Crypto exchange Coinbase has unveiled the x402 protocol to automate online payments with stablecoins, allowing direct transactions from holder to merchant without intermediaries. The protocol will be particularly useful for AI agents to pay for digital items automatically, but can serve any service requiring micropayments – essentially functioning as the online version of automated toll payments. Applications could include API usage, online content, flights, or computer resources. While designed for direct payments, various intermediaries will likely emerge to simplify the process for merchants. The key is that there is no need for an intermediary. The stablecoin payment goes directly from the holder to the merchant. That said, any number of intermediaries will pop up to make it easier for merchants. When browsing the web, if we come across a missing web page it often shows a 404 error. An error code that we never see is the 402 error, which says there’s a paywall and you need to make a payment. Coinbase is using this to build a protocol for payments to make it as seamless as sending a tweet. “We built x402 because the internet has always needed a native way to send and receive payments—and stablecoins finally make that possible,” said Erik Reppel, Head of Engineering at Coinbase Developer Platform. “Just like HTTPS secured the web, x402 could define the next era of the internet; one where value moves as freely and instantly as information. We’re laying the groundwork for an economy run not just by people, but by software—autonomous, intelligent, and always on.”
Ramp and Stripe expand partnership to enable businesses to fund a wallet using local currency or by depositing stablecoins directly with stablecoin-backed corporate cardss
Ramp will expand its issuing partnership with Stripe, a programmable financial services company, to launch the industry’s first stablecoin-backed corporate cards with fully integrated spend management software. Together, these companies are setting a new standard in global commerce by making cross-border transactions dramatically easier and faster. By working with Stripe to extend Ramp’s platform to previously unreachable markets, businesses in emerging economies will gain access to the same advanced financial tools that have helped over 30,000+ U.S. companies save billions of dollars and millions of hours. This combination of stablecoin-backed cards and Ramp’s powerful financial platform will accelerate business growth and commerce in regions that need it most. The integration enables issuance of new card programs in multiple countries at once, starting with select Latin American markets. Ramp and Stripe’s stablecoin-backed corporate cards offers businesses dramatically faster settlements, lower costs, built-in protection from currency volatility, and seamless card issuance — enabling global growth without global headaches: 1) Fund: Businesses can fund a wallet with Ramp using local currency, which is converted to stablecoin, or by depositing stablecoins directly. 2) Transact: Card purchases work as standard local payments. The cardholder simply pays in their local fiat currency, and the merchant receives fiat currency. 3) Protect: Funds are held in dollar-equivalent value, shielded against local currency devaluation. 4) Simplify: With Ramp’s corporate card, businesses can also access Ramp’s full suite of spend management and financial automation tools globally.
Consumers can now select Cash App Pay as their preferred payment method when ordering food and checking out on the Domino’s Pizza app
Cash App has announced its new partnership with Domino’s Pizza, giving customers payment flexibility when ordering food. This launch marks the first nationwide pizza restaurant chain to be available with Cash App Pay. When checking out on the Domino’s app, consumers can now select Cash App Pay as their preferred payment method. Cash App users can get access to all available merchants on the app. Cash App says the new partnership allows Domino’s to connect with Cash App’s young and growing user base, building long-term loyalty. According to data from the National Restaurant Association, 79% of Gen Z and 85% of millennials use mobile apps for fast-food orders. Alex Fisher, head of revenue, North America, Cash App Commerce said, “Through this integration we are able to help them unlock incremental value with next generation consumers who we know are looking for convenience and flexibility at checkout.”
Citi report predicts stablecoin market size could grow to $3.7 trillion by 2030 from the current level of $240 billion; payment companies to represent 50% of the stablecoin volume within 12 months
The next five years will likely see stablecoins substitute for some overseas and domestic U.S. currency holdings, according to a Citi Future Finance report. “We’re looking at the integration of stablecoins into what you call the mainstream economy,” Ronit Ghose, the global head of Future of Finance, Citi Institute, said. The stablecoin market size is currently around $240 billion, led by Tether’s $145 billion USDT and Circle’s $60 billion USDC. In Citi’s base-case prediction, stablecoins will grow to $1.6 trillion by 2030, provided regulatory support and institutional integration take hold. In the bank’s more bullish scenario, the market could balloon to $3.7 trillion. (The global cryptocurrency market cap today stands around $3.45 trillion.) “Payment companies are leveraging stablecoins for a variety of pure-play payment flows, including cross-border transfer, remittance, merchant settlements and others,” CEO Michael Shaulov said. “Payment companies represent 11% of all of our clients, but 16% of the overall stablecoin transactions with over 30% growth of Q/Q in volumes. It is likely that this growth will continue, and they will represent 50% of the stablecoin volume within 12 months.”
