Hi stable subscribers, 

Welcome to another edition of The Weekly Stable, the #1 source for stablecoin insights brought to you by This Week in Fintech.

Each week, over 85,000 fintech professionals rely on us for clear analysis, thoughtful perspectives, and steady coverage of the stablecoin space—going beyond the news.

In this week's edition we're diving into non-USD stablecoins given their increasing relevance to the conversation about US dollar stability. There's also a ton of new product launches, partnerships and regulatory progress on the Hill.

Enjoy this week’s news below and let us know about any other feedback/suggestions you have.

(Find us online at @chuk_xyz, linkedin/chuk-okpalugo, @thestablecon and linkedin/stablecon)

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🏆 Top Stories

Beyond the Dollar: Why Non-USD Stablecoins Matter — Even if the Dollar Still Dominates

Amid renewed concerns over the stability of the U.S. dollar, driven by Trump-era tariffs and the prospect of a global trade war, a question is being asked more frequently: What about non-dollar stablecoins?

The logic is sound. If stablecoins are faster, cheaper, programmable, and decentralized, shouldn’t those benefits apply to any currency, not just the dollar?

And yet, the numbers tell a different story: over 99% of stablecoin market cap is USD-based. Even with a wave of new non-USD stablecoins launching across Ethereum, Solana, and other chains, the euro, yen, peso, and other fiat-backed tokens still represent a small sliver of the market — under $500M total vs. $225B+ for USD stables.

So let’s unpack:

• Why non-USD stablecoins should exist
• What’s holding them back
• And why, despite growing interest, the dollar will likely remain dominant

The Case for Non-USD Stablecoins

Stablecoins are fiat currencies wrapped in blockchain functionality. That wrapper enables:

• 24/7 instant settlement
• Borderless, permissionless movement
• Lower transaction costs
• Programmability for financial automation

When extended to other currencies, this unlocks three powerful use cases:

1. On-Chain FX Trading: Crypto rails enable decentralized, always-on FX markets with atomic settlement and tight spreads. This is especially valuable for currencies outside the traditional CLS clearing system, which only supports 18 major currencies — leaving most of the world excluded.

2. Remittances & Cross-Border Payments: With over $800B in global remittance flows, stablecoins have the potential to cut transaction fees from single digit percentages, to single digit basis points, especially when FX and settlement happen on-chain.

3. Domestic Payment Infrastructure: In countries lacking real-time payment systems (unlike UPI in India or PIX in Brazil), local stablecoins can serve as mobile-native, programmable alternatives to cash and inefficient banking.

So Why Is the Dollar Still King?

Because stablecoins aren’t just a technology, they’re a product. And that product, for most of the world, is access to dollars.

The U.S. dollar is still the global reserve currency. It accounts for:

• ~80% of global trade invoicing
• ~90% of FX pairs
• A dominant share of global store-of-value demand, especially in volatile economies

Crypto traders use USD stables to hedge volatility. Institutions use them for dollar exposure. In many countries, they’re the most efficient way to hold dollars at all.

So even if non-USD stablecoins offer better FX, better remittances, and better domestic payments, demand for dollars isn’t going away. It’s foundational, and that’s why USD stablecoins will continue to dominate stablecoin supply.

What Needs to Happen to Drive Non-USD Stablecoin Adoption

There’s growing utility and interest in non-USD stablecoins, but several things still need to change:

• Infrastructure integration: Wallets, custodians, ramps, and oracles must support non-USD stablecoins natively. Token standards make this easy.
• On-chain liquidity: Deep stable-stable pools and efficient FX rails are key. This requires capital and trading demand to drive LP incentives and market maker participation.
• User experience: Wallets and DEXs must support intuitive, currency-like flows, hold, swap, pay, for multiple currencies.
• Regulatory clarity: MiCA in Europe and Japan’s FSA provide early frameworks, but many high-potential regions face restrictions. Clear rules will unlock institutional participation, especially for FX and payments.

Looking Ahead

Momentum is building. Today, stablecoins are issued in over 15 currencies across all major global regions, and the list is growing.

• Europe: Euro backed stablecoins lead, with Circle’s EURC at the forefront, alongside Societe Generale, Tether, Stasis, and Monerium.
• Africa: cNGN, NGNC, cKES
• Asia: XSGD, TRYB, GYEN, IDRX
• Latin America: BRZ, BRLA, MXNe, MXNB
• Other: AUDF, GBPA, CADC
  (See this post for a broader list)

Coinbase is making non-USD stablecoins a top priority on its L2 chain Base, which now supports 10+ currencies with over $40M in supply. Meanwhile, Mento Labs is advancing decentralized stablecoin adoption on Celo, focusing on emerging market use cases.

Non-USD stablecoins won’t replace the dollar, but they have a distinct and valuable role to play. From powering decentralized FX to providing real-time payment rails in underserved markets, they’re poised to become an essential layer of a more global, more inclusive financial system.

Definitely worth watching.

📺 Stableminded Podcast 

"Stablecoins should be seen as financial instruments, not just payment tokens."

