SEI is making a bold pivot—from ghost chain speculation to becoming a genuine payments layer for real-world commerce.

Here's what's happening on the ground: SEI's wallet comes preinstalled on roughly 168 million Xiaomi devices annually. That's massive reach, particularly when you consider it covers about 13% of global smartphone users outside the US and China. Not an afterthought market.

The infrastructure is already live. But the real catalyst? Q2 2026 brings USDC payments directly to 20,000 Xiaomi retail stores across Hong Kong and the EU. Imagine walking into a store and settling purchases with blockchain-native stablecoins—no intermediaries, instant settlement.

This isn't vaporware. This is infrastructure meeting consumer friction at scale. The question shifts from "Will blockchain reach mainstream payments?" to "Why haven't you noticed it already?"