The Stable Scoop: Coinbase vs banks? Washington stalls on policy-making, and Apex pilots USD1 across $3.5T

Editor - Jackie

🌎 Macro: Coinbase V.S. banks heats up, Ethereum hits $175B in stables, and TRM tallies $141B in illicit stablecoin receipts

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says “we’re misunderstood” as stablecoin rewards become the next policy war

• CEO Brian Armstrong argued Coinbase has never been in a stronger position and that investors misread it as pure “levered crypto beta” even as its business becomes more diversified and durable.
• The article said Armstrong framed crypto as disrupting Wall Street, and it cited examples of Coinbase’s institutional integration including a JPMorgan linking deal and custody relationships for large asset managers, plus custody work for the U.S. government.
• A key policy fight is whether stablecoin rewards should be banned, with banking executives pushing for restrictions and Coinbase advocating for yield-bearing stablecoin products to remain allowed.

Ethereum’s tokenized RWAs clear $17B as stablecoins top $175B on mainnet - Ethereum mainnet RWAs passed $17B (+~315% YoY to ~34% of onchain RWAs) as stablecoins exceeded $175B, with examples like BlackRock’s BUIDL and JPMorgan’s $100M tokenized money-market seed and a Wintermute view that tokenized commodities could hit $15B in 2026.

TRM flags $141B in illicit stablecoin receipts in 2025, led by sanctions-linked flows - TRM said illicit entities received $141B in stablecoins in 2025 with 86% tied to sanctions activity, including $72B linked to the A7A5 ruble-pegged token, while A7A5’s Oleg Ogienko disputed the framing and cited Kyrgyzstan compliance and FATF-aligned controls.

🔍 Policies: All eyes on Washington! Fed's Kashkari roasts stables, yield clause still blocks the bill, and the Senate stalls

Yield showdown in Washington: banks push a blanket ban while crypto offers a narrower “transaction rewards” carveout

• The Senate’s crypto market structure bill is stalled over whether stablecoins can offer yield, even though the dispute is described as separate from market-structure policy.
• Banking groups are pushing a blanket “no yield or reward” standard in a memo titled “Yield and Interest Prohibition Principles,” arguing rewards threaten the depository business at the core of U.S. banking.
• The Digital Chamber’s Cody Carbone said crypto’s counterproposal would give up anything that resembles interest on idle stablecoin balances while preserving rewards tied to transactions, as the White House urged a quick compromise.

Fed’s Kashkari fires shots at stablecoins and questions what they do better than Venmo for Americans

• Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari called crypto “utterly useless” and argued AI has far more credible long-run economic potential.
• He mocked stablecoins as “buzzword salad” and challenged their consumer value by asking what a stablecoin enables that a U.S. user cannot already do with Venmo today.
• CoinDesk said Kashkari argued the real friction is cashing out to local currency for everyday spending, which can be costly, and that many touted benefits are not primarily aimed at U.S. consumers.

TD Cowen says SEC/CFTC vacancies could shift market-structure talks as stablecoin yield remains stuck - TD Cowen said Democrats’ conflict-of-interest push is the main hurdle (not SEC-vs-CFTC scope), noting no Democratic commissioners at either agency, Trump crypto-income estimates (~$1.4B) and a 20% American Bitcoin stake, while stablecoin yield is still unresolved and passage odds were pegged at ~60% for 2026.

Bessent says Clarity Act deadlock fuels volatility as stablecoin rewards become the flashpoint - Bessent argued legislative clarity would steady markets during selloffs, blamed a subset of crypto firms for blocking progress, and said stablecoin rewards are the key pressure point with banks pushing bans, Coinbase defending yield products, and a March 1 negotiating deadline.

OKX lands a Malta payments license to scale EU stablecoin payments and its crypto card under MiCA/PSD2 - OKX secured a Malta payment institution license ahead of March 2026 requirements, enabling stablecoin payment services across the EU (EMT treatment under MiCA plus PSD2 permissions) and supporting products like OKX Pay and the Mastercard-linked OKX Card.

Stripe-owned Bridge gets conditional OCC trust charter approval to run stablecoin issuance under a bank framework - Bridge received conditional OCC approval for a national trust charter aimed at custody/reserves and issuing stablecoins under a clearer federal structure, as similar approvals pick up and banking lobbies urge strict safety-and-soundness standards.

🔥 Biz Beats: Apex pilots USD1 across a $3.5T platform, PYUSD clears $4B, and TON targets Telegram scale

Apex pilots WLFI’s stablecoin across a $3.5T fund-servicing platform for tokenized flows

• Apex Group, which services over $3.5 trillion in assets, will pilot WLFI’s USD1 as a payment rail for subscriptions, redemptions, and distributions within its tokenized fund ecosystem.
• Apex aims to speed up settlement and reduce operational overhead for institutional clients, while WLFI’s Zach Witkoff positioned USD1 as infrastructure for a future financial services stack.
• Apex has expanded tokenization capabilities via acquisitions of Tokeny and Globacap and may explore listing WLFI tokenized assets on LSEG Digital Market Infrastructure pending approvals, while WLFI plans a mobile app connecting bank accounts with digital-asset wallets.

