From Sibos to TOKEN2049 - Stablecoins Mature as Storytelling Fades

• USDGO, a compliant US dollar-backed enterprise stablecoin, made its DeFi debut, going live for trading on Solana via Jupiter Lend with liquidity provided by Fluid.

• A new BIS working paper finds that stablecoin growth slows when bank deposit rates rise, evidence that stablecoins and bank deposits are partial substitutes.

• Qivalis, backed by 37 European banks across 15 countries, has secured an e-money institution licence from the Dutch central bank and plans to launch a regulated euro stablecoin in the coming months.

Data through October 14, 2026

I. This Week in Stablecoin Payments and Infrastructure

“Banks, exchanges and stablecoin issuers — converging in the next generation of financial infrastructure”

1. USDGO Lands Its First DeFi Use Case Through Jupiter

• What Happened: On October 12, USDGO, a compliant enterprise-grade US dollar stablecoin, added trading liquidity on Jupiter’s automated market maker on Solana, powered by Fluid’s modular liquidity layer. Fluid. This gives USDGO holders a DeFi venue for swaps, USDGO’s first DeFi use case. On the same day, USDGO shared it will integrate with the ClearLoop network of digital asset custodian Copper as an off-exchange settlement and custody asset. Institutional clients can hold USDGO in custody while using it to trade and settle across the venues connected to ClearLoop, without moving funds onto an exchange in advance.

• Why It Matters: The Jupiter and Fluid integration is USDGO’s first step into on-chain DeFi, marking a successful connection between compliant stablecoin infrastructure and the global on-chain liquidity pools of decentralized markets; through liquidity-as-a-service, USDGO brings DeFi users a high-quality compliant asset that is tradable from day one. The Copper ClearLoop integration, in turn, lets institutions deploy capital across multiple exchanges while keeping it in independent custody, without taking on the concentrated custody risk and locked-up capital that trading would otherwise require.

2. FSB Warns the G20 of Gaps in Cross-Border Oversight of Global Stablecoins

• What Happened: On October 12, the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international body that coordinates national central banks and financial regulators, published a letter from its Chair to G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors together with a note on stablecoin regulation. The FSB defines a “global stablecoin” as one with current reach and use across multiple jurisdictions that could become systemically important in one or more of them, and noted that stablecoins are inherently cross-border, that national regulation is advancing at different speeds, that cross-border cooperation remains at an early stage, and that these regulatory gaps leave cross-border vulnerabilities that need closer monitoring. According to an earlier FSB review, only 11 of 28 surveyed jurisdictions had finalized stablecoin regulatory frameworks.

• Why It Matters: The FSB’s warning highlights that, even as a number of jurisdictions have begun legislating stablecoin oversight, there is a serious shortfall at the global cross-border level, with no resolution and cooperation mechanism that markets and regulators can rely on when risks materialize. By speaking up on the eve of the G20 meeting, the FSB aims to put this structural regulatory gap onto the multilateral agenda and open a serious global discussion of the problem.

3. BIS Paper: Stablecoins and Bank Deposits Are Partial Substitutes for Each Other

• What Happened: On October 13, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published a working paper that, using weekly US data from January 2019 to June 2025, compares changes in bank deposit rates with changes in stablecoin market capitalization and finds the two are partial substitutes. By the paper’s estimates, a one-basis-point rise in bank deposit rates is associated with roughly 4.8% less cumulative growth in USDC’s issuance over the following ten weeks, versus about 1.9% for USDT. The authors describe this as the first empirical evidence that bank deposit pricing directly affects stablecoin flows.

• Why It Matters: The paper quantifies the relationship between banks and stablecoins, beyond the assumption that they compete for the same pool of funds. The authors explain that USDC is more tightly tied to US institutional and DeFi users, holders who weigh earning interest on a bank deposit against holding a stablecoin and are therefore more sensitive to rates. USDT, by comparison, is used more in offshore markets and developing economies, where holders are not chasing yield but using it as an inflation hedge and an easily accessible dollar substitute.

4. 37-Bank Consortium Qivalis Secures License to Issue a Compliant Euro Stablecoin

• What Happened: On October 14, Qivalis, an Amsterdam-based company backed by 37 European banks across 15 countries, has been granted an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license by the Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB). The license makes Qivalis eligible to issue euro-denominated electronic money tokens (EMTs). Under its plans, Qivalis intends to proceed over the coming months with the issuance of a regulated euro stablecoin.

• Why It Matters: A euro stablecoin plan backed by dozens of European banks winning a formal license marks a point at which Europe’s banking sector enters the stablecoin market collectively and through a compliant route. Euro stablecoins have been far smaller than their dollar counterparts and have long lacked an issuer led by mainstream banks and spanning multiple countries. By landing an EMI license under the MiCAR framework, Qivalis adds a regulated, bank-backed supplier to the euro stablecoin market.

