Citi, Goldman Sachs and other major global banks and asset managers are teaming up on a new stablecoin venture, bringing some of the biggest names in traditional finance directly into the digital-money race. The initiative is particularly significant because it is being driven by established financial institutions rather than crypto-native companies. A bank-backed stablecoin infrastructure could potentially support faster settlement, cross-border payments and new forms of programmable financial transactions. The participation of major asset managers also points to interest beyond payments, with tokenized assets and institutional finance becoming increasingly intertwined. The move comes as banks around the world experiment with tokenized deposits and other blockchain-based forms of money.
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Stablecoins in Europe
Three forces have converged in the last year and a half: the geopolitical environment has made stablecoins strategically necessary, the legal framework has gone from theoretical to operational, and the unit economics now beat the incumbent rails.
The geopolitical environment has changed. With the war in Ukraine entering its fifth year, the dollar openly weaponized through sanctions, and tariff escalation between the US, China and the EU, holding USD on a US bank rail is no longer a neutral choice for European corporates: it carries jurisdictional risk. In emerging markets where local currencies have lost 20 to 60% versus the dollar (Turkey, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria), stablecoins have become a plausible savings instrument. The result is a structural pull on euro-denominated, MiCA-compliant stablecoins as a sovereign alternative to USD on-chain.
MiCA is no longer a theoretical framework, but a fully established system. Two years in, the first cohort (Circle EURC, SG–Forge EURCV, Monerium EURe, Angle agEUR) has been joined by AllUnity EURAU, StablR and Quantoz, all operating under EMI licenses from BaFin, the ACPR, the AFM and the CSSF. EUR stablecoin supply has grown roughly 5x since 2024, and for European corporates a euro stablecoin is now treated the same way as a euro IBAN. The US caught up in 2025 with the GENIUS and STABLE acts.
The use-case economics have flipped. Settlement on Ethereum, Solana, Base and Stellar is fast and cheap enough that a €50 cross-border transfer costs cents and settles in seconds. Tether, Circle and Paxos collectively manage over $250B in reserves yielding ~4.5%, which fuels their aggressive product expansion. On real corridors (EU–MENA, EU–LATAM), B2B settlement now clears at 30 to 80 bps versus 200-400 bps through correspondent banking. For a treasurer running weekly payroll, the switch pays for itself in one cycle.
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💳 Payments
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🏦 Banking
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💼 Fintech
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Singapore Commits S$220M to Fintech Innovation
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🪙 Crypto
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Solana Treasury Firm Eyes $20M Raise to Buy More SOL
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📈 WealthTech
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⚖️ Regulation
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