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:
Western Union ships onchain treasury settlement via Anchorage and Fireblocks
Mastercard and JPMorgan Kinexys settle the first cross-bank tokenized US Treasury redemption with Ripple and Ondo Finance
Ep 31: Kirill Gertman on Conduit's stablecoin spaghetti taco
Product launches, partnerships and funding news from a16z, Bakkt, BNY Mellon, Bullish, DTCC, Haun Ventures, Kraken, MoonPay, OpenTrade, SoFi and more.
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🏆 Top Stories
Western Union Ships Treasury Settlement Onchain
Western Union has gone live with onchain treasury settlement, starting in the Philippines and Bolivia. The stack pairs Fireblocks for custody and policy, Anchorage as the regulated issuer of USDPT, Dynamic wallets for agents holding the stablecoin, TRES for reporting, and Solana as the ledger. USDPT settles between WU and its agents in dollar-scarce markets, with consumer wallets and retail payouts to follow.
Why it matters:
Treasury is where stablecoins hit first for any money transfer operator. WU is treating stablecoins as plumbing under its existing remittance network, with consumer-facing products to come later.
Treasury before retail. WU is starting with B2B settlement between itself and its agent network. That is the inverse of how most stablecoin launches work, and the right order for an incumbent with an existing remittance footprint.
Dollar-scarce corridors are the unlock. Bolivia and the Philippines are markets with constrained USD access via correspondent banking. They’re tackling the low hanging fruit first.
TRES is the standout move. TRES wraps onchain activity in SWIFT MT940 and MT942 reporting formats, so WU's finance teams keep the workflow they already have.
The agent network is the next test. WU's strength is its semi-independent agent network. How quickly these agents incorporate USDPT into their own operations will decide how well this scales.
Mastercard and JPMorgan Enter the Institutional Off-Ramp Game
Ondo Finance, Mastercard, JPMorgan's Kinexys, and Ripple completed a pilot in which a tokenized OUSG redemption on the XRP Ledger triggered a fiat payout to Ripple's Singapore bank account via JPMorgan's correspondent banking network. Mastercard's Multi-Token Network routed the payout instruction to Kinexys, which debited Ondo's blockchain deposit account and pushed the dollars through existing correspondent rails. The asset leg settled on XRPL in under five seconds; the cross-border fiat leg moved in near real-time outside traditional banking hours.
Why it matters:
Until now, tokenized-asset off-ramps ran through stablecoins and crypto-native counterparties. While it’s just a pilot, Mastercard and JPMorgan just demoed the institutional alternative.
Off-ramping as an institutional product. Institutions trust Mastercard and JPMorgan. Stablecoin issuers, exchanges, and crypto-native bridges require institutions to onboard new counterparties and integrate new compliance workflows. MTN and Kinexys land off-ramping inside the relationships institutional treasuries already have.
The issuer can stitch the off-ramp instead of building it. Stablecoin issuers like Circle and Tether built their own banking partnerships, settlement workflows, and treasury operations to off-ramp customers to fiat. The pilot points at a different path: an issuer holding JPMorgan blockchain deposit tokens uses Mastercard's MTN and JPM's correspondent network as a shared layer. Issuers can plug into the rail rather than building one.
Reach is bounded by JPMorgan's correspondent network. The press release does not specify which Singapore bank received the funds, or how the last mile cleared. Singapore has 24/7 settlement rails, and the cross-border leg landed outside banking hours. Many corridors will not have that setup but JPM’s reach is likely wide enough for most institutional use cases.
📺 Money Code Podcast
Ep 31: It's Not Stablecoins vs. Banks. It's Stablecoins With Banks. w/ Kirill Gertman
Everyone calls it a "stablecoin sandwich": fiat in, stablecoin settle, fiat out. Kirill Gertman says it's a spaghetti-filled taco, and you only find out which noodles work by operating on the ground.
As co-founder and CEO of Conduit, Kirill has built stablecoin payment rails across Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, learning which chain, which stablecoin, and which local bank works for each corridor the hard way.
We decode
The spaghetti taco: why chain selection, local liquidity, and on/off-ramp mechanics make cross-border stablecoin payments far messier than the pitch deck version
"Designed to move, not to hold": the non-USD stablecoin model that actually works, and why Kirill went from skeptic to believer
The T-shaped thesis: why the winners won't be banks or crypto companies alone, but the ones who specialize and stay open
Give it a listen and share your feedback by sending me a DM or replying to this email.