5. Kraken Parent Payward to Acquire Lithuanian Digital Bank Saldo

• What Happened: On October 14, Payward, the parent company of digital asset exchange Kraken, said it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Finnish holding company Saldo Finance Oy, with the transaction expected to close in 2027 and financial terms undisclosed. The holding company’s subsidiary, Saldo Bank UAB, is a Lithuania-licensed digital bank that received its EU banking license in 2021, offers consumer and business loans as well as term deposits, and can passport across five European markets on a single license. According to the Financial Times, the deal makes Payward the first digital asset company to buy a bank in Europe.

• Why It Matters: Acquiring a licensed bank means Payward extends beyond its exchange business, pulling a bank’s deposit, lending and card payment operations into its own perimeter. The EU banking license and passporting rights give it authorization to operate across multiple countries at once, sparing it the time of applying jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

This Week in Brief

• On October 12, Bybit opened US stock and ETF trading for eligible users outside the United States, covering more than 1,000 US-listed stocks and ETFs, with users funding trades in USDC and buying real shares through US broker-dealer Alpaca.

• On October 13, Ripple announced a partnership with Privy, a Stripe-owned wallet infrastructure company, to bring programmable wallets to the XRP Ledger (XRPL), letting developers build applications using XRP, Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin and other ledger assets, with support for x402 payments aimed at AI agents.

• On October 13, CoinGecko published Institutionalizing Digital Fiat: Stablecoins Under the GENIUS Act and MiCA, reporting that B2B flows account for roughly US$226 billion of an estimated US$390 billion in annualised stablecoin payment volume, with stablecoin-linked cards adding US$1.17 billion a month. Challenger issuers have grown 2.8x to US$15.4 billion since the GENIUS Act, though USDT and USDC still dominate. In Europe, MiCA-compliant euro stablecoins rose roughly 14x, while non-compliant euro tokens collapsed from 87% of euro supply to under 1%. The report also identifies OSL’s USDGO as the APAC play for B2B trade and ecommerce settlement.

• On October 13, Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said on the bank’s earnings call that stablecoin use cases in the United States remain unclear but that the bank is building solutions to be prepared as opportunities emerge; he reaffirmed that the 21-institution consortium the bank belongs to will issue a US dollar stablecoin in the first half of 2027.

• On October 13, Tether announced an investment in the seed round of EFY Finance, a Latin American financial infrastructure company, to accelerate institutional use of USDT and USAT in Latin American markets, with the amount undisclosed. EFY holds a Digital Asset Service Provider license in El Salvador and provides on- and off-ramp, OTC, wallet and card services for USDT and USAT, settling to local accounts in 17 countries, and currently serves more than 25,000 active individual and business accounts.

• On October 14, Polygon Labs completed its acquisition of Coinme, folding its US money transmission network into Polygon’s Open Money Stack with coverage across 48 US states.

• On October 14, the European Banking Authority (EBA) classified Circle’s USDC as the first “significant” electronic money token (EMT) under the EU Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR). From November 12, USDC will be jointly supervised by the EBA and France’s Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR).

II. Analyst Deep Dive

From Sibos to TOKEN2049: Stablecoins Mature as Storytelling Fades

Stablecoins are midway through a shift from narrative to utility.

Miami Beach in late September, Marina Bay Sands in October. Within weeks, the two annual gatherings that best represent the banking establishment and the crypto frontier played out in turn: bankers in suits at one, crypto’s new money in casual wear at the other. In 2025, both put stablecoins at the centre of the programme. A year on, stablecoins seem to have vanished from the main stages, and the two worlds have drifted back onto separate tracks.

That does not mean stablecoins have gone cold. They have gone from headline act to something closer to air: ever-present, and rarely noticed. From everyone’s darling to dull plumbing. They have not left the stage. They are midway through a shift from narrative to utility. Across Sibos and TOKEN2049, the people building them are plainly trying to turn them into the bedrock of our new financial infrastructure.

Banks: Pragmatic but Divided

Inside and around the Miami venue, banks showed a split but highly practical attitude. Reading the main announcements made during Sibos week, one finds that banks have separated stablecoins into two different things: stablecoins as a settlement channel, and stablecoins as an interest-bearing asset.

On the first, banks have stopped resisting and are starting to plug in. On opening day, Citi announced a tie-up with Coinbase that lets institutional clients accept stablecoins at checkout. Behind the scenes, the funds are converted back into fiat through Coinbase and credited to a Citi account. Off the conference floor, Lloyds and Visa completed a live trial in which $750,000 was settled in USDC in under an hour, over a weekend.

Once a stablecoin starts to look like an interest-bearing asset, however, the banks give no ground. Two weeks before Sibos opened, the US CLARITY Act stalled in a procedural vote in the Senate. The sticking point was the right to pay yield on stablecoins. As many as 78 banking trade groups had earlier lobbied jointly, warning that interest-paying stablecoins would become shadow money-market funds that drain bank deposits.

That also explains why this year’s Sibos was not about stablecoins at all, but about blockchain ledgers and Tokenised deposits. Banks no longer lend stablecoins the endorsement of their attention. On stage, they pushed a product that looks parallel to stablecoins but competes with them structurally. SWIFT, the organiser, announced a year after unveiling its plans that at least 19 of the world’s large banks would be trialling its new blockchain ledger by the end of 2026, enabling round-the-clock payments through Tokenised deposits.

