stablecoin

S&P Global Ratings confirmed on October 1 that the issuer credit rating of the stablecoin protocol Sky Protocol is B-, with a stable outlook. S&P stated that Sky is advancing the Prime Agent ecosystem (formerly Stars or subDAO), which includes strategies such as over-the-counter lending with a scale of approximately $1 billion, accounting for about 10% of the total assets supporting USDS and DAI; these semi-independent entities use the Sky balance sheet for specialized investments within the risk parameters set by governance, while increasing management and monitoring complexity.The total supply of USDS and DAI increased from $7.7 billion in August 2025 to $9.5 billion. As of September 17, 2026, reserves are approximately $92 million, with a target of $150 million. Robust assets USDC and tokenized money market funds backed by government bonds total approximately $4.92 billion, accounting for about 50% of circulating USDS and DAI, up from 36% in August 2025. On-chain crypto lending has decreased to about 25% of the balance sheet, while over-the-counter crypto lending has increased to approximately $1 billion. Newly included assets include RLUSD, PYUSD, and USDG totaling approximately $392 million, as well as a tokenized fund investing in AAA-rated CLO shares of about $500 million.As of September 2026, the four major Prime Agents account for approximately 65% of the combined assets, with Spark accounting for 36%, Grove for 24%, Obex for 4%, and Osero for 1%.

Circle disclosed that it has responded to the European Commission's targeted consultation on MiCA. Circle stated that MiCA has provided a first-mover advantage for Europe, with approximately 30 types of electronic currency tokens authorized. However, among the top 25 stablecoins by global market capitalization, only 3 are regulated by MiCA, namely USDC, USDG, and EURC, indicating a gap in the regulatory scope of MiCA that fails to cover the largest global tokens.Circle suggests maintaining a multiple issuance structure, where globally circulating stablecoins are jointly issued by EU entities authorized under MiCA and foreign regulatory entities. It also recommends establishing an equivalence and recognition system for foreign regulatory stablecoins similar to EMIR, CSDR, and MiFIR, with the regulatory authority of the issuer's jurisdiction primarily responsible for supervision, while the EU level conducts equivalence recognition and EBA entity approval. Regarding reserve requirements, Circle believes that MiCA's requirement for issuers to deposit at least 30% of reserve assets in commercial bank deposits will increase bank credit and counterparty risk, supporting the European Central Bank to reconsider this requirement, and suggests removing two concentration rules from the EBA technical standards.

According to Cointelegraph, Arthur Hayes stated that U.S. policymakers may support the AI industry and government debt financing by increasing the money supply, driving up cryptocurrency prices. If China shifts from limited tightening to large-scale monetary stimulus, it may also boost demand for scarce assets. He is also paying attention to financial pressures in France, including credit default swaps related to BNP Paribas and the spread of French government bonds.Catrina Wang, General Partner at Portal Ventures, stated that banks and asset management companies have an advantage in on-chain financial markets due to existing customer relationships. Todd McDonald, co-founder of R3, pointed out that public chains can help institutions reach customers beyond their own networks. Justin Kugel, Executive Vice President of Growth at World Liberty Financial, mentioned that the demand for asset management and investment evaluation still leaves room for intermediaries.Chetan Karkhanis, Senior Vice President of Digital Asset Client Relations at Franklin Templeton, stated that the company has no intention of issuing its own stablecoin and hopes to provide investment returns through tokenized money market funds. Haonan Li, co-founder and CEO of Codex, stated that trade routes connecting Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia are driving demand for stablecoin payments, with buyers paying eastward and manufactured goods flowing westward.Ilya Podoynitsyn, co-founder and CEO of FinHarbor, stated that companies need to confirm they have long-term idle funds that do not affect daily operations before allocating cryptocurrency assets. Michael Camarda, Chief Development Officer of SharpLink, an Ethereum treasury company, stated that both stock buybacks and increasing ETH holdings can enhance the per-share ETH ownership, and the company employs both methods to meet the preferences of institutional and retail investors.

According to The Block, the European Central Bank has proposed three models for introducing central bank digital currency on the blockchain, including direct issuance, establishing bridging mechanisms, and implementation through private intermediaries.These models can provide settlement support for transactions such as tokenized securities, bank deposits, and stablecoins on distributed ledger technology networks.

