According to Fixygen, Citi, one of the largest U.S. banks, and the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase have expanded their partnership in the areas of corporate payments and stablecoins.
Coinbase announced this on September 28.
As part of the partnership, Coinbase has selected Citi’s Virtual Account Wallet technology for its Coinbase Virtual Accounts system. This will allow clients to receive traditional funds into virtual accounts, with the proceeds then automatically converted into stablecoins.
At the same time, Coinbase’s payment infrastructure is being integrated with Citi’s corporate service, Spring by Citi.
This will enable Citi’s institutional clients to accept payments in stablecoins, using Coinbase’s infrastructure for processing digital assets and Citi’s banking infrastructure for traditional settlements.
This partnership signals a further convergence of traditional banking payments and public blockchain infrastructure.
For businesses, this model allows them to use stablecoins as a payment instrument without having to build their own infrastructure for storage, conversion, and interaction between bank accounts and the blockchain.
At the same time, Citi is developing its own tokenized payments infrastructure. In September, the bank also announced that it had conducted real dollar transactions via the Swift blockchain ledger in collaboration with First Abu Dhabi Bank and OCBC.
The expansion of the partnership between Citi and Coinbase is taking place as the U.S. is developing a separate regulatory framework for payment stablecoins and the Federal Reserve is drafting detailed requirements for their issuers.
According to Fixygen, the volume of tracked cross-border transfers in stablecoins rose by 77.5% over the latest reporting period—from $124.2 billion to $220.3 billion, according to data from the Chainalysis Geography of Cryptocurrency Report 2026, published on September 23.
The average monthly volume of cross-border transactions more than doubled—from approximately $11 billion in January 2025 to $24 billion in June 2026.
Chainalysis emphasizes, however, that the actual volume of international stablecoin transfers is likely significantly higher. The statistics include only transactions for which the company can identify both the sender’s and recipient’s countries.
A distinctive feature of the market is the relatively small size of transactions. The average cross-border transfer is about $3,000, which, according to analysts, does not correspond to typical institutional transactions.
This pattern points to the growing practical use of stablecoins—for paying suppliers, sending money between countries, and transferring savings out of unstable national currencies.
At the same time, the geography of fund flows is changing. The largest quarter of cross-border routes accounts for 96.1% of the value of transfers, but Chainalysis has observed the rapid emergence of new payment corridors.
During the period under review, 4,708 new cross-border routes emerged, through which a total of $2.64 billion was transferred. The world’s largest stablecoin, USDT, plays a significant role in these transactions.
Growth continues even amid weak conditions in the cryptocurrency market. The total volume of funds flowing into cryptocurrency services decreased by 4.3%—from $9.3 trillion to $8.9 trillion—while the inflow of stablecoins to these services increased by 5.3%.
Peer-to-peer transactions are growing even faster. The volume of transfers between personal wallets within individual countries more than quadrupled—from $56.8 billion to $228.7 billion.
According to Chainalysis, stablecoins are becoming less dependent on speculative cycles in the crypto market and are gradually forming an independent international payment infrastructure.
U.S. Federal Reserve has presented two draft rules that establish a new regulatory framework for the issuance of payment stablecoins by U.S. banks and other organizations under the Fed’s supervision.
The drafts were published on September 24, 2026, as part of the implementation of the previously enacted GENIUS Act. The Fed has opened them for public comment.
The first draft requires that issued payment stablecoins be fully backed by eligible reserve assets.
Such reserves may include, in particular, short-term U.S. Treasury bonds and other high-quality liquid assets.
The Fed also proposes establishing standardized capital requirements for issuers, which must cover the credit and operational risks associated with the issuance of digital money.
Separate requirements are proposed for companies that provide custody services for stablecoin reserve assets. The regulator also intends to clarify which stablecoin transactions banks under its supervision are permitted to conduct.
The second draft regulates the procedure for banks to obtain authorization to issue payment stablecoins.
A bank intending to launch its own stablecoin will be required to submit a business plan, financial information, and other documents to the regulator. The draft also outlines the procedure for reviewing applications, handling appeals, and making final decisions.
Federal Reserve Board member Michael Barr stated that the regulatory framework must ensure that a stablecoin can be reliably redeemed at face value even under conditions of financial market stress or if the issuer itself faces difficulties.
According to him, restrictions on the structure of reserves and uniform capital requirements are important elements of the new system; however, the final rules will require further refinement following public comment.
The comment period for the drafts will end 60 days after their publication in the Federal Register.
The rules are being developed amid the rapid growth of stablecoins’ role in international payments. According to a recent Chainalysis study, the volume of cross-border transfers in stablecoins in the 12 months ending in June 2026 increased by 77.5%—from $124.2 billion to $220.3 billion.