The banks’ calculation is clear enough. The efficiency of blockchain rails is welcome, and an outside stablecoin may even be given a connection point. But sovereignty over the ledger that carries core funds will not be handed to crypto companies.

Shovel-Sellers on Every Corner, Buyers Still Thin on the Ground

In Singapore, exchanges still held the most prominent stands. But the most serious business talk in the corridors was driven by payments. Stablecoin booths were the stars of the floor, and issuers no longer had the stage to themselves. All along the chain, from wallets to payment infrastructure, from regional acquirers to cross-border solution providers, players in every niche were pitching visitors their own stablecoin services. In markets such as Latin America and Southeast Asia, where local currencies are fragile and traditional clearing is expensive, payment networks have indeed rolled out stablecoin QR payments across a dozen or so countries. At least one leading wallet reports more than 100,000 users a month spending stablecoins on real purchases.

Pushing into the mainstream commercial system is another matter. A transfer takes three seconds on-chain, so why does the industry feel increasingly cut-throat while the institutions and corporates it is courting seem in no hurry? Put Miami and Singapore side by side and both look like a feast for sellers. The buyer, the one who matters most, has yet to show up.

At Sibos, software vendors were busy laying blockchain connection layers for banks. At TOKEN2049, start-ups were hawking payment-orchestration and compliance tools. Everyone was selling shovels. Oracle, Chainlink, Cosmos and Taurus, a mix of established and new infrastructure providers, all announced integrations with SWIFT’s ledger and with Tokenisation platforms. Meanwhile, new stablecoin brands and purpose-built settlement chains keep appearing. Buyers have more coins to choose from, and little to tell them apart.

On the demand side, corporate treasurers are notably cool. In a 2026 survey by the Association for Financial Professionals, only about 1% of treasury departments were using or piloting stablecoins. In contrast, their interest in Tokenised money-market funds was considerably higher.

Founders keep launching new products, but with little differentiation they are chasing the same customers. And providers hoping to win cross-border payments and large corporate fund transfers will find the real choke points unchanged: fragile banking relationships, the slow, ageing settlement cycles of corporate treasury systems, and strict anti-money-laundering checks and licensing requirements.

Tokenised deposits face a bottleneck of their own. On the opening day of Sibos, SWIFT’s line was still that large banks would begin using their own blockchain networks by year-end. Whether they can break out of a single bank’s walled garden into a genuinely shared settlement layer is another question. Unless SWIFT and the banks can deliver seamless interoperability, they will not persuade multinational companies to switch either.

It is not that companies have no use for cheaper, faster cross-border transfers. But for the finance chiefs who control large sums, shaving a few basis points off fees counts for far less than regulatory compliance, accounting treatment, the safety of funds and the smooth running of their own operational systems.

Infrastructure Built to Go Unnoticed

Stripped of the noise of the two conferences, stablecoins’ exit from the headlines this year is itself a sign of maturity. For those in the business, the days when a new chain and some good storytelling could raise money are over. From here on, who stays at the table will come down to pure grunt work: who can help a company reconcile its books, who can open local banking channels in emerging markets, who can make cross-border stablecoin payments run smoothly, and who can survive the licensing reviews and political horse-trading in the US, the EU, the Middle East and across Asia.

McKinsey estimates that real stablecoin payments reached $390bn in 2025, of which about $226bn were B2B, up 733% year on year. The figures are striking. Set against total global payment volumes, though, ＄390bn is a mere 0.02%. That deserves some reflection. If B2B payments, in theory the big-ticket end of the market, are now growing, why do stablecoins still account for such a negligible share of global use relative to fiat and bank payments? On the other hand, however, while today’s share remains small, its rapid growth points to enormous room for expansion ahead.

A recent CoinGecko analysis shows the newer stablecoins finding their niches. From liquidity on centralised exchanges to trading and settlement in decentralised money markets, from retail payments and transfers to B2B settlement and cross-border trade remittances, the world’s 20 largest stablecoins are diverging in use and market.

For now, they are mostly aimed at the places traditional finance cannot reach: markets poorly served by banks. Becoming truly woven into the banking system, with each side inside the other, is still a long way off. Even so, the binary of “stablecoins will kill banks” versus “banks will ban stablecoins” is out of date. What the market is actually seeing is two forces moving towards each other. Banks are racing to turn deposits into on-chain tokens and are even issuing stablecoins themselves. Stablecoin giants such as Circle, having won a trust-bank licence, are working to play down their crypto roots and are happy to be a clearing rail humming quietly in the background.

Tomorrow’s corporate treasury and payments back office will probably not be dominated by any single form of money. It will be a mix. One corporate digital wallet may hold Tokenised bank deposits for large interbank settlement, compliant stablecoins for high-frequency settlement in emerging markets and at weekends, and the traditional fiat channels. Infrastructure that is invisible, seamless and borderless may be what mature stablecoin solutions finally look like.