Hey, it’s Marc
For years, the stablecoin debate has been about who issues the token. This week made that debate obsolete. The companies that actually move money for a living stopped arguing about issuance and started building settlement infrastructure together. Three payment networks forming one platform. Four of the biggest U.S. banks building shared tokenized deposit rails. And 1.5 million contractors waking up to a stablecoin wallet they didn’t ask for, built on infrastructure they’ll never see.
We called this in our Money Movement 2.0 report and in “Stablecoin issuance is overrated.” The real race was never about who mints the coin. It’s about who owns the pipes. This week, we found out.
Here’s what moved:
Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard are forming a stablecoin platform
Deel launches stablecoin accounts for 1.5M workers via Stripe
JPMorgan, Citi, and big banks plan tokenized deposit network for 2027
Goldman Sachs tokenizes real estate on GS DAP
DTCC picks Stellar for tokenizing Russell 1000 equities and Treasuries
Coinbase and Better fund first bitcoin-backed mortgage, Fannie Mae-approved
CME goes 24/7 with crypto futures
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Top Boardroom Reads
Deposit Tokens: A Foundation for Stable Digital Money (JPMorgan)
Stablecoins: Modernizing Financial Infrastructure (Morgan Stanley)
Tokenized Finance (IMF)
The Stable Door Opens: How Tokenized Cash Enables Next-Gen Payments (McKinsey)
2026 Institutional Digital Assets Survey (EY & Coinbase)
The payment giants are forming a stablecoin supergroup
Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard are close to launching a shared stablecoin platform. Coinbase is exploring whether to participate. Each company has been building stablecoin infrastructure independently for years. Stripe acquired Bridge for $1.1 billion in late 2024. Mastercard acquired BVNK earlier this year and just expanded on-chain settlement to USDC, PYUSD, and RLUSD, enabling intraday, weekend, and holiday settlement. Visa expanded its stablecoin settlement network to nine blockchains in April. Now they are converging on shared rails. [CoinDesk]
Why it matters: When three competitors stop competing on infrastructure and start pooling it, they are responding to a threat bigger than each other: fragmentation. Dozens of stablecoins on dozens of chains with no shared settlement standard. If this platform launches, it becomes the SWIFT replacement everyone has theorized about for years, except it will be owned by the companies that already process most of the world’s card transactions. We flagged this dynamic in our Money Movement 2.0 report: purpose-built payment infrastructure is displacing general-purpose blockchains for institutional settlement. This is the clearest proof yet.
![Money Movement 2.0: 2026 Edition [Report] - live from Proof of Talk](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dEU4!,w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd2757bac-22b9-4bbf-9e5f-664e75fbfaf1_1920x1080.png)
Deel gives 1.5 million workers a stablecoin account
Deel, the global payroll platform used by 40,000 businesses and 1.5 million workers across 150+ countries, launched a stablecoin wallet built on Stripe’s full infrastructure stack. Bridge handles issuance via Open Issuance. Privy provides embedded wallets. Tempo handles settlement. The product is called DLUSD. Contractors receive dollar-denominated balances, can earn rewards on idle funds via Morpho, and spend anywhere via the Deel Card. Live today in Argentina, with LATAM, APAC, MENA, and Africa to follow. [Stripe] [Privy]
Why it matters: This is the first time Stripe’s full crypto stack (Bridge + Privy + Tempo) has been deployed at real scale. The use case is not speculative. In Argentina, 85% of contractors wanted to be paid in US dollars rather than Argentine pesos in 2025, according to Deel. In Turkey, a local salary can lose 20-40% of its value in a single year. The blockchain is invisible to the contractor. What they see is dollars landing in their account.