At the same time, the average transaction size was approximately $3,000, which, according to Chainalysis, indicates that stablecoins are being actively used for money transfers, payments to suppliers, and the movement of personal savings—not just for institutional trading.
The introduction of full-fledged federal regulation could be one of the key steps in integrating stablecoins into the traditional U.S. financial infrastructure.
Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT, has launched StableFund, a private credit investment fund, in partnership with the asset management firm Fasanara Capital, according to Fixygen.
The fund’s initial capital amounts to $400 million, provided by Tether and Fasanara. Going forward, the partners intend to raise up to $3 billion in institutional capital from third-party investors.
StableFund will provide loans primarily to small and medium-sized enterprises that face difficulties in securing bank financing. According to the project organizers’ estimates, the global funding gap for small and medium-sized businesses amounts to approximately $5.7 trillion.
Tether and Fasanara estimate the global private credit market itself at roughly $3 trillion, and it could grow to $5 trillion by 2029.
A key feature of the project is the use of stablecoin infrastructure to finance companies in the real economy. This means that USDT is gradually moving far beyond its traditional role as a settlement instrument for crypto exchanges.
For Tether, this marks a continuation of its business diversification. The company is already investing in government bonds, gold, Bitcoin, energy projects, artificial intelligence, and telecommunications.
The launch of StableFund demonstrates a new market trend: the largest stablecoin issuers are beginning to transform from infrastructure companies in the crypto sector into full-fledged financial intermediaries.
For USDT itself, this also potentially creates an additional source of real demand—the use of the stablecoin not only for crypto trading and international money transfers, but also for business lending.
The total market capitalization of the global stablecoin market has reached approximately $305.4 billion, continuing to grow amid the widespread adoption of digital dollars in cryptocurrency payments, trading, and decentralized finance, according to Fixygen.
According to DefiLlama, as of September 10, 2026, the supply of stablecoins has increased by approximately $1.69 billion, or 0.56%, over the past seven days, and by 1.6% over the past 30 days.
Tether (USDT) remains the largest stablecoin with a market capitalization of about $183.4 billion. It accounts for approximately 60% of the entire segment.
In second place is USDC, issued by Circle, with a market capitalization of about $74.5 billion. Over the past month, its supply has increased by approximately 3%.
Thus, the two largest dollar-pegged stablecoins alone control about 84.4% of the entire market.
In third place is Sky Dollar (USDS) with a market capitalization of approximately $6.64 billion, followed by DAI at $4.79 billion and Ethena USDe at approximately $4.44 billion.
USDe has recently shown the most notable growth among major stablecoins: its market capitalization has increased by approximately 13% over the past month.
The growth in stablecoin market capitalization is an important indicator of the state of the cryptocurrency market. Unlike the rise in the value of Bitcoin or Ethereum, an increase in the market capitalization of dollar-pegged tokens largely signifies the emergence of additional nominal volume of digital dollars that can be used for trading, remittances, lending, and other transactions within the cryptoeconomy.
Therefore, the growth in the supply of stablecoins is often viewed as an indicator of increased available liquidity. However, this in itself does not guarantee further growth in Bitcoin or other crypto assets—some of the funds may be used for settlements, international transfers, or held outside of risky assets.
The market structure remains extremely concentrated: USDT accounts for six out of every ten dollars of the segment’s market capitalization, and the gap between Tether and its closest competitor, USDC, exceeds $108 billion.
Stablecoins are digital tokens whose value is typically pegged to traditional currencies, primarily the U.S. dollar. They are one of the main settlement instruments in the cryptocurrency market and, at the same time, are increasingly being used beyond its borders for international payments and money transfers.
Data source: DefiLlama Stablecoins
According to Fixygen, USDT and USDC reserves are largely invested in short-term U.S. Treasury bonds (US Treasuries) and repo transactions backed by them.
The market capitalization of USDT reached approximately $183 billion, while the amount of USDC in circulation in the second quarter totaled $73.3 billion.
Circle explicitly states that USDC reserves include short-term Treasury bonds and overnight repos backed by Treasury bonds, notably through a BlackRock fund.
As a result, the growing use of digital dollars automatically increases demand for U.S. government debt.
This is precisely why the U.S. administration views the proliferation of stablecoins not only as a fintech project but also as a way to boost international demand for the dollar and Treasury bonds.
BIS Chairman Pablo Hernández de Cos also acknowledged that stablecoins have the potential to lower the cost of U.S. government financing, although they may simultaneously increase the cost of bank financing.
bond, DOLLAR, stablecoin, U.S., USDT
