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:

• Tether Launches US-Regulated Stablecoin, USA₮
• MoneyGram Launches Stablecoin App in Colombia
• Google, Amex, Coinbase, PayPal Back AI Payments Protocol
• Product launches, partnerships and regulatory news from Bitso Business, Clara, Figure, Google, Kredete, Kraken, MoonPay, Perena, Stablecore, Zelle and more.

Got feedback or suggestions? Reply to this email, find Chuk and Stablecon online, or join the Stablecon community on Telegram. P.S. Get your tickets for Stablecon 2026 

Want to sponsor a newsletter? See our sponsorship information here.

🏆 Top Stories

Tether Launches US-Regulated Stablecoin, USA₮

Tether announced USA₮, a planned U.S.-regulated, dollar-backed stablecoin that will comply with the new GENIUS Act. The token will be issued via Anchorage Digital Bank, with reserves held at Cantor Fitzgerald, and led by CEO-designate Bo Hines, a former White House crypto advisor. USA₮ is positioned as the compliant counterpart to Tether’s flagship USDT, which holds a $170B market cap (60% market share) and powers global payments across emerging markets.

Why it matters:

This is Tether’s defensive pivot into U.S. regulation, designed to safeguard market share and counter Circle’s USDC in its home market.

• Regulatory Catch: Offshore USDT may opt not to comply with the GENIUS Act. A domestically regulated option gives Tether direct access to the U.S. market, which is strategically critical given the tailwinds of GENIUS.
• Leadership Play: Appointing Bo Hines, a politically connected former White House crypto advisor, helps Tether reframe its image. After years of criticism over transparency and reliance on gray-market volumes, Tether now fields a U.S.-issued stablecoin with establishment leadership to challenge Circle’s regulatory positioning.
• Strategic Goal: Reinforce dollar hegemony onchain by marrying USDT distribution and global availability with a US compliant token.

The U.S. is the most important stablecoin market, and Circle currently leads here. For the largest issuer globally, entry was inevitable. USA₮ also reframes a long-running question: what comes first, regulation or distribution? If Tether succeeds, it will reinforce the pattern seen with Uber and other fintechs, that scaling and network effects matter most, and compliance can follow. 

The open question is how USA₮ will coexist with USDT. Liquidity, wallet integrations, and partner adoption will determine which coin wins which use cases. Tether could even link the two, offering 1:1 conversions for USDT or leaning on exchange relationships for listings, to accelerate adoption. 

The brand, capital (after years or profitability), and network are in place, but competition is intensifying. Expect a bifurcation where different stablecoins dominate different contexts depending on liquidity depth, compliance needs, and utility.

MoneyGram Launches Stablecoin App in Colombia with Crossmint, USDC, Stellar

MoneyGram unveiled a new mobile app that lets users receive, store, and spend USD-backed stablecoins, starting in Colombia. The rollout uses USDC for settlement, Crossmint for wallet infrastructure, and Stellar for blockchain rails. Recipients can hold USDC to hedge peso depreciation, cash out at 6,000+ local outlets, and soon link debit cards or earn on deposits. 

Why it matters:

This is a landmark shift for a legacy remittance giant, bringing stablecoins directly into the consumer experience at scale.

• Scale and distribution: MoneyGram moves $42B annually and serves 50M+ users in 200 countries. Over time, millions of users and billions of flows could tap into stablecoins through Crossmint non custodial wallets. 
• LATAM beachhead: Colombia is a top inbound remittance market where peso depreciation (–40% in 4 years) makes USD savings highly attractive.
• Send dollars, convert on demand: Remittance receivers can choose to hold their funds in USD or in local currency, enabling saving in dollars without banks.

Remittance is evolving, from fiat-to-fiat exchanges into direct value transfer. With stablecoins, senders can simply move dollars, leaving recipients in control of when and how to convert. That shift offers flexibility, a stronger store of value, and direct utility for USD-denominated services. It also could move billions in FX spread revenue downstream, from remittance firms to wallets and neobanks. Getting ahead of this shift is key, and Moneygram aims to own the downstream wallet.

What makes this move particularly interesting is that remittance incumbents are usually cast as the ones to be disrupted by stablecoins. Instead, MoneyGram is on the front foot, using its brand, trusted distribution, and 400,000+ cash-out locations to give customers choice. Recipients can still take local currency for bills, but they can also store savings in dollars via stablecoins. This is a huge shift in the remittance market and a real benefit to citizens in volatile-currency economies. 

Execution will be complex, but the strategy is clear: start with remittances as the wedge, win user trust, then expand into broader financial services. MoneyGram is reinventing itself into a consumer stablecoin super-app, and this is just the first step.

Google, Amex, Coinbase, PayPal Back AI Payments Protocol

Google unveiled the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), a new open standard that allows AI agents to securely transact on behalf of users and merchants. Backed by more than 60 partners—including American Express, Mastercard, PayPal, Coinbase, Revolut, Salesforce, and Intuit—AP2 establishes a universal framework for agent-led payments across cards, bank transfers, and stablecoins. It uses cryptographically signed mandates (digital contracts) to prove user intent and authorization, creating a verifiable audit trail.

Why it matters

Agentic commerce is moving from concept to infrastructure, and AP2 is the industry’s first serious attempt at a common rulebook.

