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

This week we cover:

• Ripple Raises $500M at $40B Valuation from Citadel, Fortress, and Others
• Product launches, partnerships and regulatory news from Apollo, Banco Inter, Binance, Chainlink, Citi, Coinbase, Cybrid, Flutterwave, Franklin Templeton, Rain, Revolut, Ripio, StraitsX, U.S. Bank and more.

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🏆 Top Stories

Ripple Raises $500M at $40B Valuation from Citadel, Fortress, and Others

Ripple secured a $500 million strategic investment at a $40 billion valuation, from a high profile group of investors including Fortress Investment Group, Citadel Securities, Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital, Brevan Howard, and Marshall Wace. The raise caps a record period of expansion marked by over $3B in acquisitions across payments (Rail - $200M), treasury (GTreasury - $1B), custody (Metaco, Standard Custody, Palisade), and prime brokerage (Hidden Road - $1.25B). Ripple now reports $95 billion in payment volume, $1B RLUSD stablecoin market cap, and 75 global licenses.

Why it matters:

Ripple’s is transforming into an institutional powerhouse, with a valuation that now surpasses Circle’s $30B market cap, despite Circle’s larger stablecoin float ($70B) and multi-billion-dollar revenue base. That discrepancy likely reflects how investors view Ripple, not just as payments company, but as a strategic bet on its $80B XRP holdings and full-stack stablecoin strategy.

Ripple has transformed itself from a token-driven payments story into an institutional crypto infrastructure provider, combining stablecoin issuance, custody, treasury, and settlement under one umbrella.

• Embedded asset value: The $40B valuation likely prices in Ripple’s $80B XRP treasury, which continues to vest and fund operations.
• Acquisition-driven moat: Buying mature businesses has given Ripple instant market share, regulatory reach, and credible revenue lines.
• Legitimacy boost: Backing from Citadel, Fortress, and Brevan Howard cements Ripple’s status as a regulated, institution-grade player.

Say what you will about how it got here, Ripple has the capital, partners, and customers to become a dominant force in the stablecoin payments ecosystem. They have firepower for more acquisitions as well as to provide necessary liquidity to their prime brokerage and payments operations, they now need to integrate these acquisitions into a cohesive machine, with RLUSD and XRP at the centre.

This will be the challenge, if so much of the valuation is dependent on the future value of XRP, how can Ripple ensure that value accrues to the XRP token if the star player is RLUSD? This will be top of mind for XRP holders and equity holders alike, but Ripple have the runway to figure it out.

📺 Money Code Podcast 

Money Code: Lessons from the Frontlines of Digital Money

Have you listened to our new podcast Money Code yet?

We’ve hosted some of the sharpest builders and operators in stablecoins, payments, and fintech across Web 2 and Web 3 to break down key aspects of the space.

Across seven episodes, a clear story is emerging: stablecoins are becoming the new global money layer (invisible, interoperable, and increasingly essential to modern finance) but there’s still a lot of work to do.

If you’ve missed it here are some key highlights and takeaways so far:

💬 Episode Highlights

• Tempo — Simon Taylor: Building a Stripe-era L1 designed for compliance, sub-second finality, and AI-driven agentic payments. → Lesson: TradFi wants open rails — but privacy and KYC must be native.
• Rain — Farooq Malik: Combining Visa’s global reach with stablecoin settlement 24/7/365. → Lesson: The hybrid card-plus-crypto model bridges trust and innovation.
• BVNK — Chris Harmse: How BVNK scaled to $20B in annualized volume by abstracting blockchain complexity for traditional businesses. → Adoption lesson: Enterprises should start with a simple use case before expanding complexity.
• M0 — Luca Prosperi: Building the base layer for digital money, separating issuance from distribution and creating a shared liquidity network for stablecoins. → Lesson: Everyone wants to control their own dollar — distribution is the new issuance.
• Triple-A — Eric Barbier: Stablecoins as a payments safety upgrade, eliminating chargebacks and pre-funding for global merchants. → Lesson: Compliance and capital efficiency matter as much as speed.
• Plasma — Paul Faecks: Why dedicated payment chains will win on cost, predictability, and user experience. → Big Bet: Payments need purpose-built infrastructure, not general-purpose chains.
• Zepz — Mark Lenhard: Turning remittances into digital dollar accounts for wealth preservation in the Global South. → Lesson: The killer app isn’t speed, it’s financial access and trusted incumbents are well positioned to distribute

🎓 Cross-Cutting Lessons for Builders

1. Abstract everything. The mainstream user doesn’t care about blockchains; they care that it “just works.”
2. Distribution > issuance. Wallets, merchants, and platforms that own user flows will capture the economics.
3. Solve compliance early. Trust and licensing remain the biggest adoption bottlenecks.
4. Hybrid is the future. The winning model blends Web2 reach with Web3 rails — not one replacing the other.
5. Think globally, act locally. From Lagos to London, stablecoins thrive when tied to real user problems: protection, payouts, and purchasing power.

