State of Stablecoins

On June 3, media reports indicated that three of the largest payment companies — Stripe, Visa and Mastercard — are sponsoring a new stablecoin platform expected to launch in the near term; Coinbase is reported to be considering participation. The companies declined to comment. The initiative enters a market of approximately $325B, in which Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC) hold a combined share of roughly 80%.

Direct entry by the networks that process the majority of global card payments moves stablecoin issuance from a niche crypto segment into mainstream settlement infrastructure. For businesses, the implication is that stablecoin rails are acquiring distribution at the scale of Visa, Mastercard and Stripe — the layer at which mainstream payments and stablecoins now visibly converge.

At the Visa Payments Forum on June 10, Visa reported the expansion of its stablecoin-settlement pilots across regions, blockchains and currencies: the annualized run rate of such settlement on VisaNet reached approximately $7B as of March 2026; seven-day settlement is being extended to acquirers; and stablecoin-linked card programs exceeded 160 (live and in development). Visa also announced AI-commerce tools developed with OpenAI. Earlier, on June 3, Mastercard enabled continuous (24/7) issuer–acquirer settlement in stablecoins (USDC, RLUSD, PYUSD, USDG, USDP, SoFiUSD) across eight blockchains; early participants include CBW Bank, Cross River, Lead Bank and Nuvei, beginning in the US and Latin America.

The two global card networks are concurrently moving stablecoins from pilot status into a standard settlement layer. For corporate treasuries and B2B payments, settlement in stablecoins becomes a default option within existing card infrastructure — continuous, cross-border and near-instant.

JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, together with settlement operator The Clearing House, are preparing a shared tokenized-deposit network scheduled to launch in the first half of 2027. According to media reports, more than a dozen additional large banks are assessing the initiative, including BNY, BMO, Citizens, Fifth Third, HSBC, Huntington, KeyBank, PNC, Regions, Santander, TD and U.S. Bank. Internally, the project is described as a “bridge” and a “chain” connecting deposits with blockchain settlement.

This constitutes the banking sector’s direct response to stablecoins: rather than ceding settlement to private issuers, the largest US banks intend to offer programmable, continuous settlement within the regulated banking perimeter, using tokenized deposits that remain bank liabilities. It is the defining “banks versus stablecoins” development of the month and the context for this entire issue.

Early Warning Services — the operator of Zelle, owned by seven US banks (Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorgan, PNC, Truist, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo) — announced its own dollar stablecoin, ZelleUSD (ZLUSD), intended for international transfers. India is the first corridor (person-to-person remittances), with in-app availability planned by the end of 2026. The network’s scale: more than 150 million users, 2,400 banks and credit unions, and $1.2 trillion in annual payment volume.

ZLUSD is effectively the first major multi-bank stablecoin in the United States — a counterpart to Europe’s Qivalis. The owner banks are issuing a stablecoin directly and deploying it in remittances, a segment historically served by Western Union and MoneyGram. The initiative provides strong confirmation of the “major banks as issuers” trend and a representative cross-border use case.

Japan advanced on two fronts. On June 10, the three megabanks — MUFG, SMBC and Mizuho — agreed to issue a joint yen stablecoin (launch by March 2027, through a trust structure, on Progmat and Datachain infrastructure, under Project Pax). On June 25, the FSA admitted a foreign dollar stablecoin for the first time: Ripple’s RLUSD was approved as a “Type 4” electronic payment instrument under the revised Payment Services Act (in force since June 1) and launched through SBI VC Trade. Circle and Nomura are also reported to have agreed to develop a USDC settlement service for Japanese corporations.

Japan’s market is developing along two parallel tracks: a domestic yen token issued by the largest banks, and regulated access for the leading dollar stablecoins. The FSA’s equivalence test establishes a regional template for admitting foreign stablecoins — a relevant benchmark for cross-border scenarios across Asia.

A coalition of 47 South Korean and European banks with approximately $10 trillion in combined assets, together with Chainlink, launched Project Pangea for near-instant settlement in euro and won stablecoins. The coalition comprises Korea’s UniKA consortium and Europe’s euro-stablecoin consortium Qivalis (37 banks). The model is atomic Payment-versus-Payment, reducing counterparty and settlement risk in the approximately $150B Europe–Korea trade corridor. Pangea operates as middleware above SWIFT/ISO 20022 with settlement on a dedicated Layer-1 network; the objective is live transactions within a legal framework within 12 months.

Project Pangea is a rare instance of stablecoins — including euro-denominated tokens — applied to actual foreign-exchange settlement between regulated banks rather than to crypto trading. Cross-border arrangements of this type, combining banks and stablecoins on atomic settlement, are the core subject matter of Behind the Peg.

On June 16, State Street Investment Management launched the Stablecoin Reserves Money Market Fund (ticker SSCXX), designed specifically for issuer reserves: a Rule 2a-7 fund holding only GENIUS-eligible assets (short-term US Treasuries maturing within 93 days, overnight repurchase agreements and cash), with approximately $121M in assets at launch, a yield of approximately 3.51%, expenses of 0.18% and a $15M minimum; Anchorage Digital is the seed investor. On June 25, Invesco (approximately $2.5 trillion under management) filed with the SEC for a tokenized Stablecoin Reserves Onchain Fund on Superstate infrastructure, applying the same 93-day asset-maturity limit.

