Welcome to another edition of the Money Code newsletter (fka The Weekly Stable), the essential source of stablecoin news coverage for global fintech professionals, brought to you by This Week in Fintech and Stablecon.
This week we cover:
Kraken Receives Fed Skinny Master Account
Update on stablecoin yield discussions
Money Code Ep 22: Stablecoins Aren't for Americans w/ Ayo Omojola
Product launches, partnerships and funding news from ARQ, Barclays, Bridge, Circle, Crossmint, Dfns, Eco, Moonpay, Paxos, PayPal, Ripple, SoFi and more.
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🏆 Top Stories
Kraken Wins Fed Master Account, Banks Push Back
Kraken Financial, the Wyoming-chartered bank arm of crypto exchange Kraken, received a limited-purpose Federal Reserve master account approved by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. That gives Kraken direct access to core Fed payment rails like Fedwire, reducing reliance on intermediary banks (and the delays, costs, and de-risking risk that come with them).
Why it matters
This is “institutional adoption” at the plumbing layer. It creates direct access to the
Payments moat shifts: Direct Fed connectivity can make Kraken a cheaper, faster USD gateway for crypto and stablecoin flows, especially for institutional settlement.
Blueprint for non-deposit “payment banks”: A limited account model expands the design space for payment-first institutions that are not built around deposit-taking and lending, which is exactly what incumbents fear.
Debanking backstop: A Fed master account reduces the “Operation Choke Point” failure mode where lawful but politically disfavored sectors get quietly pressured off bank rails, because access no longer depends on a small set of correspondent banks willing to keep the relationship.
Stablecoin Yield Fight Escalates, Clarity Act Stalls
Washington’s stablecoin debate is increasingly about one question: should third-party platforms (exchanges, wallets, fintechs) be allowed to pay rewards/yield on stablecoins, and if they do, does that activity deserve bank-style regulation?
The GENIUS Act already blocks issuers from paying interest directly, but the gray area is whether platforms can offer rewards on top of fully reserved coins like USDC. That issue flared up this week and is now a core obstacle for the broader CLARITY Act market-structure bill.
What happened this week (late Feb to March 4):
Feb 26: In a Senate Banking hearing, bank voices (continued to) warn yield could accelerate deposit outflows; crypto advocates pushed back that large-scale deposit flight has not materialized.
Feb 25: The OCC published a GENIUS implementation proposal that tightens the “no yield from issuers” rule, including a rebuttable presumption if an issuer routes payments through an affiliate/related third party that then pays holders.
March 3: Jamie Dimon argued that paying rewards on stablecoin balances is functionally deposit-taking and should trigger full bank-style obligations.
March 3–4: Trump publicly attacked banks for delaying CLARITY over yield, while White House adviser Patrick Witt rejected Dimon’s framing, arguing the real bank-like risk is lending/rehypothecating customer funds, which GENIUS restricts for payment stablecoin issuers.
Where things stand now: negotiations continue, but CLARITY is still stuck largely on the yield question, and the OCC proposal has opened a formal comment process that could shape how “rewards” programs are structured.
📺 Money Code Podcast
Ep 22: Stablecoins Aren't for Americans w/ Ayo Omojola
Americans don't feel payments as broken - and that blind spot is why most of the industry is missing the real opportunity.
Ayo Omojola built banking at Cash App, where the team learned one lesson over and over: the ceiling was always higher than anyone modeled. Now a GP at Refract, he argues stablecoins have the same dynamic - except borderless.
We decode
The wealth flight thesis - why Ayo believes stablecoin demand is structurally underpriced, and what Cash App's growth trajectory reveals about the ceiling
What Ayo calls the "Jamie Dimon problem" - and the framework for when incumbents actually lose to startups
Why the strongest use case for stablecoins has almost nothing to do with payments - and where non-USD stablecoins find their foothold
Give it a listen and share your feedback by sending me a DM or replying to this email.
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Read on for a round up of this week’s news:
📊 Market Trends
DTCC, Clearstream and Euroclear co-author paper pushing for digital ledger interoperability as crypto scales (read more)
The market cap of assets issued by Paxos surpassed $8 billion, up over 500% YoY. (read more)
💸 Fundraises and M&A
JPYC raises $12m Series B as mainstream investors back yen stablecoin (read more)
New York Stock Exchange owner values crypto exchange OKX at $25 billion in new partnership (read more)
Sequoia, Founders Fund Back $70 Million Raise for Latam’s ARQ (DolarApp) (read more)
Tether Invests in Axiym to Advance Digital Asset Use Cases Across Global Payment Ecosystems (read more)
🚀 Product Announcements & Partnerships
Barclays Considers Blockchain Platform for Payments, Deposits (read more)
Circle launches nanopayments for AI agents (read more)
Crossmint Partners with Western Union to Support USDPT Stablecoin and Digital Asset Network on Solana (read more)
DFNS launch payouts (read more)
Eco introduce Programmable Addresses to improve multichain interoperability (read more)
Germany's AllUnity issues regulated stablecoin tied to safe haven Swiss franc (read more)
Grant Cardone plans to tokenize his firm's $5 billion real estate portfolio (read more)
MoonPay unveils AI onramp for brave new agent economy (read more)
MoonPay, M0 and PayPal launch PYUSDx, enabling developers to create app-specific stablecoins backed by $PYUSD. (read more)
Ripple expands payments platform into end-to-end stablecoin infrastructure as processed volume tops $100 billion (read more)
SBI Holdings unveils trust bank-backed JPYSC stablecoin with Q2 launch target (read more)
SoFi and Mastercard partner to enable SoFiUSD settlement (read more)
Telegram crypto wallet unveils yield for Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT holdings (read more)
Visa and Bridge plan stablecoin-linked card expansion to over 100 countries (read more)
⚖️ Regulatory Developments
Bank of Japan to test blockchain-based reserve settlement (read more)
JPMorgan says crypto market structure bill could be approved by mid-year and serve as positive catalyst in second half (read more)
Kraken Becomes First Crypto Firm to Win Access to Fed’s Core Payments System (read more)
Morgan Stanley files for bank charter to custody crypto (read more)
Tether taps Deloitte for first USAT reserve report (read more)
Trump urges passage of U.S. Clarity Act, attacks banks for 'undercutting' GENIUS (read more)
Zerohash seeks national trust bank charter from OCC (read more)
🍻 Upcoming Events
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💬 Posts of the Week
📖 Reads of the Week
Tourists in the bazaar: Why agents will need B2B payments — and why stablecoins will get there first
