PayPal, Coinbase, Cloudflare... Who’s NOT Building a Stablecoin? 😮

Welcome back to PayFi Weekly by Transak.

Stablecoins are having a main character moment. Citi came up with a mind-boggling prediction that the stablecoin market cap would grow to be as big as the entire crypto market cap as it stands today!

And European banks now want to launch a stablecoin. Yes, the folks who argued over ‘deposit erosion due to stablecoins’ now want to launch one. Hypocrisy, realization or FOMO? Wel’ll let you be the judge of that.

Let’s get into it.

💱 Stablecoin Snapshot

What if stablecoins became as common as credit cards?

Citi predicts the stablecoin market could balloon to $1.9 trillion in a typical scenario, and even reach a staggering $4 trillion in a bull case… by 2030. That’s just about 4 years away!

Today, stablecoins already settle over $18 trillion a year, and the supply is way past the quarter-billion marker, with no signs of slowing down. And Citi isn’t talking about memecoins here. Their report suggests the real inflection point will come when tokenized bank deposits and regulated stablecoins work in tandem, blurring the line between traditional and decentralized finance.

Explore the full report

Banks won’t get disrupted out of existence. They’ll get reprogrammed.

⚖️ Regulation

🇫🇷 Bullish Europe became the first exchange to list Société Générale‑Forge’s MiCA‑licensed USDCV. USDCV and its sister EURCV are classed as e‑money tokens in the EU, free to transfer under MiCA. 👉 Read more on Cointelegraph

🇺🇸 FRNT (formerly WYST) launched on Avalanche and is legally governed by Wyoming law, requiring 102% backing via short‑duration U.S. Treasuries/dollars. 👉 Learn more

🇰🇿 Kazakhstan has launched a pilot stablecoin, Evo (KZTE), pegged to the Kazakhstani tenge and built on Solana, in partnership with Intebix, Eurasian Bank, and Mastercard under the country’s regulatory sandbox. Mastercard will help link KZTE with global stablecoin issuers. 👉 Read more

🌍 Adoption

🏦 Nine major European banks (including ING, UniCredit, and CaixaBank) plan to launch a MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin by H2 2026 to rival U.S.-backed tokens. It will operate under a new Dutch-licensed entity. 👉 Read more

🛜 Plasma has launched Plasma One, a stablecoin-native neobank for emerging markets, combining USDT savings, payments, and DeFi yields in one app. It targets the underbanked with zero-fee transfers and local cash access. 👉 Read more

🛠 Tech & Partnerships

☁️ Cloudflare is developing “NET Dollar,” a US dollar–backed stablecoin for AI agent transactions. It’s made for global interoperability, real‑time settlement, and integration into services. 👉 More here

💥 PayPal USD (PYUSD) has been integrated into Spark’s DeFi lending protocol and currently holds over $135 million in deposits. 👉 Full article

💰 Coinbase Ventures led a $14.6M funding round in Bastion, a startup offering white‑label stablecoin issuance infrastructure. Backers also include Sony, Samsung, a16z, and Hashed. 👉 Read more

🌍 Everything Else

🔵 Circle is considering making USDC transactions reversible (i.e., allowing rollbacks) as a way to appeal to traditional financial institutions, reduce fraud/chargebacks, and facilitate institutional adoption. 👉 More via Decrypt

💹 Hyperliquid’s USDH stablecoin has launched, issued by Native Markets following a competitive bidding process. 👉 Full piece

💌 Like our content? Share it across! PayFi Weekly by Transak