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:
Brale launches ION Protocol for cross chain transfers
Money Code Ep 42: NALA Scaled by Owning the Rails w/ Benji Fernandes (NALA)
Product launches, partnerships and funding news from Notabene, Circle, Kraken, BNY, MoonPay, Mubadala Capital, Ondo, Ripple, Tether, Uniswap and more.
Want to master stablecoins and programmable money? Subscribe to our podcast for breakdowns, lessons and insights from the top builders in the space.
For 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
Brale launches ION Protocol to improve blockchain interoperability for custom stablecoins
Brale launched ION Protocol, an interoperability layer that makes moving custom stablecoins across blockchains easier and more capital-efficient. ION applies the burn-and-mint model used by Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) to custom stablecoins issued by Brale. Brale attests each transfer, removing the need to seed a liquidity pool, a capital-intensive alternative. ION is live in limited alpha on testnet, and Brale says it plans mainnet before year-end.
Why it matters:
The stablecoin stack has made issuance cheap. There are 10+ white-label stablecoin issuers and a growing list of branded stablecoins. ION targets the next constraint: moving a growing number of branded coins across chains without tying up capital in every route.
But interoperability cannot create demand. The stablecoin still needs an owned customer loop, workflow integration, or balance strategy that gives users a reason to hold and move it. Scaling a stablecoin isn't cheap, and distribution (owned customers, flows, balances) is critical to grow adoption. That's why many branded stablecoins start off in (or are focused solely on) walled gardens.
ION is infrastructure for reducing the friction of building and scaling custom stablecoins, a problem that will become more relevant as more branded coins launch. The burden of adoption still sits with the brand.
📺 Money Code Podcast
Ep 42: NALA Scaled by Owning the Rails w/ Benji Fernandes
Stablecoins only work as far as the local rails let them. In emerging markets, the operator with distribution, licenses, and liquidity gets to build products everyone else can only pitch.
Benji Fernandes started NALA as a remittance business for diaspora customers, then built Rafiki after reliability became the constraint. The episode gets into how that consumer volume opened the door to B2B infrastructure, local wallets, and stablecoin settlement.
We decode
The reliability trap: why partner APIs and bank integrations forced NALA deeper into the stack
The off-ramp problem: why stablecoin settlement still needs local licenses, liquidity, and payout rails
The earned TAM: how remittance flow creates the liquidity base for Rafiki, local wallets, and local-currency stablecoin ideas
Give it a listen and share your feedback by sending me a DM or replying to this email.
Money Code is presented by Stablecon and Powered by BVNK
Subscribe on Apple, Spotify and Youtube, or search Money Code wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to follow Money Code on X (@moneycodepod) and LinkedIn.
Read on for a round up of this week's news:
📊 Market Trends
💸 Fundraises and M&A
🚀 Product Announcements & Partnerships
Bank of the Philippine Islands to launch stablecoin remittances with Meridian (read more)
BNY targets $8.6 trillion transfer agency market on blockchain rails (read more)
Brale launches ION Protocol to move custom stablecoins across blockchains without prefunded liquidity pools (read more)
Brazilian farmers tokenized dairy cows to get loans, bypassing bank lending limits (read more)
Cecabank and Crédit Mutuel join Regulated Layer One as the tokenization platform launches (read more)
Flow Traders Partners With Lombard and Cap to Access On-Chain Stablecoin Credit (read more)
KB Kookmin Bank to launch cross-border corporate payments on JPMorgan's Kinexys (read more)
Kraken parent Payward partners with GTN to scale xStocks internationally, beyond US equities (read more)
LayerZero and Keeta enable tokenized commercial bank deposits across Ethereum, Solana and Base (read more)
Marex, Flow Traders and eight firms join Tokenet digital asset lending platform (read more)
MoonPay and Tempo Announce Ecosystem Partnership to Power Stablecoin Payments (read more)
Mubadala Capital tokenizes private markets fund (read more)
Nairobi Securities Exchange partners with Tether to explore tokenization and USDT settlement (read more)
Ondo Unveils the Ondo Network: High-Speed, Privacy-Focused Execution Layer for Open Financial Markets (read more)
Ripple Launches 'Ripple Mint' to Automate Institutional RLUSD Stablecoin Operations and Liquidity Management (read more)
Russia’s largest bank Sberbank plans crypto trading infrastructure by December (read more)
South Korea trading giant puts receivables onchain in tokenization test with LG CNS (read more)
Tether’s GENIUS-compliant USAT stablecoin launches on Celo, marking first expansion beyond Ethereum (read more)
Uniswap pushes deeper into tokenized assets with permissioned trading pools (read more)
⚖️ Regulatory Developments
BlackRock, Fidelity, other Wall Street giants back the Clarity Act (read more)
Clarity Act expected to miss its window before Congress' summer break, leadership says (read more)
Goldman Sachs CEO backs Clarity Act despite banking industry's concerns over stablecoin rules (read more)
Russia’s central bank drafts first rules for ‘organized’ crypto trading (read more)
Securitize expands regulated platform with SEC adviser license (read more)
Wise plans to resubmit national trust bank application under GENIUS Act framework (read more)
🍻 Upcoming Events
Wednesday 12 August, New York: Stablecon Salon - August Mixer
💼 Stablecoin Jobs
Search 1,000+ jobs across 60+ stablecoin related companies. Filter by stage, category, region and remote.