“Tokenization agents” or “digital transfer agents” can help manage edge cases like wallet recovery, freezes, sanctions compliance, and complex corporate actions that smart contracts cannot handle
During one of the panels at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) roundtable on tokenization, incumbents were urged to avoid attempting to hamstring new technology players. Below is a summary of the key regulatory changes discussed. 1) Transfer agent modernization: While smart contracts handle transfers, participants believe a regulatory layer is still needed in the form of “tokenization agents” or “digital transfer agents” to help manage edge cases like wallet recovery, freezes, sanctions compliance, and complex corporate actions. 2) Blockchain as official record: Participants emphasized that permissionless public blockchains should be recognized as an official record of ownership. This would eliminate duplicative off-chain record keeping, streamline operations, and unlock efficiencies. 3) Broker-dealer framework: Several participants argued that tokenized securities with embedded transfer restrictions through smart contracts should meet the 15c3-3 possession and control requirements, making them eligible to be custodied and traded by broker-dealers without triggering the “three step process” (special purpose broker-dealer requirements). 4) Self-custody options: Panelists advocated that self-custody should be permitted when chosen by investors, noting it enables direct access to innovation, reduces intermediary fees, and supports user control without compromising regulatory oversight. 5) Stablecoin settlement: Participants argued that tokenized securities should be able to be settled using stablecoins, just as cash is used in traditional finance, “without imposing extra regulatory burdens simply because the payment rails are digital.” 6) Investment Company Act adaptations: Specific areas mentioned include Single book of record at transfer agency level; Access and disclosure requirements for investor communication documents; Many mutual funds are considering dual share classes – ETF shares. These funds could also potentially be tokenized; Forward pricing rule (Rule 22c-1) modifications if 24/7 trading is implemented 7) Interoperability guidelines: Participants suggested that while industry should lead interoperability efforts, the SEC could provide high-level guideposts or considerations about what interoperability should accomplish and what factors might undermine it, creating “a common set of principles” for dialogue. 8) Regulatory sandbox/pilot programs: There was strong support for formal regulatory sandbox or pilot programs to allow firms to use DLT for issuing, trading, and settling tokenized securities. Participants emphasized these should be practical rather than experimental, focused on directly informing new rules and legislation rather than just testing technology capabilities, which are already proven. 9) Global regulatory coordination: Several speakers highlighted the need for global policy maker coordination and collaboration since technology is cross-border, and regulatory regimes need to recognize tokenized assets as they move across jurisdictions. The panel emphasized that innovation in this space could bring significant efficiencies to capital markets while maintaining investor protections, but requires thoughtful regulatory adjustments to realize its full potential.
VanEck partners Securitize to launch a tokenized treasury fund targeted at institutional and qualified investors with minimum subscriptions starting at $100,000
VanEck is the latest asset manager to launch a tokenized treasury fund, the VanEck Treasury Fund (VBILL) with Securitize as its partner for tokenization, fund administration and transfer agency. Securitize is also BlackRock’s partner for its BUIDL money market fund. “By bringing U.S. Treasuries on-chain, we are providing investors with a secure, transparent, and liquid tool for cash management, further integrating digital assets into mainstream financial markets,” said Kyle DaCruz, Director of Digital Assets Product at VanEck. “Tokenized funds like VBILL are enhancing market liquidity and efficiency, underscoring our commitment to providing value to our investors.” The British Virgin Island fund targets institutional and qualified investors with minimum subscriptions starting at $100,000 for investments on Avalanche, BNB Chain, and Solana, and $1,000,000 on Ethereum. Most demand for tokenized money market funds comes from within the digital asset community, especially stablecoin issuers looking to use tokenized assets for their reserves. For example, just two stablecoin issuers (Sky and Ethena) account for $2.1 billion or 72% of BlackRock’s BUIDL fund.
BIS and NY Fed study says central banks could deploy smart contracts when commercial banks have widely adopted tokenisation for wholesale payments and securities settlement
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) have published a joint research study that explored how central banks could continue to implement monetary policy operations in tokenised wholesale financial markets. Dubbed Project Pine, the study found that central banks could deploy policy implementation tools using programmable smart contracts in a potential future state where commercial banks have widely adopted tokenisation for wholesale payments and securities settlement. The project generated the prototype of a generic monetary policy implementation tokenised toolkit for potential further research and development by central banks across jurisdictions and currencies. The BIS and the Fed say the prototype can fulfil a common set of central bank implementation requirements, including paying interest on reserves, open market operations, and collateral management. The toolkit was tested against ten hypothetical scenarios that applied historical data inputs on past market events, such as interest rate tightening and easing cycles, quantitative easing and tightening cycles, and periods of strained market liquidity or broader market disruptions. “The prototype successfully responded and instantaneously carried out the intended operation under the varying market conditions,” states the BIS. “Project Pine’s findings highlighted areas for further research and analysis related to interoperability and data standardisation.”