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Read on for a round up of this week's news:
📊 Market Trends
💸 Fundraises and M&A
a16z crypto raises $2.2 billion for fifth fund and promotes CTO to general partner (read more)
Bakkt completes all-stock acquisition of stablecoin and agentic-payments firm Distributed Technologies Research, restructures around three business lines (read more)
Bullish acquires Equiniti for $4.2 billion to combine traditional transfer-agent infrastructure with tokenization stack (read more)
Coinbase doubles down on Centrifuge investment, taps platform as Base's main tokenization partner (read more)
Haun Ventures raises $1 billion for AI and crypto funds, expands to AI agents (read more)
Kraken to acquire stablecoin payments firm Reap in $600 million deal (read more)
Mastercard discloses $1.5 billion BVNK acquisition price with up to $300 million in earnouts in Q1 10-Q, deal expected to close by year-end (read more)
MoonPay acquires Solana trading infrastructure platform in $100 million all-stock deal (read more)
OpenTrade raises $17 million to expand stablecoin yield infrastructure to real-world assets (read more)
SBI Holdings plans stake in crypto exchange Bitbank to build digital asset powerhouse (read more)
Standard Chartered takes stake in GSR at $1 billion valuation (read more)
🚀 Product Announcements & Partnerships
Anchorage Digital and JPMorgan Asset Management launch tokenized instrument to power stablecoin reserves on Solana (read more)
Anchorage Digital launches agentic banking, partnering with Google Cloud to build infrastructure for AI agents to transact and manage funds (read more)
Anchorage Digital and M0 partner to power the next wave of US-regulated stablecoin builders (read more)
BNY Mellon, the world's largest custody bank, expands crypto services in Abu Dhabi (read more)
Circle and Lighter form strategic partnership to position USDC as primary stablecoin (read more)
Coinbase launches Coinbase Stablecoin Yield Fund (CUSHY) with Superstate, including tokenized share class (read more)
Corpay adds blockchain settlement rails via JPMorgan's Kinexys and BVNK (read more)
DTCC plans tokenized securities platform with July pilot, October launch (read more)
FIS launches Project Keystone, a bank-owned digital tokenized money network, with Citizens, Fifth Third, Huntington, KeyBank, and M&T as inaugural participants (read more)
Kraken eyes IPO as MoneyGram partnership enables crypto-to-cash conversion across 500,000 retail locations (read more)
Mastercard, JPMorgan's Kinexys, Ripple, and Ondo Finance bridge public blockchain with interbank settlement rails (read more)
Mastercard and Yellow Card partner to expand stablecoin payments across EEMEA (read more)
MoonPay launches stablecoin debit card for AI agents on Mastercard network (read more)
Polygon introduces private stablecoin payments via Hinkal integration for institutions and businesses (read more)
Rain becomes a Mastercard Principal Member at $1.95 billion valuation, plans to issue cards and explore stablecoin settlement (read more)
Slash Financial rolls out stablecoin-powered Global Cards on Visa for international businesses (read more)
SoFi to launch its stablecoin on Solana, citing speed and cost for payments (read more)
Solana and Google Cloud launch stablecoin payments service for AI agents (read more)
State Street and Galaxy Digital launch tokenized fund to bring cash management onchain (read more)
Tetra Digital Group launches CADD, Canada's first CAD-backed stablecoin issued by a financial institution, with Shopify and National Bank of Canada among backers (read more)
Western Union launches USDPT stablecoin on Solana, advancing regulated digital infrastructure for global payments (read more)
⚖️ Regulatory Developments
BlackRock urges OCC to drop tokenized reserve cap and expand eligible assets in GENIUS Act comment letter (read more)
Brazil bans crypto and stablecoin settlement for cross-border remittances through retail focused eFX licence (read more)
CLARITY Act compromise preserves stablecoin rewards while shielding bank yield (read more)
FINRA green-lights Securitize for tokenized IPO underwriting and custody (read more)
White House targets July 4 for CLARITY Act passage, says crypto adviser Patrick Witt (read more)
💼 Stablecoin Jobs
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📰 Post of the Week
📖 Reads of the Week
In "Stablecoin and LATAM Fintech Remittance — Why Most Fintechs Are Reading It Wrong", Claudia (Pay/Card/Fiat at Bybit) presents six months of on-the-ground research that flips the standard LATAM playbook. Mexico is plateauing while Central America surges 20%+, the typical sender is 50 sending to mom, and the stablecoin balance itself is the product (Argentina runs over 70% stablecoin in retail crypto purchases). Pair it with this issue's Western Union story to see corridors and incumbents moving at the same time.