Thomas Borgers shares how Walapay is building the bridge between banking and blockchain that could transform how $190T moves across borders.

In just 18 months, they've grown from $1M to $400M in payment volume by:

• Offering a single API that connects bank accounts and stablecoin rails
• Reducing 7-day settlement cycles to minutes
• Transforming idle deposits into yield-generating assets

See how they're enabling fintechs like Decaf to provide dollar access in emerging markets while helping PSPs offer instant settlement.

The future of payments isn't about replacing banking—it's about connecting both worlds.

Stableminded: S3.5 | Walapay ft Tom Borgers

In this episode of Stableminded, This Week in Fintech’s stablecoin-focused series, Drew Rogers sits down with Tom Borgers, co-founder and CEO of Walapay, a money movement infrastructure platform that bridges traditional banking rails with stablecoin networks to enable faster, cheaper cross-border payments through a single API endpoint. Tom brings valuable

This Week in FintechZach Fowler

🚀 Product Launches

Standard Chartered and OKX launch world-leading collateral mirroring programme (read more)

Fido, a DeFi neobank backed by the Alliance accelerator that allows users to earn boosted yield on their savings, announced the launch of their new wallet app (read more)

Ben Milne, CEO of Brale shares their open source tool for stablecoin fund flows and hints at the release of their new stablecoin orchestration APIs (read more and here)

Coinbase opened a waitlist for a new product, Coinbase Business, where business can buy and sell crypto, make and accept payments globally, and earn rewards on USDC (read more)

Stables, a stablecoin wallet app, launches Stables Business, enabling native Web3 businesses to manage payroll, payments and hold stablecoins (read more)

💸 Fundraises

Damisa raises £2.25M from Fuel Ventures and others to simplify escrow services & cross-border money movement with stablecoins (read more)

Resolv, the yield bearing stablecoin protocol, raised $10M, co-led by Cyber Fund and Maven 11 (read more)

⚡ Stablecoin Adoption 

Freemarket, a leading cross-border payments platform and Axiym, a liquidity solutions provider, partner to unlock instant liquidity for businesses. Axiym’s Embedded Liquidity Engine, is built on and supported by Avalanche (read more)

Re Protocol, a DeFi platform that enables yield generation via reinsurance contracts, has enabled Ethena Labs’ stablecoins to be used as reserve assets (read more)

Bullish Exchange partners with Archax to enhance liquidity for stablecoins (read more)

Plasma, the Tether backed stablecoin focused L2 chain, announces their first major ecosystem partnership with Ethena Labs (read more)

Circle partners with Monad, a new L1 blockchain, to make USDC, CCTP V2 and Circle Wallets live on day 1 of the Monad launch (read more)

Bleap has partnered with Mastercard to help further integrate stablecoin payments into traditional financial infrastructure (read more)

Kraken has partnered Mastercard to launch physical debit cards in Europe and the UK (read more)

Russia should have own stablecoins, finance ministry official says (read more)

Worldpay announces stablecoin payments collaboration with ZeroHash (read more)

Japan's second-largest bank SMBC eyes stablecoin launch with Ava Labs (read more)

Capa, a LATAM on/off ramp platform, joins Borderless’ stablecoin orchestration network, boosting connectivity for Mexican businesses (read more)

JPMorgan Adds GBP Support to Its Blockchain Payments Service Kinexys (read more)

⚖️ Regulatory Developments

Trump Makes History Signing First Crypto Bill into Law. The law repeals the IRS’s controversial 'DeFi broker rule' (read more)

SEC suggests exemptions for firms who want to offer trading in tokenized securities (read more)

Fed Chair Jerome Powell reasserts support for stablecoin legislation (read more)

Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott announced that market structure reforms are underway and said crypto legislation will pass by August (read more)

U.S. policy on stablecoins more dangerous than tariffs, Italian minister says. He argues that dollar-pegged stablecoins are attractive to European citizens for cross-border transactions, and that a fragmented payment system may hinder the need for a digital euro (read more)

🍻 Upcoming Events

The Stable Salon - vol. 3 · Luma

Join us for the third edition of the Stable Salon, in collaboration with Will White - NYC’s premier gathering for the stablecoin ecosystem. This monthly…

This Week in Fintech

Stable: A Half-Day of Real World Stablecoin Use-Cases May 5th

Stablecoin curious? Cut through the hype and explore real-world use cases from the leaders using stablecoins today.

💬 Posts of the Week

📖 Reads of the Week

In an opinion piece for Coindesk, MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright discusses the drawbacks of privileging US based stablecoin issuers in stablecoin legislation.

The Stablecoin Paradox is a deep dive into stablecoins and their seemingly paradoxical centralized nature vs decentralized ideals

Singleness of Money and M^0 looks at compatibility and equivalence across stablecoins and the approach that the M^0 protocol is taking to solve this

In Stablecoin Gold Rush: A $200 Trillion Opportunity, Rob Hadick, Partner at Dragonfly Capital, unpacks the stablecoin tech stack and why cross-border payments, savings, and financial infrastructure are being rebuilt from the ground up.