BlockFills on-chain execution platform to enhance its automated DeFi trade execution capabilities on behalf of institutional and VC clients
BlockFills has deployed Definitive’s advanced on-chain execution platform to enhance its automated trade execution capabilities on behalf of institutional and venture capital (VC) clients and expand the variety of tokens BlockFills can trade on behalf of its clients. The partnership brings new benefits to clients of both firms. Patrick Zielbauer, Managing Director of Sales at BlockFills, said: “Definitive’s platform gives us an incredibly powerful tool to offer clients – including asset managers, hedge funds and VC firms – the ability to smoothly and efficiently enter or exit an altcoin position or token while protecting their anonymity and minimizing market impact. As a result of the partnership, we’re finding that even in the weeks since we deployed the platform, clients have brought more order flow to us, enabling them to take or exit from a significant position in even the most illiquid tokens, memecoins or other assets generally considered difficult to trade in nontrivial sizes.” Jai Prasad, Co-Founder of Definitive, said “Our platform uses sophisticated trade algorithms that aggregate liquidity across liquidity pools on multiple chains and optimize trades to leverage the deepest liquidity, minimize price impact and achieve superior execution for on-chain transactions. While our platform is enhancing BlockFills’ capabilities offered to its clients, our clients and prospects that require access to deep OTC liquidity in the spot, derivatives* and lending markets can turn to BlockFills to augment and enhance their on-chain trading activities.”
Mastercard and MoonPay team to promote stablecoin payments in an API-driven implementation letting businesses, neobanks, and other payment participants manage payouts and disbursements more efficiently
Mastercard has launched a stablecoin-focused partnership with cryptocurrency payments FinTech MoonPay. The collaboration will allow consumers and businesses to send and receive stablecoin payments across global markets. Companies and FinTechs will be able to employ Mastercard-branded cards linked to users’ stablecoin balances, allowing cardholders to spend their stablecoins, which will simultaneously be converted to fiat currency, at more than 150 million locations where Mastercard is accepted around the world. “By providing solutions that unlock stablecoin utility and ubiquity, we are redefining how money moves globally and driving a shift in payments as we know it,” Scott Abrahams, executive vice president, Global Partnerships at Mastercard, said. T he partnership will leverage the API-driven stablecoin infrastructure from Iron, acquired by MoonPay in March, to facilitate stablecoin transactions, turning “crypto wallets into new digital bank accounts for seamless global transactions.” This will let businesses, neobanks, and other payment participants manage payouts and disbursements more efficiently, improving cross-border money transfers, and help businesses offer stablecoin-based payouts to gig workers, contractors and creators.
Proposed amendments to the GENIUS Act to include “robust financial controls” and stringent measures around consumer protection, bankruptcy and ethics for private stablecoin issuers such as tech companies and bans on issuers on promoting yield or interest-bearing features
As U.S. lawmakers circulate an updated draft agreement on the GENIUS Act, an acronym for Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins of 2025 Act, that could all be about to change due to the potential emergence of domestic regulatory clarity around dollar-backed stablecoins. Senate Democrats are now warning that the bill, as originally drafted, could inadvertently open the floodgates to corruption, foreign threats and a new era of unregulated digital finance. Democratic lawmakers are asking for amendments to be made around consumer protection, bankruptcy and ethics, as well as “robust financial controls” for private stablecoin issuers, such as tech companies. Ultimately, whether the GENIUS Act becomes law, and in what form, could redefine the future of finance in America. The regulatory framework offers the promise of clarity and the peril of loopholes alike, as well as the challenge of reconciling innovation with oversight. The updated GENIUS Act bill explicitly ensures that existing laws enforced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) remain applicable to stablecoin issuers, and prevents the new regulatory regime from becoming a loophole for evading securities laws. Issuers will also face strict bans on promoting yield or interest-bearing features — a move designed to curb risks akin to those that triggered past collapses in the crypto lending space. Additionally, naming restrictions will prevent companies from using terms like “United States” or “USG” in product branding, reducing the risk of misleading consumers about government backing. Issuers located in countries under comprehensive U.S. sanctions — or deemed money laundering risks — are barred from operating in the U.S. market, closing potential backdoors for illicit finance. Democrats also secured tough restrictions on non-financial publicly traded companies — namely tech giants like Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. — from issuing their own stablecoins unless they meet rigorous standards. The language aims to preserve the separation between commerce and banking, a long-held policy pillar that critics argue could be undermined by digital assets.