastructure that licensed financial institutions need to move and settle stablecoins safely, efficiently, and within regulatory frameworks.

Market projections indicate that stablecoins have been growing at around 100% per year in recent years, with an estimated circulation volume of $500 billion and transaction volume of $17.5 trillion by the end of 2026, yet businesses require a combination of highways, toll booths, customs, warehouses, and city roads to function properly. Metal aims to fill the specific regulatory gap as a Layer 1 blockchain, a vision supported by Catherine Porter, Metal's other co-founder and president, who previously led collaboration efforts on the Libra project and served as an advisor to Mysten Labs and Aptos.

The deeper driver is the recognition that stablecoins are like highways, but real-world settlements involve a complex ecosystem where businesses need to integrate various financial instruments and regulatory requirements.

Woofun AI data shows that the projected growth of stablecoins to $17.5 trillion in transaction volume by the end of 2026 necessitates a robust infrastructure capable of handling not just transfers but the full spectrum of corporate finance needs. This includes the ability to manage tokenized bank deposits, money market products, and U.S. short-term Treasury bonds within a compliant framework that supports inter-institutional settlement and micro-payments.

The strategic value of the Capital49 partnership is evident in how Metal's infrastructure will gain support from a local payment network covering 200 countries and 90 currencies through cooperation with Airwallex. Capital49 functions as an extension of Airwallex's founder network's early-stage capital investment, focusing on fintech, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and B2B software, with the advantage of enabling invested companies to access potential customers, service providers, and advisory resources within Airwallex's global network. This collaboration should not be understood simply as a payment company investing in a Web3 project, but rather as a company with existing global financial infrastructure betting on the next generation of settlement layers. Jack Zhang's evolving stance on stablecoin utility further contextualizes this move; on June 7, 2025, he publicly questioned the claim that "stablecoins can reduce foreign exchange fees," arguing that if users send dollars to euros and the recipient still receives euros in a bank account, the cost of withdrawing stablecoins into the local currency might be higher than that of interbank foreign exchange markets. A year later, he publicly supported Metal, emphasizing its capability for compliant global settlement tailored for licensed financial institutions, signaling a shift from doubting stablecoins to supporting an infrastructure framework that integrates stablecoins, compliance, fund transfers, local currencies, institutional settlement, and agent-based business.

Airwallex's internal AI product launches, specifically T:0 and Airi, demonstrate the performance metrics driving the integration of agent-based finance into its core operations. T:0 is an AI-native financial platform aimed at taking over financial functions such as bookkeeping, financial forecasting, tax processing, compliance management, and earnings reporting from the first day a company is established. Airi is positioned as a wallet infrastructure for agent-based business, with early testing data showing that its one-click settlement feature can help merchants increase their conversion rate by up to 14%. Future updates for Airi are expected to include capabilities such as authorized payment by smart agents, consumption limit management, permission control, and multi-currency balance management. This indicates that Airwallex is not just observing AI Agents and on-chain finance from the sidelines but is integrating corporate finance and agent-based business into its product roadmap. When agents need to complete payments and settlements across borders, currencies, and institutions, the underlying network must handle speed, costs, approvals, privacy, compliance, and fund transfers simultaneously, making Metal a potential key component in this ecosystem.

The critical unanswered questions regarding Metal's technical execution and the path to institutional adoption remain significant hurdles. Metal's public materials have not disclosed details such as its funding amount, mainnet launch date, complete technical whitepaper, or list of actual clients, meaning success cannot rely solely on vision. What it truly needs to prove are three things: Can compliance and privacy coexist within the same system? Are institutions willing to integrate real-world settlement processes? Can Airwallex's payment network form a reusable product loop with on-chain asset flows? Only those who can integrate licenses, local payments, APIs, compliance, AI Agents, and tokenized assets into a single infrastructure will have the opportunity to transform on-chain finance from "faster dollars" into a truly usable global settlement system. This marks a pivotal moment where the theoretical potential of stablecoins must meet the rigorous demands of real-world banking and regulatory frameworks.