As stablecoins edge closer to mainstream adoption, a whirlwind of corporate and legislative activity is reshaping the financial landscape in the United States.
On Thursday, Circle Internet Financial made a stunning debut on the New York Stock Exchange, soaring 168% as investors rallied behind the company that issues USDC—the second biggest stablecoin after Tether.
By Friday, Circle’s stock was up another 38%, underscoring the growing investor appetite for digital assets tethered to fiat currencies.
Jeremy Allaire, Circle’s co-founder and CEO, captured the mood in a Bloomberg interview, declaring, “The world has already woken up to the fact that stablecoin money is here to stay.”
Circle’s eye-catching debut arrives just as lawmakers prepare to pass a bill that could overhaul the $250 billion stablecoin market and redefine how digital dollars are used.
That sentiment now seems to be shared by a widening circle of corporate leaders, policymakers, and financial institutions.
Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin gains traction
Ripple, another heavyweight in the crypto payments space, has quietly expanded its reach.
In December 2024, the company launched RLUSD—a dollar-pegged stablecoin issued on both the Ethereum blockchain and XRP Ledger.
While it initially debuted on select global exchanges, RLUSD has recently gained regulatory approval from the Dubai Financial Services Authority, allowing its use within the Dubai International Financial Centre.
This approval not only integrates RLUSD into Ripple’s licensed payment platform but also authorizes its use by other regulated firms operating in the DIFC.
Ripple’s dual strategy—supporting both crypto-native infrastructure and institutional compliance—highlights the hybrid approach now defining the stablecoin space.
Big banks quietly explore issuing a shared stablecoin
The country’s largest banks—including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo—are reportedly in early discussions to create a jointly issued stablecoin, according to the Wall Street Journal.
These conversations, involving companies like Early Warning Services (the operator of Zelle) and the Clearing House, reflect growing anxiety over losing ground in the rapidly shifting payments landscape.
A unified banking stablecoin would serve not only to preserve incumbents’ influence over the $5 trillion US payments industry but also to compete with emerging crypto-native solutions.
The idea remains in its infancy, but sources say the goal is to develop a token usable across institutions and eventually even outside the banking sector.
Deutsche Bank AG is also examining stablecoins and different forms of tokenized deposits.
Germany’s largest lender is evaluating stablecoin options, which could include issuing its own token or joining an industrywide initiative, Sabih Behzad, Deutsche Bank’s head of digital assets and currencies transformation, said in an interview.
Source: The Block
From Uber to Stripe: tech and fintech players test the waters
The momentum is not confined to banks.
At the Bloomberg Tech Summit in San Francisco on June 5, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi revealed that the ride-hailing company is actively evaluating stablecoins as a cheaper, faster method for moving money globally.
“We’re still in the study phase, I’d say, but stablecoin is one of the, for me, more interesting instantiations of crypto that has a practical benefit other than crypto as a store of value,” he said.
John Collison, co-founder of payments giant Stripe, also told Bloomberg in May that the company had begun early discussions with banks about integrating stablecoins into their services.
PayPal, meanwhile, has already taken the leap: its stablecoin, PYUSD, launched in 2023, was used in its first commercial transaction in 2024 to pay Ernst & Young.
The GENIUS Act: Capitol Hill readies first major stablecoin legislation
Adding fuel to the fire is a major legislative milestone. The GENIUS Act—short for “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins of 2025”—is expected to pass the US Senate within days.
If enacted, it would provide the first comprehensive federal framework for stablecoin regulation, creating clear rules around issuance, reserve requirements, and consumer protections.
Supporters, including crypto industry players who poured significant funds into election campaigns, say the bill would bring much-needed legitimacy to the market and catalyze institutional adoption.
Christian Catalini, founder of MIT’s cryptoeconomics lab, said the bill could trigger competition between Wall Street firms and crypto startups to issue their own stablecoins.
Some lawmakers express concerns
However, not everyone is on board.
Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, has pledged to vote against the bill in its current form, warning that it hands too much financial control to tech firms.
“It’s a huge giveaway to Big Tech,” he told reporters.
Hawley expressed concern that tech companies could issue stablecoins with limited oversight and then leverage them to expand surveillance of users’ financial behavior.
“It allows these tech companies to issue stablecoins without any kind of controls,” he said. “I don’t see why we would do that.”
These are not unfounded fears.
Facebook’s earlier stablecoin project—originally known as Libra and later Diem—died in 2022 after intense regulatory backlash, including from Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell, who cited “serious concerns” about the implications for global monetary policy.
The promise and peril of stablecoins
Despite growing institutional interest, stablecoins are not without risk.
Their fundamental appeal lies in their price stability—most are pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar or other assets.
Yet history has shown that not all pegs hold.
In 2022, TerraUSD—an algorithmic stablecoin—collapsed, wiping out billions in value and sparking a crisis of confidence in the asset class.
“If the assets backing the coin drop in value and the one-to-one peg falls apart, it could cause the equivalent of a bank run,” warned Darrell Duffie, a finance professor at Stanford, in a CNN report.
There are also practical concerns: users losing access to wallets, a lack of transparency in reserve holdings, and security vulnerabilities still haunt the market.
But these concerns have not dulled the enthusiasm of corporations looking to bypass slow, expensive traditional rails in favor of more agile digital payments.
A turning point for money itself
As Circle’s IPO excitement ripples through Wall Street and the GENIUS Act inches closer to becoming law, stablecoins are no longer on the fringes of finance.
They’re fast becoming one of its most consequential innovations.
What began as a speculative experiment in crypto trading is now poised to reshape everything from remittances and business-to-business payments to how we define and distribute money.
Whether powered by banks, tech giants, or crypto-native firms, the stablecoin era is here, and it’s moving fast.
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