Stablecoin

Visa Inc. announced on Tuesday that it will let U.S. financial institutions settle payments using Circle's USDC stablecoin on the Solana blockchain, expanding its crypto-focused services. Initial users include Cross River Bank and Lead Bank, with broader U.S. access planned through 2026 and support for seven-day settlement windows to streamline treasury and liquidity management. Visa is also collaborating on the Arc Layer 1 blockchain for future USDC settlement, while Binance CEO Richard Teng highlighted that daily stablecoin transactions have already surpassed Visa's own payment volumes.

XRP has dropped under $2 to around $1.87, with its price down roughly 6% in a day and about 17% over a recent institutional inflow streak. A nearly seven-year-old wallet that accumulated XRP near $0.40 realized more than $721.5 million in profit around the $2 level on Dec. 11, amid falling leverage on Binance and a sharp decline in XRP futures buying volume.

Singapore-based StraitsX plans to extend its XSGD and XUSD stablecoins to Solana by early 2026. The move targets automated payments and onchain SGD–USD exchange, with the pair having processed over $18 billion in onchain transactions. StraitsX operates under MAS oversight and is exploring a consumer pilot with Grab.

FSOC's 2025 annual report removes digital assets from its financial stability vulnerabilities list and shifts emphasis toward sustainable economic growth. It highlights the GENIUS Act, signed in July, as the federal framework for stablecoin payments and notes complementary actions, including Executive Order 14178 in January and the SEC's rescission of SAB 121 via SAB 122.

Matrixport reports that while overall stablecoin supply remains close to record levels and exceeds $260 billion, the 12‑month growth in new issuance began to slow after late October. The firm links this cooling liquidity impulse to cautious Federal Reserve policy and notes that Bitcoin, trading near $85,860 on Tuesday with a roughly 3% decline, is struggling to maintain key bullish trend indicators.

Ripple Labs is piloting its US dollar-backed stablecoin RLUSD on Ethereum layer-2 networks Optimism, Base, Ink, and Unichain, after first launching the token on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum in 2024. The pilot uses Wormhole's Native Token Transfers standard so RLUSD can move between chains as a native token rather than as a wrapped version, while a broader rollout and additional chains are planned for next year pending regulatory approval. RLUSD, issued under a New York Department of Financial Services Trust Company Charter, currently has a market capitalization of $1.3 billion.

On 16 December 2025, Ripple outlined a shift in how it develops RLUSD, treating it as regulated settlement infrastructure that can operate across multiple blockchains rather than a single-chain stablecoin. Following its conditional approval to act as a U.S. trust bank, the company is focusing RLUSD on layer-2 environments, emphasizing regulatory compliance, issuer control, and interoperability with XRP, while rolling out deployments slowly and permissionedly.

In a report released Monday, Bank of America said recent actions by the OCC, FDIC, and Federal Reserve mark a shift in U.S. crypto policy from discussion to implementation, especially around stablecoins and tokenized deposits. The bank expects a multi-year transition that could move more payments and real-world assets on-chain under banking regulation, and argues that institutions will need to experiment with tokenized assets and settlement models to stay competitive.

PayPal has applied to establish PayPal Bank as a Utah-chartered industrial bank, aiming to expand into insured deposits, business lending, and interest-bearing savings accounts. At the same time, the company is deepening its crypto strategy through the PYUSD Savings Vault on Spark, which advertises a 4.25% APY and follows an earlier goal to grow PYUSD deposits from $200 million to $1 billion.

Crypto industry figures urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission at a recent roundtable to recognize legitimate uses for blockchain privacy tools beyond criminal activity. Speakers argued that existing AML and KYC frameworks are becoming outdated in the age of AI and that cryptography-based solutions could both improve security checks and better protect user privacy.