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A $44 billion IPO. A Senate bill with bipartisan momentum. And now, a wave of Fortune 500 firms launching crypto tokens of their own. Stablecoins — once a niche corner of the cryptocurrency world — are entering the corporate and policy mainstream, potentially reshaping how money moves in the United States and around the world. "Many of the users out there today are not aware of stablecoins, or not interested in stablecoins, and they should not be," said Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal's SVP of blockchain, crypto and digital currencies. "It should just be a way in which you move value, and in many cases, is going to be an infrastructure layer." For corporations, stablecoins are an opportunity to slash millions in transaction fees and turbocharge payment infrastructure with instantaneous settlement.
Stablecoins 'mature'
USDC issuer Circle's long-awaited public debut exposed a wave of pent-up demand for digital dollars as investors sent the stock soaring as much as 750% in June. Partnerships, and competition, quickly followed. Coinbase announced a deal with e-commerce platform Shopify to bring USDC payments to merchants. Payments firm Fiserv announced a stablecoin to pair with the 90 billion transactions it processes every year. "We're entering the utility phase right now, where the technology has matured. It's gotten fast, it's gotten cheap," said Jesse Pollak, head of base and wallet at Coinbase. "It's gotten easy to use, and that's leading to real-world adoption across businesses and consumers." Base is Coinbase's Ethereum layer-2 network, designed to make blockchain applications faster, cheaper, and more accessible to developers and users. Merchants are a particular focus for stablecoins, as payment processing fees for these businesses totaled a record $187.2 billion in 2024, according to the Nilson Report. Payment companies are looking to fend off potential disruption by stablecoin issuers.
Stablecoins in payments
Mastercard this week announced support for four stablecoins on its Multi-Token Network. The private blockchain is targeted toward institutions and promises 24-hour settlement. Visa's CEO told CNBC the payment processor is modernizing its infrastructure with the help of stablecoins. "Visa and MasterCard are leaning into the disruption," said Nic Carter, founding partner at Castle Island Ventures. "They're trying to disrupt themselves, so they seem to be ahead of the curve." JPMorgan took a slightly different approach to the crypto token boom on Wall Street. The financial giant launched a token backed by commercial bank deposits rather than U.S. dollars. JPMorgan's Naveen Mallela, global co-head of Kinexys, the bank's blockchain unit, told CNBC the JPMD token would allow for round-the-clock settlement for institutional clients looking for faster, cheaper transactions while staying connected to the traditional banking system.
Stablecoins in D.C.