On-chain analyst Darkfost posted on X that the inflow of whale funds transferring over 1 million dollars in stablecoins to Binance has significantly increased recently.According to the 30-day cumulative calculation, the amount of stablecoins this group has transferred to Binance has risen from 21.7 billion dollars to 30.5 billion dollars over the past month, an increase of over 40%.Darkfost stated that the inflow of stablecoins to exchanges usually indicates that funds are preparing to enter the market, so this change may correspond to potential buying pressure. However, compared to last October when inflows once exceeded 61 billion dollars, the current deployment of whale funds remains relatively cautious.

According to Cryptopolitan, the International Financial Association's Global Debt Monitor on September 23 shows that global debt has reached a historic high of 365 trillion dollars, an increase of 10 trillion dollars in six months, with emerging market debt rising by 6.5 trillion to 110 trillion dollars, with China contributing the most.The San Francisco Federal Reserve's report on September 28 pointed out that the share of U.S. Treasury bonds held by foreign investors has decreased from over 50% at the peak in the late 2000s to about 30% in early 2026. Since 2023, stablecoin issuers have been increasing their holdings of short-term U.S. Treasury bonds at a pace faster than Japan; the bank expects that by 2030, the demand for short-term U.S. Treasury bonds from stablecoins may nearly double to about 400 billion dollars.

Variant Fund investment partner Alana Levin stated in her market thoughts for Q4 2026 that the bottom of the crypto market likely occurred at some point in July. She wrote in early July that the bottom seemed close, with Bitcoin at $59,000, Ethereum at $1,600, and ZEC at $420. She mentioned that the question has shifted to whether the bull market is genuinely starting or if it's a false rally, and which projects will benefit the most in the early bull market, assuming the market is in the early stages of a new crypto bull market.Levin indicated that the increasingly formed consensus is that marginal funds are most likely to flow into value storage protocols as currency and protocols that can generate income. She believes Bitcoin is the dominant asset for digital value storage currently, while other competing assets may be valued based on their market capitalization relative to Bitcoin's market cap and its changes. For income-generating protocols, she expects investors to examine whether the income comes from crypto-native activities (like Pump) or traditional financial activities (like Hyperliquid), whether it persists during market downturns, and profit margins; projects with exposure to real-world assets and stablecoin growth, which are expected to attract institutional users and are still led by founders after surviving a bear market, are more likely to achieve higher multiples.She also categorized on-chain projects that can benchmark against non-crypto businesses as a third category, believing that most belong to narrative trading rather than long-term investment. Themes include routing, reasoning, computing power, data collection, and interface-related directions in artificial intelligence, and she is skeptical about whether most scenarios require blockchain; if such projects significantly outperform, she would view it as a signal of nearing the top.

According to The Block, new data released by Visa shows that nearly 17% of the transaction volume from stablecoin-linked card transactions in the fiscal year 2026 to date comes from corporate and business projects.Visa currently supports over 160 stablecoin-linked card projects, with related payment transaction volume increasing by nearly 200% year-on-year.

The core provisions of the regulatory framework for payment stablecoins in Florida, USA, will take effect on October 1, 2026.According to the state's Bill 2026 Chapter 176, engaging in the business of qualified payment stablecoin issuers in the state generally requires a license or must meet exemption conditions; qualified issuers must maintain at least a 1:1 identifiable reserve, which includes cash, funds in Federal Reserve accounts, qualified bank deposits, U.S. Treasury securities with a remaining maturity of no more than 93 days, and qualified government money market funds, among others. They must also publicly disclose redemption policies, disclose reserve composition monthly, accept monthly audits by certified public accountants, and be certified by the CEO and CFO.If the total issuance of payment stablecoins by state-level issuers reaches $10 billion, unless a federal exemption is obtained, they must transition to the corresponding federal regulatory framework within 360 days or suspend new issuances until the scale falls below the threshold.

