Blockchain Payments・Stablecoins Update: July 2026
🏦 Visa opens its 200M+ merchant network to stablecoins
🏛️ JPMorgan, BofA, HSBC, Citi & Wells Fargo team up on a shared tokenized deposit network (targeting 2027)
📈 Stablecoin volume hit $33T in 2025 (+72%), on track for $50T+ by 2030
🌍 Cross-border stablecoin transfers stayed cheaper than interbank FX through Q2
Rare moment where my professional and personal worlds collide: XRP is now the first crypto on the jersey of a major college athletics program, at my alma mater.
XRP Family, meet the Jayhawks. Rock Chalk!
AI agents are increasingly making transactions, executing trades, and settling obligations autonomously and at machine speed. The infrastructure behind these payments needs to be fit for purpose.
Banks authorise transactions and provide safeguards to our money. Agentic AI transactions should be no different, operating within the secure guardrails of bank security and protection.
That's why @quantnetwork has joined the x402 Foundation, hosted by The Linux Foundation.
Our @FusionLayer25 multi-ledger rollup is x402-ready today, across 70+ networks.
Interoperability between decentralised and institutional finance is what we're building.
Learn more: https://t.co/no7GVOCzsI
#QuantFusion #x402 #AgenticPayments #AIAgents #TokenisedDeposits
NEW: Chainlink & multinational banking consortia launch Project Pangea to develop a novel solution redefining international FX markets.
Pangea brings together 50+ banks, representing $10+ trillion AUM, to unlock T+0 cross-border settlement via Chainlink & ISO 20022 standards 🧵
INSIGHT: Stellar and Canton will be the public blockchains carrying DTCC’s tokenized US securities.
DTC, which custodies over $114 trillion in assets, plans to tokenize Russell 1000 stocks, ETFs, and Treasuries in the second half of 2026.
Avalanche Launches Payments Collective With Global Institutional Giants
@Avax officially activates the Avalanche Payments Collective, an alliance of 28 organizations designed to unify the global financial stack on-chain.
Founding participants, including @FTDA_US, @Vaneck_us, @Anchorage, and @Paxos, are integrating stablecoin settlement, treasury infrastructure, and foreign exchange into the $AVAX ecosystem.
This initiative connects payment flows across 150+ countries and 96 currencies, effectively linking the digital economy with approximately 22 billion payout endpoints worldwide.
How should you value a digital asset?
At Grayscale, we view crypto on a spectrum.
Some assets, like $BTC, are digital commodities driven by supply and demand.
Others, like $HYPE, are tied to revenue and can be valued with cash flows.
Read the full stack post from @lowbeta here:
https://t.co/ghWa4nwWhr
CASH JUST WENT ON-CHAIN.
For most of crypto's history, getting in required the one thing a lot of people don't have: a bank account, a card, or an exchange operating in their country.
The barrier was never the technology, it was access.
@StellarOrg and @MoneyGram removed it. You walk into a participating MoneyGram location, hand over physical cash, and it becomes USDC on Stellar in near-real time, with no bank account or card needed, and the same works in reverse when you want cash back.
MoneyGram brings a retail network across more than 170 countries. Stellar settles each transaction in seconds for a fraction of a cent.
LOBSTR was the wallet connecting users to all of it, from day one. A decade of building only on Stellar tends to do that.
A trader sees convenience here.
Someone with no bank account that the system ever offered, earning in a currency that keeps losing value, sees the first usable dollar account of their life.
The bridge between cash and crypto opened. LOBSTR was already standing on it. 🦞
Today, we’re launching the Avalanche Payments Collective.
Founding participants include Franklin Templeton, VanEck, Anchorage Digital, Paxos, Agora, Ethena, Rain, Axiym, Tassat, and others spanning the payments stack.
The Collective brings together companies spanning stablecoins, settlement, treasury infrastructure, foreign exchange, custody, card issuance, business payments, asset management, and global payouts.
Why?
Because the future of payments requires more than faster transactions.
Moving money globally requires liquidity, settlement, compliance, treasury management, custody, foreign exchange, and local payment networks working together as one. 🔺
28 leading organizations supporting payment flows across 150+ countries, 96 currencies, and ~22 billion payout endpoints are building on Avalanche.
Over the last several years, Avalanche has quietly become home to one of the industry's broadest payments ecosystems.
Now, that ecosystem has a name.
Read more: https://t.co/6AMvwHGIax
https://t.co/fJv8rwnBqj
Founding Members:
AeraTech @Anchorage@AxiymFinance@brale_xyz@coreapp@dakota_xyz@ethena@FTDA_US@grovedotfinance@krakenfx@Lynq_Network@meshpay NHN KCP @nonco_otc OatFi @opentrade_io@Paxos@raincards@RequestFinance@rise_pay SETTL @StraitsX@tassatgroup@vaneck_us@WisdomTreeFunds@withAUSD@wyostable@zerohashx
Today, @Zebec_HQ launches enterprise payroll on Stellar 💵
Employees and contractors can receive funds instantly into digital wallets, spend through Zebec’s Mastercard-powered cards, or convert digital dollars into local currency, all on Stellar.
https://t.co/pin9Kz5E7I
DTCC is approaching a live demonstration of tokenization using assets held at The Depository Trust Company (DTC).
To underscore the significance of this milestone, we break down what tokenization is, how it works, and how it may help enhance the efficiency, accessibility, and transparency of assets ownership.
Learn more about our tokenization initiatives: https://t.co/IQB5OSm6DB
As AI agents begin to act, payments move into the background — at machine speed and massive scale.
Today we’re introducing Mastercard Agent Pay for Machines — bringing structure, governance, and trust to this new class of payments.
Launching with 30+ partners to bring this to life from day one.
This isn’t just more payments. It’s a new operating model for commerce.
👉 Learn more: https://t.co/TeS6Lj8jLO
🔥 NEW: Chainlink will power the official FIFA World Cup prediction market partner, enabling instant payouts and market resolutions for billions of football fans worldwide.