Welcome to another edition of the Money Code newsletter by Stablecon.
Driving this week’s news: Agora, Bastion and Catena received preliminary conditional OCC approval for national trust bank charters.
I think we’re watching a new generation of banking-as-a-service take shape. For years, embedding finance has meant finding a sponsor bank and building around what its systems could support.
Agora and Bastion are bringing stablecoin issuance, custody and payments together, with a path to providing those services as national trust banks themselves.
Sony Bank is already working with Bastion. The opportunity is to combine programmable money that moves across borders with the regulated counterparties large businesses need and (eventually) direct access to Fed rails.
A charter doesn’t guarantee a Fed master account; that still requires separate approval. But put these pieces together and you have more firms competing to provide the financial infrastructure businesses build on. I think we’re underestimating what that competition could do for the cost and quality of embedded finance over the next five years.
This goes far beyond stablecoins and I don’t think the market has quite caught on to the implications.
Read on for a round up of this week's news including product launches, partnerships and funding updates from Atum, Circle, dtcpay, USD.AI, Agora, Coinbase, Hana Bank, NYSE, SoFi, X and more.
For feedback or suggestions, reply to this email, find Chuk and Stablecon online, or join the Stablecon community on Telegram.
Save €700 on Stablecon EMEA before 9 October - Get Your Ticket
Next stop: Lisbon! Stablecon EMEA will be bringing 1,000+ payments leaders back to Europe in sunny Lisbon on April 14th and 15th, 2027.
Get your tickets before October 9th to save €700
Stablecon EMEA
📊 Market Trends
💸 Fundraises and M&A
Atum exits stealth with $13.5 million to launch open payments network (read more)
Binance invests $100,000,000 in $USDC issuer Circle. (read more)
Stablecoin payments firm dtcpay closes $25 million Series A with SBI Group investment (read more)
MoonPay to acquire SEC-registered North Capital in $60 million all-stock deal (read more)
S&P Global Announces Agreement to Acquire OpenZeppelin (read more)
🚀 Product Announcements & Partnerships
Agora and Iris bring USDi settlement and dollar reserves to telecom operator VIVA (read more)
Altitude Expands Global Payment Rails to the UK, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia (read more)
Canada's six largest banks explore a shared Canadian-dollar tokenized deposit system (read more)
Circle launches Bitcoin-backed USDC borrowing for eligible institutional clients (read more)
Coinbase adds fixed-rate Bitcoin-backed USDC loans through Morpho Midnight (read more)
Coinbase and Stablecore bring stablecoin and digital asset services to community banks and credit unions (read more)
ECB launches Pontes and prepares to invest its own funds in tokenized securities (read more)
Gnosis Pay consolidates 15+ vendors into one API for Visa card launches (read more)
Hana Bank issues South Korea’s first digital bond using Euroclear’s blockchain (read more)
HIFI Integrates Anchorage Digital Infrastructure to Enable Native Stablecoin Settlement on Regulated Banking Rails (read more)
Morpho launches stock-backed loans using Coinbase tokenized stocks on Base (read more)
NYSE and Blockchain.com sign MoU for access to tokenized US stocks and ETFs (read more)
Ondo Finance Launches In-Kind Conversion, Letting Institutions Convert Underlying Shares Directly Into Tokenized Stocks (read more)
Partior and LSEG DiSH develop 24/7 cross-border settlement-liquidity framework (read more)
Partners Group’s $1 Billion NGI+ Infrastructure Strategy Goes Live on Pendle (read more)
Prometheum, HashKey and Velocity Capital plan international distribution of DTC tokenized stocks (read more)
Reap plans Mexican peso stablecoin support for round-the-clock FX settlement (read more)
SoFi begins stablecoin settlement on Mastercard network for program expected to exceed $25 billion in annualized volume (read more)
WisdomTree and MoonPay Collaborate to Expand U.S. Access to Tokenized Funds and to Support Stablecoin Reserves (read more)
X adds Cashtag links for U.S. users to trade stocks and crypto through partner brokerages (read more)
⚖️ Regulatory Developments
Agora Receives Preliminary Conditional Approval from the OCC (read more)
Bastion receives preliminary conditional OCC approval for a national trust bank charter (read more)
Catena receives preliminary conditional OCC approval for a national trust bank built for AI agents (read more)
Coinbase seeks CFTC approval to list U.S. single-stock perpetual futures (read more)
DOJ Probing Binance Over Potential Iran Sanctions Violations (read more)
Hong Kong plans wholesale CBDC for year-end interbank settlement and tokenized government-bill tests (read more)
RedotPay secures its first US state lending licenses in Idaho and Nebraska (read more)
SEC introduces innovation exemption for tokenized securities venues (read more)
US Weighs Initiative to Promote Dollar-Backed Stablecoin Abroad (read more)
💼 Stablecoin Jobs
Search 1,000+ jobs across 60+ stablecoin related companies. Filter by stage, category, region and remote.