From September 29 to October 1, the stablecoin infrastructure platform Interlace made its debut at the 2026 Korea Blockchain Week (KBW), deeply participating in events such as The Next Onchain Economy and HSC Conference Seoul, engaging with global Web3 partners and financial industry practitioners to discuss stablecoin payments and next-generation financial infrastructure.Cat Lucci, the business leader of Interlace, stated that the key to the implementation of stablecoin payments lies in the deep integration of stablecoin channels with bank cards and local clearing systems. Interlace provides efficient and secure capital flow experiences for exchanges, wallets, and B2B trade scenarios through modular capabilities such as cards, accounts, and clearing.During KBW, Interlace also set up a product experience session where attendees could receive Stablecoin Card gift cards to experience the convenient payment of on-chain assets in real-world consumption scenarios, attracting the attention and engagement of many participants.It is reported that Interlace's next stop will be at TOKEN2049 in Singapore, participating in events such as Stablecoin Happy Hour and AI & Emerging Onchain Assets, continuing to share innovative achievements in on-chain financial infrastructure on the core stage of Web3.

Lloyds Banking Group and Visa completed their first stablecoin settlement test, settling a total of $750,000 in Visa payment obligations using USDC within 7 days, with funds arriving in as little as one hour.

The founder of the venture capital firm Theory Ventures, Tomasz Tunguz, stated that the fastest-growing market globally is not AI, but the crypto market formed by real-world assets (RWA) on the blockchain. He noted that RWA enables stocks and commodities like oil and copper to be traded on-chain, taking on almost all public price discovery during commodity exchange closures.Tunguz mentioned that RWA, through perpetual contracts for stocks, provides pre-IPO pricing for Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX, and Cerebras, and brings international access channels. He cited data indicating that the perpetual price of Cerebras before its IPO differed from the Nasdaq opening price by less than 1.3%, with SpaceX having a perpetual open interest of approximately $215 million and a cumulative trading volume of about $2.2 billion before its IPO. A report from Pantera Capital in September 2026 showed that the trading volume of perpetual contracts for stocks on Hyperliquid and Lighter reached $67.8 billion in June, which is 16 times that of tokenized stock spot trading.He also stated that stablecoins have become one of the top ten buyers of U.S. Treasury bonds, surpassing China, Norway, and Switzerland, and are used to settle transactions of the aforementioned tokenized assets. Institutions such as JPMorgan, HSBC, BlackRock, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Franklin Templeton, Robinhood, and Stripe are advancing RWA.

According to Cointelegraph, ESMA submitted a proposal to the European Commission to amend MiCA, aiming to establish a new category of regulated crypto services for companies providing access to DeFi protocols, while also strengthening regulatory requirements for staking, crypto lending, and non-compliant stablecoin-related services.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, Market Disruptors podcast host Mark Moss stated that despite the recent interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve, Bitcoin continues to rise. He believes that most people misinterpret the reasons for the long-term increase in interest rates, suggesting that a booming economy could be one of the answers, and noted that Bitcoin benefits from both currency devaluation trades and an optimistic technological future.Moss pointed out that the United States is facing $40 trillion in debt, and that a monetary reset is a process rather than a single event. He outlined four ways to address the debt issue, focusing on the trends from 2029 to 2030. He also discussed stablecoins and the Genius Act, believing that approximately 6 billion people worldwide want to hold U.S. dollars.He mentioned that institutions are buying Bitcoin while retail investors are selling, and referenced Bitcoin's S-curve and compound annual growth rate, providing a price target of $1 million.

U.S. Senator Steve Daines (Republican from Montana, member of the Senate Finance Committee) has officially introduced a 56-page digital asset tax bill, named the "Aligning Digital Assets with Tax Principles Act" (ADAPT Act). The bill aims to establish clearer tax rules for scenarios such as stablecoin payments, network fees, staking, and lending, and plans to extend existing tax rules like wash sales and constructive sales to apply to digital assets.The core provisions of the bill state that taxpayers generally do not need to recognize gains or losses when using compliant U.S. dollar stablecoins to purchase goods and services, while exempting brokers from information reporting obligations for qualifying consumer transactions; however, this exemption does not apply to traders and market makers. The bill also extends wash sale rules and constructive sale rules to digital assets, with compliant stablecoins excluded from the constructive sale provisions to limit loss harvesting behavior in crypto assets.Additionally, the bill proposes to exempt digital assets used to pay for network, transaction, or gas fees of $10 or less from gain or loss recognition and allows qualifying digital asset traders and dealers to choose to account for them at fair market value. The bill also stipulates rules for income sources from staking and mining, a non-recognition framework for digital asset lending, a safe harbor for foreign investors' transactions, and definitions for digital asset classifications; most provisions will apply to tax years or transactions after December 31, 2026. Previously, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee passed its own "Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act" on September 16 by a vote of 38 to 5.