Welcome to another edition of The Weekly Stable, the leading source of stablecoin insights, analysis and news coverage for global fintech professionals, brought to you by This Week in Fintech.

This week we cover:

• Monad Foundation’s acquisition of Portal
• JP Morgan's less bullish $500B stablecoin market estimate
• Tension in Europe over stablecoins
• Product launches, partnerships and regulatory news from Airwallex, Ant Group, BNY Mellon, Circle, Coinbase, JD.com, JP Morgan, Perena, Ripple and more.

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🏆 Top Stories

Monad Acquires Portal to Lead in Onchain Stablecoin Payments

The Monad Foundation has acquired Portal, a stablecoin infrastructure provider powering millions in daily stablecoin settlement. Portal will remain an independent entity under Monad but gain access to its high-throughput , EVM compatible, Layer 1 blockchain, which is nearing mainnet launch. Portal founder Raj Parekh, previously at Visa, will become Monad’s Head of Payments and Stablecoins.

Why it matters: This deal reflects two converging trends: stablecoins becoming crypto’s defining use case and the rise of infra consolidation to accelerate that adoption.

• Strategic vertical integration: Monad adds production-ready stablecoin rails to its ecosystem ahead of mainnet, enabling real usage from day one.
• Go-to-market acceleration: Portal’s customer base spans fintechs and emerging-market use cases like payroll, remittances, and neobanking—key targets for stablecoin adoption.
• Infrastructure maturation: Portal built plug-and-play SDKs that abstract away blockchain UX pain points; Monad solves scalability and cost. Combined, they form a near full-stack payments platform.
• Clear role alignment: With Parekh leading ecosystem strategy, Monad positions itself as a purpose-built chain for stablecoin issuers, wallets, and fintechs.
• Industry signal: One more datapoint in the ongoing M&A wave consolidating stablecoin payments infra (e.g., Stripe+Bridge/Privy, MoonPay+Iron).

Consolidation is happening in both directions. Platforms like RobinHood, Coinbase, Kraken and OKX have launched their own chains and are verticalizing downwards to the infrastructure. Meanwhile, the chains themselves are making acquisitions and partnering to move upwards to provide value-added capabilities linked to their ecosystems.

JP Morgan Less Bullish on Stablecoins, sees $500B Market by 2028

JP Morgan projects the total stablecoin market will reach only $500 billion by 2028, sharply diverging from more bullish outlooks by Citi ($1.6T–3T), McKinsey ($2T–$4T), Standard Chartered ($2T) and even the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee ($2T). The bank attributes 88% of current demand to crypto-native activity, with payments accounting for just 6%.

Why it matters: This is the most conservative stablecoin forecast from a major financial institution, offering a critical counterpoint to prevailing optimism. JP Morgan’s skepticism hinges on structural barriers:

• Low real-world usage: Stablecoins remain mostly confined to crypto trading, DeFi collateral, and treasury.
• Friction in fiat ramps: Payment use cases face cost and UX hurdles compared to improving fintech rails.
• Lack of yield: Users have little incentive to shift funds from interest-bearing deposits to stablecoins.
• Misleading comparisons: JP Morgan rejects analogies to e-CNY or Chinese superapps, citing their centralized, fiat-based nature.

JP Morgan was a lead underwriter for Circle’s IPO, giving them deep access to management and detailed insights for their initiating coverage report. Notably, they opened with an “Underweight” rating and an $80 price target—well below Circle’s current ~$200 valuation. While JP Morgan speaks positively about Circle’s team and the broader market opportunity, they remain skeptical that the GENIUS Act will unlock exponential growth without resolving core frictions around payments, yield, and trust.

A $500B cap implies only modest CAGR and dampens expectations for stablecoin-led disruption in global payments—especially if usage stays tied to crypto market cycles. Still, this is just one data point in a sea of bullish projections. It’s a valuable counterweight, and worth considering when forming your own thesis.

My take: JP Morgan likely overstates the impact of on/off-ramp friction and lack of yield. Infrastructure and compliance are improving quickly, and yield isn’t central to many real-world use cases (like B2B payments). In practice, distributors will find creative ways to pass yield back to users.

I believe there are several credible paths for stablecoin market cap to reach the trillions. I’ll be sharing more of that analysis on X and LinkedIn next week—follow along to catch it.

ECB Warns Against Stablecoins as SocGen Urges Embrace

ECB President Christine Lagarde has renewed warnings about stablecoins, calling them a threat to “monetary sovereignty” and pressing for urgent global regulation. In contrast, former ECB board member and current Société Générale Chair Lorenzo Bini Smaghi argued in the Financial Times that stablecoins are a technological breakthrough Europe must embrace or risk falling behind. SocGen, the first systemic bank to issue a euro-denominated stablecoin (EURCV), has only €41M in circulation but sees strategic value in early participation.