The largest traditional asset managers are entering the stablecoin reserve layer, following BlackRock and Goldman Sachs: a distinct class of money market funds is forming around GENIUS Act requirements. This institutionalizes the market and reduces risk — a material indicator of maturity for banks and corporate treasuries operating with stablecoins.

On June 18, the Federal Reserve, together with FinCEN (Treasury), the OCC, the FDIC and the NCUA, proposed the first substantive GENIUS Act rule: “permitted payment stablecoin issuers” must maintain a customer identification program (CIP/KYC) comparable to banking requirements; obligations are limited to direct customer relationships, and the approach is risk-based. Earlier, on June 12, the OCC published draft reporting forms for issuers: a weekly confidential report (issuance, redemptions, reserves, and largest holders by wallet address) and a quarterly report modeled on bank call reports; issuers above $50B are additionally subject to audited annual reporting. Comments on the OCC forms are due by August 11.

The statute is being converted into operational requirements. Issuers are effectively being placed under a quasi-banking regime with bank-grade oversight: KYC, reporting and reserve requirements. For any organization issuing or using stablecoins in the United States, regulatory compliance is now an operational discipline rather than a prospective concern.

Within the same week, the two largest economies moved in opposite directions. On June 22, the US Senate passed (85–5) the “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” prohibiting the Federal Reserve from issuing a digital dollar (CBDC) until December 31, 2030; private dollar stablecoins are explicitly exempted, provided they offer cash-like privacy. The bill subsequently cleared the House and awaits the President’s signature. On June 23, the European Parliament’s ECON committee approved (43–14, with one abstention) the legal framework for a digital euro and mandated the start of trilogue negotiations; the framework provides for online and offline versions, holding limits designed to protect bank deposits, an ECB pilot from 2027 and potential issuance by 2029.

The division is now explicit. The United States is relying on private dollar stablecoins (and the associated demand for US debt); the European Union, on central-bank money in digital form as a defense against “digital dollarization.” The dollar and euro regulatory environments are diverging, and stablecoin strategies will need to be constructed jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

In its 2026 Annual Economic Report, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) issued a categorical assessment: stablecoins fail three key tests of money — singleness, elasticity and integrity (protection against money laundering and sanctions evasion) — and therefore function as an asset but not as fully fledged money. The market stands at approximately $316B, almost entirely concentrated in two dollar tokens. The BIS warns of “digital dollarization” and the erosion of monetary sovereignty but does not advocate prohibition, recommending instead that tokenization be anchored in the banking system through central-bank reserves and tokenized deposits.

The report is the authoritative counterweight in the month’s narrative: as banks and payment networks embed stablecoins, the institution that coordinates central banks maintains that the future belongs to tokenized money anchored in central banks rather than to private stablecoins. It provides the conceptual foundation for the tokenized-deposit initiatives in the US and for central bank digital currencies.

On July 1, MiCA’s transition period expired and the regulation became fully applicable: serving EU clients without a CASP license is no longer permitted. For stablecoins, this confirms the status quo: USDC and EURC (Circle) are authorized, while Tether did not apply for USDT authorization, and licensed venues do not offer it to EEA users. On June 26, the EBA published its MiCA fines methodology: up to 12.5% of annual turnover for ART issuers and up to 10% for EMT issuers (most fiat stablecoins). On June 22, the Bank of England revised its approach to sterling stablecoins: in place of individual holding limits, a temporary issuance cap of approximately £40B per systemic stablecoin, with up to 70% of reserves permitted in short-term gilts and the remainder held in unremunerated central bank deposits.

Europe’s stablecoin framework is transitioning from legislative project to operating regime — with licensing, enforceable fines and competitiveness adjustments (the Bank of England’s revision followed sustained industry pressure). The framework sets the terms for euro and sterling stablecoins — the context for Qivalis, Project Pangea and the digital euro — and defines the compliance baseline for issuers.

The Bank of Russia published a public consultation report, “Stablecoins: Directions for Development in Russia” (comments due September 1, 2026). Key findings: the global market more than doubled in under two years, from $150B (2024) to $318B (2026), with 89% concentrated in dollar-denominated USDT and USDC. The central bank identifies three use cases — crypto-market settlement, cross-border settlement and domestic settlement — and considers cross-border settlement the principal area of potential. Russian law does not define a “stablecoin,” but the issuance and use of digital financial assets (DFAs) with equivalent characteristics for investment and cross-border settlement are not prohibited (draft law No. 1194918-8), while domestic settlement in such instruments is banned; in practice, no such DFAs have been issued to date. The regulator proposes a discussion of dedicated issuance requirements (collateral adequacy, redemption at par, issuer resilience) for cross-border use, while maintaining that lifting the prohibition on domestic settlement would be inadvisable, citing dollarization and monetary-fragmentation risks.

This is the principal Russian regulatory document of the month. The Bank of Russia is delineating a narrow but genuine corridor for stablecoins in Russia — cross-border settlement — while keeping the domestic circuit closed. The report frames any stablecoin scenario involving Russia and its cross-border corridors.