Stablecoins Go (Even More) Mainstream

Jona Jaupi & Olivia Capozzalo
October 29, 2025

gm, Defiers!

Today’s big story:

Big financial players — including Citi and Zelle — aren’t just testing the waters with stablecoins anymore – they’re jumping right in.

In other news:

Truth Social unveils Truth Predict
Augur prepares to fork
Tokenized Nasdaq futures surge on Hyperliquid
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📈 Markets in the Past 24 Hours

TICKER	VALUE	24H
Bitcoin	$112,423	-3.00 %
Ethereum	$3,979.72	-4.38 %
XRP	$2.63	-0.93 %
BNB	$1,105.62	-3.34 %
Solana	$199.47	-1.44 %

Banking and Payments Giants Dive Headfirst Into Stablecoins

TradFi’s growing interest in stablecoins is turning into big moves, and just the past few days alone have been busy.

As we covered in yesterday’s newsletter, Western Union plans to launch its own dollar-backed stablecoin, USDPT, on the Solana blockchain, which has $13.7 billion in total value locked. The token will be issued by Anchorage Digital Bank and is expected to go live in the first half of 2026.

But Western Union is far from the only financial giant to reveal its stablecoin strategy in the past few days alone.

Citi and Zelle

On Monday, centralized crypto exchange Coinbase and Citigroup (two giants in their respective fields) teamed up in the hopes of making crypto payments feel a little more… normal. The partnership aims to help Citi’s institutional clients use stablecoins and other crypto to move money faster, all without abandoning traditional banking systems.

It pairs Coinbase’s digital asset infrastructure with Citi’s massive global payments network, which spans 94 markets and more than 300 clearing systems. Last month, Citi projected that stablecoins could reach $1.9 trillion in issuance by 2030 as its base case, and up to $4 trillion in a bullish scenario.

And the momentum isn’t stopping there: Zelle, the payments app owned by seven of the largest U.S. banks, said on Friday it is exploring stablecoin-powered international transfers.

For Zelle, which has so far kept payments U.S.-only, this could mark a major expansion. By utilizing stablecoins, the network could tap into crypto’s speed and cost efficiency while staying inside regulated banking rails.

In terms of the broader convergence of TradeFi and crypto, this week also saw WisdomTree — an asset manager focused on providing institutional-grade exposure to crypto — announce that it is partnering with BNY Mellon as its core banking-as-a-service (BaaS) infrastructure provider for WisdomTree Prime – its retail platform that gives everyday investors access to stablecoins like Circle’s USDC and PayPal’s PYUSD, as well as tokenized assets.

WisdomTree is also the issuer of the WisdomTree Government Money Market Digital Fund (WTGXX), a tokenized U.S. treasury fund, primarily on Ethereum, that boasts a total asset value of over $615 million.

“Stablecoins and tokenized assets are unlocking new user experiences across a range of use cases in financial services,” Will Peck, head of digital assets at WisdomTree, said at the time of the announcement.

The Year of the (USD) Stablecoin

The wave follows new stablecoin legislation (aka the GENIUS Act) signed by President Donald Trump in July, which set clearer federal rules and guardrails for the asset class. Regulatory clarity from the U.S. as encouraged stablecoins supply to surge, with total market capitalization jumping from $206 billion at the start of the year to over $308 billion today.

Beyond payments, stablecoins are also fueling DeFi lending, with Visa reporting over $670 billion in on-chain loans in the past five years.

Total stablecoin supply. Source: DefiLlama

Put simply, big financial players aren’t just testing the waters with stablecoins anymore – they’re jumping right in. From Western Union to Citi to Zelle, it seems like everyone’s racing to make payments faster, cheaper, and on-chain.

Looks like stablecoins are no longer just a crypto experiment, but officially mainstream.

Xx Jona, staff reporter at The Defiant

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🎬WATCH

Why Yat Siu Believes Altcoins Will Surpass Bitcoin

In the latest episode of The Defiant Podcast, Cami sat down with Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu. He reveals his vision for a trust layer built on zero-knowledge proofs, as well as plans for a Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, plus unpacks the Mocaverse ecosystem where staking power and airdrops build a verifiable, cross-chain identity.

Their conversation also explores the future of web3 gaming, the coming meta shift from GTA 6, and a bold thesis: why the entire altcoin market may one day eclipse Bitcoin.

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