Why it matters: This public split between the ECB and top European banking figures reveals a deeper strategic rift over the future of digital money in Europe.

• ECB views stablecoins as a threat to policy control and is fast-tracking the digital euro, modeled on China’s CBDC.
• Smaghi warns that failure to support euro stablecoins will push users to foreign assets, undermining EU sovereignty anyway.
• Regulatory Catch: While MiCA enables stablecoin issuance, cultural resistance and a fear of disrupting legacy profit centers are holding back banks.
• SocGen’s call is more than self-interest—it’s a push for Europe to lead on tokenized finance, not just react to it.
• US stablecoins dominate global usage (99%+); without euro alternatives, European capital markets risk long-term marginalization.

Read on for this week’s headlines

🚀 Product Announcements & Partnerships

MiniPay and Noah debut seamless global-to-local stablecoin payments (read more)

Circle and OKX launch zero-fee USDC conversions to US dollar (read more) 

Coinbase launched a new Onramp API product, enabling native experiences for in app crypto purchases (read more)

Crypto Exchange Bullish Teams Up With Solana for Institutional Stablecoin Push (read more)

VNX Expands to Base L2 and Launches Three New Non-USD Stablecoins  (read more)

Jack Ma-Backed Ant to Add Circle’s Stablecoin to Global Platform (read more)

Russian State Giant Rostec Plans Ruble-Pegged Stablecoin, Payment Platform on Tron (read more)

BNY Mellon will have custody of Ripple’s new stablecoin as institutional interest in crypto swells (read more)

💸 Fundraises and M&A

Perena announces the close of a fresh funding round with select institutions — alongside an oversubscribed Echo Round (read more)

Ondo Finance is acquiring SEC-regulated broker Oasis Pro to launch tokenized stocks in the U.S., pending regulatory approval. (read more)

Ondo, Pantera Capital to Invest $250M in Real-World Asset Projects (read more)

Monad Foundation acquires stablecoin infrastructure project Portal (read more)

Agora has raised a $50 million Series A round, led by Paradigm (read more)

⚡ Stablecoin Adoption 

Korean stocks filing stablecoin trademarks jump 15-30% in stablecoin frenzy (read more)

Investors pile into tokenized Treasury funds (read more)

Solana and Fireblocks Selected by Japan’s Minna Bank for Stablecoin Use Case Study (read more)

JD.com, Ant Group Push for Yuan-Based Stablecoins to Counter Dollar Rule (read more)

JP Morgan Sees Stablecoin Market Hitting $500B by 2028, Far Below Bullish Forecasts (read more)

Airwallex builds stablecoin team despite CEO’s apparent skepticism (read more)

Embedded Compliance Fuels $5.6 Billion Tokenized Treasury Boom (read more)

Bernstein says an 'equity tokenization wave' is coming, despite the Robinhood–OpenAI controversy (read more)

Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin hits $500 million market cap within seven months of launch (read more)

⚖️ Regulatory Developments

ECB President Christine Lagarde Defends Digital Euro Ahead of October’s Launch (read more)

Bank of England eyes stablecoins for wholesale payments, tokenization (read more)

SocGen Chair, ex ECB board member urges EU to embrace stablecoins (read more)

House GOP declares 'Crypto Week' for mid-July to consider the GENIUS stablecoin bill and Clarity crypto market structure legislation (read more)

U.S. House Ditching Its Stablecoin Bill to Back Trump's Choice From Senate (read more)

Korea’s central bank lobbies for further role in stablecoin oversight (read more)

Over 40 Firms Prepping for Hong Kong Stablecoin License Applications (read more)

Australia's central bank advances Project Acacia to test CBDCs, tokenized asset settlement (read more)

Dubai Sets RWA Milestone With First Approval of Tokenized Money Market Fund (read more)

💬 Posts of the Week

📖 Reads of the Week

In Preparing For Mass Adoption | Stablecoin Chapter 2, @poopmandefi contends that stablecoins are entering a new era of mass adoption—driven by regulatory clarity from the Genius Act, institutional infrastructure readiness, and urgent demand from emerging markets for faster, cheaper payments, while challenges like fragmented yield strategies, compliance tooling, and thin on-chain FX liquidity remain critical hurdles to address.

In Internet Capital Markets, Helius contends that Solana is laying the groundwork for a global, permissionless financial system where capital formation and investment become internet-native—driven by tokenized equities, inclusive regulatory proposals like Project Open, and platforms such as Opening Bell, xStocks, and Gavel that enable seamless asset issuance and ownership, while skeptics caution that legacy financial structures and fragmented regulation may hinder mainstream adoption.

In Europe needs to shrug off fear and embrace stablecoins, Lorenzo Bini Smaghi (chair of Société Générale and a former member of the executive board of the European Central Bank), calls for the end of irrational fear of stablecoins. Embracing innovation and change, rather than trying to block it, is the key to success in global markets.