• New paradigm: Payments today assume a human click-to-buy. Agents break that assumption, requiring a shared protocol for trust, authorization, and accountability. By embedding verifiable credentials, AP2 provides banks and merchants a defensible way to manage fraud, disputes, and compliance in agent-led transactions.
• Stablecoin inclusion: With Coinbase, MetaMask, and others extending AP2 to crypto (e.g. x402), stablecoins gain a clear path to become native money for agents.
• Ecosystem coordination: The scale of support (Amex, Mastercard, PayPal, Revolut, Worldpay, etc.) makes AP2 the closest the industry has come to a unified standard, avoiding the fragmentation that dogged earlier payments innovation.

AP2 appears less about Google owning the rails and more about creating the trust layer that lets AI agents become real economic actors. This could accelerate new commerce models (delegated shopping, autonomous procurement) and force incumbents to align with open protocols rather than proprietary rails.

📺 Money Code Podcast 

Is Tempo Libra 2.0? Money Code Podcast Episode 1 is live! 

We’ve launched a podcast! It’s been a fun ride to start this and I’m excited for the conversations we’ll have. But what is Money Code about and why did we start it? 

TLDR: Technical insight from builders to help startups and enterprises make better decisions.

Our mission is to equip builders at startups, enterprises, and financial institutions, with the context and technical insight to make better strategic and product decisions around stablecoins and onchain finance.

Stablecoin Adoption Needs Understanding, Not Just Awareness and closing knowledge gaps is key to bridging that gap. This is one way we’ll do that.

In the inaugural episode of Money Code, I spoke with Simon Taylor (Fintech Brainfood, ex-11FS, Sardine, now Head of Market Development at Tempo) alongside my co-host Raj Parekh (Monad) to decode one of the most talked-about launches in stablecoins and payments.

Tempo, the Stripe- and Paradigm-backed blockchain, is positioning itself as a compliance-ready, performance-oriented payments chain. But is it Libra 2.0, or something very different?

We covered:

• Simon’s origin story → from Barclays R&D and Ethereum meetups to 11FS, Sardine, and now Tempo.
• The core trade-offs in payments blockchains: speed vs. decentralization, distribution vs. neutrality, compatibility vs. innovation.
• Why neutrality is a spectrum (Kinexys → Robinhood L2 → Tempo → Ethereum).
• Why TradFi hasn’t adopted public chains yet: privacy, KYC, backward compatibility.
• The coordination problem inside banks (and how closing knowledge gaps is key to adoption).
• How agentic payments (AI agents paying each other) could become a killer use case.
• Simon’s bold 5-year goal for Tempo: single-digit % of global payments volume.

Key takeaway: Stablecoins and blockchains aren’t fighting for legitimacy anymore, the question now is which design choices can pragmatically balance distribution power with credible neutrality to bring TradFi onchain.

We would love your feedback! The more constructive the better, there's always room to improve.

Give it a listen and send me a DM or reply 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

Circle responds to Hyperliquid’s stablecoin with investment, native USDC rollout (read more)

Clara and Bitso Business partner to launch stablecoin-backed corporate cards for businesses in Latin America (read more)

Google Teams Up With Coinbase to Bring Stablecoin Payments to AI Apps (read more)

Kraken and Circle expand stablecoin access with USDC, EURC integration (read more)

LitFinancial Introduces Stablecoin on Ethereum to Streamline Mortgage Lending (read more)

Minnesota Credit Union to Launch Stablecoin; Claims to Be First in U.S. (read more)

MoneyGram Makes Stablecoins Front and Center of Its Next-Generation App (read more)

Native Markets team wins Hyperliquid USDH stablecoin bid, eyes test phase 'within days' (read more)

Perena Unveils New USD*: Liquid, Yield-Bearing Dollar Token for DeFi (read more)

Reflect Money Launches USDC+ on Solana Mainnet (read more)

South Korea's first won-pegged stablecoin KRW1 launches on Avalanche (read more)

Tether Unveils USA₮, its Planned U.S.-Regulated Dollar-Backed Stablecoin, and Will Appoint Bo Hines as CEO of Tether USA₮ (read more)

Visa’s Stablecoin Settlement Volumes Hit $1B Run-Rate, Expanding 4x Since Early 2025 (read more)

Zelle exploring stablecoins for retail bank customers (read more)

💸 Fundraises and M&A

Blockchain lender Figure valued at $7.6 billion as shares jump in Nasdaq debut (read more)

Kredete raises a $22M Series A round to expand credit-building infrastructure with stablecoin transfers to Africa (read more)

MoonPay acquires Meso to expand global payments push (read more)

Stablecore Raises $20M to Bring Stablecoins, Tokenized Deposits and Digital Assets into Banks and Credit Unions (read more)

⚖️ Regulatory Developments

Are Stablecoins Really a Risk to Bank Deposits? Coinbase Policy Chief Says No (read more)

Bank of England faces pushback over proposed stablecoin ownership limits (read more)

France, Italy, and Austria are urging the EU to strengthen crypto oversight under the MiCA law, citing major differences in national supervision. (read more)

NY financial regulator urges banks to adopt blockchain analytics to combat illicit activity (read more)

Senate confirms crypto-friendly Stephen Miran to Federal Reserve Board (read more)

UK set to announce closer co-operation with US on cryptocurrencies (read more)

💬 Posts of the Week

📖 Reads of the Week

Mike Cagney, Figure’s co-founder and executive chairman, penned a strategic vision piece arguing that blockchain’s greatest potential is not just in cutting costs through disintermediation but in unlocking new capital market opportunities—bringing liquidity to illiquid assets, enabling real-time bilateral financing, and extending programmable ownership and leverage across asset classes, with Figure aiming to lead this transformation.