The banks are building “The Bridge”
JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and other major U.S. banks plan to launch a tokenized deposit network as early as H1 2027, operated by The Clearing House, a private-sector payments company owned by the consortium. Some banks call it “The Bridge.” Others call it “The Chain.” Clearing House CEO David Watson told the Wall Street Journal it marks a “big move for the banks,” adding that the industry faces a “radically different” future built around on-chain payments. Early users: large global companies seeking to streamline payments and treasury operations. [WSJ] [The Block]
Why it matters: This is the consortium phase. Individual bank efforts have matured: JPMorgan’s Kinexys has settled over $3 trillion in cumulative transactions. BNY launched its own tokenized deposit service in January. The Clearing House already processes $2 trillion per day in traditional payments. If tokenized deposits plug into that volume, it creates a bank-native alternative to stablecoins for corporate treasury. As we described in Issue 180: the payment networks are building stablecoin rails, the banks are building tokenized deposit rails. Both racing toward instant, 24/7 settlement. The question is not which wins. It is whether they interoperate.
Goldman Sachs tokenizes real estate
Goldman Sachs, Apex Group, and Archax launched a blockchain-native real estate fund this week. Fund shares are tokenized using GS DAP, Goldman’s own blockchain platform. LRC Group manages the underlying real estate assets. Archax serves as custodian and first distribution partner. Ownera facilitates connectivity between participants and distribution channels. The fund is structured under Luxembourg regulation. “Issuing blockchain-native fund units on GS DAP enables investment in real estate assets with precision while unlocking more seamless transferability in the future,” said Mathew McDermott, global head of digital assets at Goldman Sachs. [CoinDesk]
Why it matters: Real estate has been the white whale of tokenization: illiquidity, complex title structures, regulatory fragmentation. Goldman is solving the issuance and custody layer on infrastructure it controls (GS DAP), then using regulated distribution partners to build toward future transferability. The same week, Hamilton Lane launched HLSCOPE on Tron via Securitize, and Franklin Templeton brought BENJI to MoonPay. The tokenized fund distribution race is accelerating. Issuers are not waiting for one chain to win. They are going everywhere liquidity exists.
DTCC picks Stellar
What happened: On May 27, DTCC announced it will integrate DTC’s tokenization service with the Stellar blockchain, covering Russell 1000 equities, major index ETFs, and U.S. Treasuries. This is the first public blockchain deployment of assets from DTC’s $114 trillion custody base. The initiative rests on an SEC No-Action Letter (December 2025) granting DTC a three-year pilot exemption. Limited production trades start July 2026, broader service launch in October 2026, with Stellar go-live targeted for H1 2027. DTCC is building a multi-chain stack: ComposerX for issuance and compliance, a Collateral AppChain on Hyperledger Besu with Chainlink, Canton Network for permissioned institutional rails, and now Stellar for public settlement. [PR Newswire]
Why it matters: Stellar hosts Franklin Templeton’s BENJI fund ($1.98B AUM), an SEC-registered tokenized money market fund operating since 2021, plus native USDC issuance ($256M outstanding). That five-year compliance audit trail made Stellar the only public chain with proven regulated fund infrastructure at scale. Despite “public” deployment, DTCC maintains centralized control: root wallet authority to freeze, force-transfer, or burn tokens, whitelisted addresses, and off-chain legal record via Cede & Co. under UCC Article 8. This is not DeFi. This is the existing custody infrastructure extending onto a public chain while keeping every legal protection intact.
News Flashes
Infrastructure and Markets
CME goes 24/7. CME Group launched round-the-clock crypto futures and options trading on CME Globex. Over the opening weekend, 7,200+ contracts traded, ~$50 million in notional volume. Bitcoin volatility contracts launched alongside.
Galaxy launches OTC prediction markets. Galaxy now offers institutional OTC prediction market trading.
Kaiko acquires Amberdata. Kaiko acquired Amberdata in a blockchain data consolidation push. Data infrastructure is consolidating fast.
Banking and Payments
Visa and Brale explore private settlement. Visa announced a PoC with Brale for stablecoin settlement using SBC on the Canton Network. Privacy-enabled institutional payment flows.
MoneyGram stablecoin on Stellar. MoneyGram launched MGUSD on Stellar. The remittance giant joins the digital dollar payments rush.
Funds, Deals and Others
Ether.fi deploys $100M into Plume. Ether.fi allocated $100 million to a Plume RWA vault. Real-world asset yield inside DeFi lending.
Franklin Templeton brings BENJI to MoonPay. The BENJI tokenized fund is now accessible via MoonPay. Tokenized fund distribution is becoming a competitive layer.
That’s all for now, folks.
– Marc & Team
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