Catch up on all episodes of Money Code and share your feedback/suggestions by sending me a DM or replying to this email. 

Money Code is presented by Stablecon and Powered by BVNK

Subscribe on your favorite channel here: http://moneycode.show

Read on for a round up of this week’s news:

🚀 Product Announcements & Partnerships

Banco Inter, Chainlink Power Real-Time CBDC Trade Settlement Between Brazil and Hong Kong (read more)

Binance Pay Launches Gas-Free Stablecoin Payments (read more)

Coinbase Asset Management and Apollo Partner to Develop Stablecoin Credit Strategies (read more)

Flutterwave Partners with Polygon to Power $31B Cross-Border Payments Across Africa (read more)

Franklin Templeton Debuts Tokenized Money Market Fund in Hong Kong (read more)

KRWQ Launches as First Korean Won Stablecoin on Base (read more)

Latin American Crypto Exchange Ripio Launches Argentine Peso Stablecoin ‘wARS’ (read more)

Rain Joins Western Union’s Digital Asset Network, Bringing Real-World Payment Utility to Stablecoins (read more)

Revolut Introduces Zero Fee Stablecoin On/Off Ramps (read more)

Ripple Raises $500M at $40B Valuation in Fortress-Led Round (read more)

Ripple Teams up with Mastercard, WebBank, and Gemini to Bring Stablecoin Settlement with RLUSD to Improve Fiat Payments (read more)

StraitsX and KASIKORNBANK Launch Cross-Border Stablecoin QR Payments Between Singapore and Thailand (read more)

Stream Finance Halts Withdrawals After $93M Loss by External Fund Manager (read more)

Tangem Launches Global USDC Visa Card with Self-Custody Integration (read more)

Tether’s Annual Profits Top $10 Billion as Treasury Holdings Swell (read more)

U.S. Bank Exploring Stablecoin Integration for Trade Finance Solutions (read more)

VelaFi Enters Japan as Co-Organizer of Stablecoin Settlement Association to Modernize Trade Finance (read more)

Yellow Card Shutting Down Consumer App to Focus on B2B Stablecoin Infrastructure (read more)

💸 Fundraises and M&A

Coinbase Targets $2 Billion BVNK Deal for Fresh Stablecoin Push (read more)

Cybrid Raises $10M to Power Stablecoins for Financial Institutions (read more)

Stablecon and Events Venture Group Announce Strategic Investment and European Expansion with New EMEA Conference in Amsterdam (read more)

⚖️ Regulatory Developments

American Bankers Association and 52 State Banking Associations Urge US Treasury to Uphold GENIUS Act’s Ban on Stablecoin Interest (read more)

Canada to Launch Framework for Loonie-Backed Stablecoin (read more)

Central Banks Need Real-Time Supervision Tools as Stablecoins Challenge Traditional Oversight (read more)

Citi and DTCC Say Tokenized Collateral Works and Now Regulators Must Keep Pace (read more)

Coinbase Urges Treasury to Keep GENIUS Act Rules Aligned with Congressional Intent (read more)

Tokocrypto CEO Endorses National Stablecoin Initiative by Bank Indonesia (read more)

Saudi Arabia Plans to Launch Regulated Stablecoins with Central Bank Backing (read more)

UK Sets Nov. 10 Start for Stablecoin Rules Consultation to Match US Momentum (read more)

ZeroHash Secures MiCA License (read more)

🍻 Upcoming Events

• Friday 7 November, New York: PayFi Meets Bagel
• Wednesday 12 November, Singapore: Stablecon Salon Happy Hour: Singapore vol 2

💬 Posts of the Week

📖 Reads of the Week

JW Verret, Associate Professor of Law at George Mason University wrote a response to the ABA’s letter to extend restrictions on who can pay yield on stablecoins. It is an objective and well argued critique of the ABA’s position. He argues that (1) the ABA’s position is inconsistent with their prior advocacy, (2) that banking regulators lack the statutory authority to regulate affiliates of banks, why would this be different for stablecoin issuers, (3) redefining interest to capture any economic benefit  related to holding stablecoins is unworkable, 

In Ribbit Capital’s Token Letter they argue that stablecoins are merely the first generation of machine-first money: programmable dollars that preview how agents will autonomously transact, manage, and tokenize assets across decentralized networks. We often criticize much of the +$40T stablecoin volume metric as being bot driven, but on the contrary it is early evidence of machine-driven financial systems. The segment outlines how programmable asset standards and tokenized infrastructure will underpin new markets for capital, data, and digital IP. Worth a read for a glimpse at a potential agentic future.

VIDEO: Inside Argentina's $300 Billion Parallel Economy: Stablecoin adoption in Argentina isn't just about hyperinflation, it's driven by government distrust. Broken promises and perverse policies led to a deep rooted behavior of holding $250B+ in cash, outside of a banking system they can no longer trust. Highly recommend watching this great documentary by Justin Norman for a breakdown on what’s really driving stablecoin adoption in Argentina.