When the GENIUS Act passed in the U.S. earlier this year, financial institutions for the first time had an actual framework – aligned with global standards
like Europe’s MiCA – for stablecoin usage across the country. With the floodgates now open for stablecoin adoption, the industry went down a rabbit hole, discussing the benefits and drawbacks of accessing this technology.
Now that a lot of the initial dust has settled, companies are shifting gears from speculation to action. As stablecoins grow in popularity, leveraging
them has expanded beyond large institutions. Companies of all sizes are now deciding how they want to interact with stablecoins to take advantage of faster cross-border payments, lower transaction costs, enhanced programmability and real-time liquidity access
while maintaining dollar parity.
In my
last article,
I outlined the steps for building and launching stablecoin infrastructure—a viable option for larger organizations with substantial resourcing and tech capabilities. However, this is just one approach among several.
In this piece, we’ll examine three key ways companies are leveraging stablecoins today, considering factors like company size, digital maturity, available
resources and strategic priorities.
Large budgets and advanced technology set the stage for early adopters.
Many of the companies that are launching stablecoin technology within their own organization are extremely large players. These companies already have
advanced technology and adequate resourcing, so budget and time is not an obstacle when it comes to developing their own initiatives.
One of the companies that’s launching their own stablecoin technology in house is JPMorgan Chase. As the 5th largest bank in the world, and the largest
in the U.S., JPMC is often a step ahead of other banks when it comes to testing new technologies because they have the resources to do so. When it comes to stablecoins, years before the GENIUS Act even passed, the company started working on closed loop decentralized
finance technology in-house, which allows the bank to move money internally.
For example, JPMC clients including Siemens, Cargill and FedEx
have adopted
JPM Coin for functions like automated treasury operations, smart contract payments and more, helping these companies deploy their assets more efficiently. In 2025, building on this foundation,
JPMC further advanced its offerings by launching
JPMD, a stablecoin-like deposit token designed for institutional clients to facilitate cross-border settlements and real-time liquidity management.
Besides JPMC, large organizations outside of the typical financial services sphere are also launching their own stablecoin projects as well. For example,
retail giants Walmart and Amazon
are actively exploring the issuance of their own USD-pegged stablecoins to streamline payments, reduce billions in credit card interchange fees and enable faster cross-border transactions for merchants and customers.
More recently, Citigroup joined forces with Coinbase to develop a digital asset payment architecture to serve institutional clients. This collaboration
will streamline pay-ins/pay-outs, creating the bridge between traditional and digital finance. It provides Citi customers expanded access to digital asset payments that can be done using stablecoins, CBDCs, or other cryptocurrencies.
This in-house approach offers several key benefits, including greater control over compliance and security, faster innovation cycles and enhanced data
privacy. However, it also has its downsides: building the technology internally entails high development costs and requires substantial resources to establish interoperability with external stablecoins.
Numerous organizations band together to create consortiums and work together.
One of the more prominent ways we are seeing organizations approach stablecoins, particularly in the financial services space, is with consortiums. Similar
to how global banks banded together to create the peer to peer payment technology Zelle, or global institutions are part of the SWIFT ecosystem, we are seeing organizations come together for stablecoin projects that will enable transactions across different
institutions.
In Europe, for example,
nine
banks including ING, Banca Sella, KBC, Danske Bank, DekaBank, UniCredit, SEB, CaixaBank and Raiffeisen Bank International are working together to launch a euro-denominated stablecoin.
The consortium’s goal is to provide near-instant, low-cost payments and settlements with 24/7 access to efficient cross-border payments, programmable payments and more. It is working towards launching the stablecoin in early 2026 and the consortium is also
open to additional banks joining, which could mean that this project has a wider reach.
The consortium model is the most feasible approach for most organizations seeking to harness stablecoin efficiencies. Notably, the time and resources required
to launch such a project are shared among multiple entities rather than shouldered by one alone. The legal, technological and financial demands of developing a stablecoin are substantial, making this collaborative approach far more practical.
Additionally, bringing together experts from multiple organizations fosters knowledge sharing. Combining the best minds in decentralized technology and
stablecoins from each bank can create a superior end product for both the institutions and their customers.
By collaborating, organizations can build interoperable ecosystems that enable seamless money movement between institutions. Instead of configuring interoperability
post-launch, banks joining a consortium can ensure day-one compatibility for transacting stablecoins across the entire network. This mirrors Zelle, where customers of participating banks can instantly send money to friends at other banks within the consortium.
Small banks are taking a wait and see approach – focusing resources on other initiatives.
Regional and community financial institutions can also significantly benefit from what stablecoins have to offer, but these organizations tend to have
less funds to dedicate to large-scale digital transformation projects like launching their own stablecoins.
For example, if a community bank is allocating its technology budget and needs to decide between upgrading its core banking system or leveraging stablecoins,
it will almost always prioritize the core system modernization. This decision is both logical and strategic since enhancing the core banking platform delivers immediate, tangible improvements across all operations, from customer service to compliance reporting,
whereas stablecoin adoption represents a longer-term strategic opportunity.
This doesn’t mean smaller institutions are permanently sidelining stablecoins. Rather, they’re adopting a calculated wait-and-see strategy. As consortiums
successfully launch their stablecoins, bring them to market and demonstrate proven real-world use cases, smaller banks will have greater confidence to participate. For these institutions, entering the stablecoin ecosystem slightly later than larger players
represents the most effective use of their limited technology budgets.
The different ways organizations are already approaching stablecoins demonstrates a maturing ecosystem where one size doesn’t fit all. Successful stablecoin
adoptions for each organization will look different and the choice to develop the technology in house, work with peers or wait and see will ultimately come down to the resources each organization is willing to invest in the project and their current digital
maturity.