TON Foundation partners with Banxa to expand APAC stablecoin merchant payments, citing sub-cent fees and Telegram reach

• TON Foundation partnered with Banxa to roll out stablecoin payment processing for SMEs across Asia-Pacific, using TON for settlement and cross-border movement.
• It said the integration combines Banxa’s licensed fiat on/off-ramp network with TON infrastructure for B2B, C2B, and cross-border transactions, with TON Foundation framing the goal as durable commercial utility.
• The article said TON Pay targets Telegram’s 1.1 billion monthly active users, with average fees below $0.01 and sub-second settlement, and noted OSL completed a $200 million equity financing round in January 2026 after a $300 million raise in 2025.

tarkWare brings EY’s Nightfall privacy layer to Starknet to make enterprise stablecoin payments viable on public chains - StarkWare is integrating EY’s open-source Nightfall to enable confidential institutional transactions with selective disclosure and certificate-linked identities, citing $10T+ in 2025 adjusted stablecoin/tokenized payment settlement volume and framing privacy as the missing piece for enterprise-scale onchain payments.

Sanctioned A7A5 claims Kyrgyzstan compliance while aiming to capture 20%+ of Russia’s trade settlement - Ogienko said A7A5 follows KYC/AML in Kyrgyzstan even as the U.S. Treasury sanctions its issuing/affiliated entities and reserve bank, with Artemis data cited for ~$90B supply added last year and the token facing thin liquidity and CEX avoidance due to secondary-sanctions risk.

Animoca wins a Dubai VASP license and tees up 2026 expansion into stablecoins and RWA tokenization - Animoca received a VARA VASP license for broker-dealer and investment management services (excluding DIFC), cited a 600+ company portfolio, and pointed to a 2026 Nasdaq reverse-merger plan plus stablecoin/RWA initiatives including a Hong Kong JV targeting a stablecoin issuer license.

PYUSD passes $4B as PayPal-linked incentives boost Arbitrum balances and USDai integration - PYUSD supply crossed $4B with Arbitrum balances cited at ~$220M–$256.6M, following a PayPal–Permian Labs tie-up making PYUSD a reserve/settlement asset for USDai’s USDAI and offering 4.5% APY on up to $1B in PYUSD deposits for one year.

💡Rollouts: Nexus previews USDX rewards stables, XRPL build institution-ready rails, and Anchorage drops new features

Meet USDX! Nexus previews a treasury-backed stablecoin that shares protocol revenue with apps and users

• Nexus plans to launch USDX, a treasury-backed “native rewards stablecoin” built with M0 and designed to distribute rewards through a Global Yield Distribution System.
• Apps holding USDX would earn a share of protocol revenue based on user USDX balances, and CEO Daniel Marin described yield distribution as tied to contributions such as TVL and volume as set by monetary policy.
• Nexus raised $27.2 million across two rounds from December 2022 through June 2024, with the seed led by Dragonfly and the Series A led by Pantera and Lightspeed.

Compliance-first DeFi: XRPL turns on a permissioned DEX mode with KYC/AML gating for regulated institutions

• XRPL activated XLS-81 “Permissioned DEX,” enabling controlled versions of its built-in DEX where administrators can restrict who participates.
• It said participation can be tied to compliance requirements such as KYC and AML checks, targeting institutions that want onchain settlement and liquidity but need counterparty controls.
• The piece also pointed to prior XRPL work (XLS-85 Token Escrow) that expanded escrow to trustline-based tokens and multi-purpose tokens, including stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets.

Anchorage pitches a stablecoin “correspondent banking” bundle for non-U.S. banks - Anchorage is rolling out “Stablecoin Solutions” combining mint/redeem, custody, fiat treasury management, and settlement so banks can move dollars globally under an OCC-chartered structure, with support for minting/redeeming multiple tokens (e.g., USA₮, USDtb, USDGO, and potential USDPT).

Ether.fi migrates its non-custodial card stack to Optimism while keeping stablecoin spend and borrow-against-collateral - ether.fi Cash will move from Scroll to Optimism over coming months with ~70,000 active cards and ~300,000 accounts, preserving stablecoin spending, borrowing against assets like eETH while earning yield and cashback, as OP Stack processed 3.6B transactions in 2H 2025 (~13% of all crypto transactions).

ProShares launches a GENIUS-ready money market ETF built around the 93-day T-bill reserve limit - ProShares rolled out NYSE Arca: IQMM to hold assets that qualify as dollar-stablecoin reserves under the GENIUS Act’s 93-days-or-less T-bill rule, positioning it to help issuers meet redemptions without forced losses as the stablecoin market sits just under $300B and could grow up to 10x in 4–5 years.

Soil rolls out RLUSD yield vaults on XRPL and says the first $1M pools filled in under 72 hours - Soil launched XRPL vaults for RLUSD offering fixed returns backed by private credit, tokenized Treasuries, and market-neutral hedging, while citing ORQO’s ~$300M management, EU licenses, an Abu Dhabi HQ buildout, and an RWA market projection of $2T by 2028.

💲Money in motion:Dragonfly raises another $650M as it doubles down on stablecoins, DeFi, and prediction markets

• Dragonfly closed Fund IV at $650 million with a focus that includes stablecoins, DeFi, and prediction markets.
• Managing partner Haseeb Qureshi said the fund is a major bet that crypto’s growth curve is still early, pointing to themes like agentic payments, on-chain privacy, and tokenization expanding crypto’s surface area.
• The Defiant listed prior fund sizes of roughly $100M (Fund I), $225M (Fund II), and $650M (Fund III), and cited recent bets that include Polymarket, Ethena, Rain, and Mesh.

👋 That’s your stablecoin scoop for the week!

Until next time — AllScale Weekly

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