News about stablecoins

Deutsche Bank plans to extend its crypto custody service to Asia in 2027, with a German launch expected within weeks but still subject to regulatory approval. The initial offering will support bitcoin, ether and stablecoins USDC, EURC and EURAU, with the bank managing clients' wallets and private keys so corporate and institutional clients can hold and transfer crypto. The bank also plans stablecoin conversion, tokenized deposits and digital bond issuance services, as part of a target of roughly 8% compound annual revenue growth in its corporate bank from 2025 to 2028. It received BaFin authorization under MiCA on October 12 and has worked with Bitpanda and Taurus, joining rivals such as Standard Chartered and BBVA in offering crypto custody.

Crypto prices are recovering after a year-long slump: as of Oct. 16, Bitcoin was up 28% over three months, while Solana gained 40% but remained 65% below its all-time high from last year, trading around $105. The author argues this decline does not reflect Solana's ecosystem growth, as the chain generated more fees than any other network over the past 30 days, its stablecoin supply hit an all-time high of $16.5 billion, and it ranks third in tokenized asset value. Samsung named Solana as a partner for USDC access through Samsung Wallet, and Securitize launched tokenized versions of 12 U.S. megacap stocks on the chain. The author also notes risks, including dependence on crypto sentiment, a 2025 peak driven by meme coin activity, and uncertain adoption, but considers Solana worth a closer look for investors willing to take on risk.

According to blockchain analytics firm Allium, stablecoin supply barely grew this year, reaching about $305 billion by end-September (up 0.4% year to date), while stablecoin payments hit $482 billion in the first nine months, up 45% from a year earlier. The number of payments rose 71% to over 1 billion, and stablecoin-linked card spending reached $3.9 billion, ten times the prior year's level, with purchases under $50 accounting for 84% of the increase in card transactions. This week, Mastercard launched its Global Money Platform with BVNK, Stripe partnered with Plasma on multi-currency cards, and Visa said Inyo Global became the first provider to use Visa Direct's stablecoin prefunding service commercially. Still, only $2.4 trillion, or 2.5%, of $97.9 trillion in raw stablecoin transfers was classified as end-user activity, and stablecoin cards accounted for just 0.03% of Visa's $4 trillion in second-quarter payment volume.

According to DeFiLlama, Solana holds $15.5 billion in U.S. dollar stablecoins as of October 17, 2026, while Ethereum has about $143.9 billion, roughly 9.3 times larger. Yet SOL fell 6.5% over the past week to $103, and U.S. spot Solana ETFs have recorded net outflows in every session since October 5, totaling $54.9 million through October 16. The article argues stablecoin balances do not directly indicate SOL demand, since parked dollars, concentrated holdings and minimal network fees make the link weak. Solana ETF net assets fell from $1.96 billion on September 25 to $1.62 billion by October 16, though total net inflows still stand at $1.56 billion. The Alpenglow upgrade, scheduled for mainnet activation on October 21, aims to cut transaction finality from 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds, but traders may already have priced it in.

A new BIS working paper using US data from 2019 to 2025 finds that when banks raise deposit rates, stablecoin market growth slows. Over a typical 10-week span, stablecoin market capitalisation grew about 15%, but a one-basis-point rise in deposit rates cut that to roughly 12% under the baseline estimate and about 6% under a method designed to isolate cause and effect. The authors exploited the fact that banks rarely raise savings rates until the federal funds rate passes about 3%, and the link was stronger for Circle's USDC than for Tether's USDT. They say regulators should weigh whether stablecoin issuers can pay holders yield, and note the paper reflects the authors' views, not necessarily the BIS's.

Circle Internet Group paid $819 million to more than 150 partners distributing USDC in the first half of 2026, according to Circle president Kash Razzaghi, in a payment that works like revenue sharing from the reserve income behind USDC. The payment encourages partners to keep USDC as their default dollar token, though Circle did not disclose how the amount is split among them. As of October 18, Ripple's RLUSD had a market cap of around $2.4 billion versus $72.3 billion for USDC, and about $58 million in 24-hour trading compared with $8.4 billion for USDC. Ripple is narrowing the gap through integrations such as Cross River Bank's service, which is limited to some U.S. states and carries no exclusive terms or volume guarantees. XRP was trading at about $1.30, down 6.9% over the past week.