The Scramble for Stablecoins Is Underway

June 2026

Fintech & Payments

Michael Greenwood

Principal Analyst

In the first week of June 2026, it was reported that Stripe, Visa and Mastercard are close to launching a joint stablecoin platform, with Coinbase supposedly weighing up participating in the project. According to CoinDesk, the three major players in the payments space are in the process of preparing to introduce the platform. All suggested participants did not comment on the report when asked by news publications. 

Whilst this lack of confirmation means there are no details with which to assess the potential impact of the reported platform, it does point to the growing fashion of established players in the payment market adopting stablecoins. This trend is reinforced by Mastercard announcing that it is expanding its settlement capabilities, including a stablecoins option. The new capability is designed to help both fiat and on-chain card settlement, while operating alongside existing processes. This followed the May 27th announcement that Mastercard secured a BitLicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services; enabling it to conduct virtual currency business activity with New York residents. 

It is not only Mastercard that has been investing in its stablecoin capabilities. In February 2025, Stripe acquired stablecoin company Bridge, in a deal worth $1.1 billion. The acquisition allowed Stripe to offer the acceptance of stablecoin payments from over 70 countries. Meanwhile, Visa expanded its global stablecoin settlement pilot with five additional blockchains. This brings the number of blockchains supported by Visa to nine; with it reaching an annualised stablecoin settlement run rate of $7 billion.
 
The actions of these major players in the payments market demonstrate a strong interest in stablecoins’ capabilities for payment settlement. Stablecoins speed up settlement - allowing transactions to be settled within minutes - and offer 24/7 availability. This is a significant upgrade on traditional settlement that, typically, does not operate on weekends and can take multiple days to complete. Stablecoins also come with fewer intermediaries; leading to lower settlement fees. They are also particularly useful for settling cross-border transactions as they remove the need for currency conversion; saving the user money by eliminating exchange fees and currency volatility risk. These factors have led to payment settlement being one of the first use cases to see serious investment in stablecoins from established players in the market. 

Despite these strengths, a number of factors have limited the adoption of stablecoins by established players; the most significant being the regulatory environment. Major financial institutions were always wary of entering a space with an unclear regulatory position. This uncertainty was largely resolved by the passing of the GENIUS Act in July 2025. Despite not coming into force until January 2027, the GENIUS Act provides American financial institutions with a clear set of rules by which to operate; allowing them to develop stablecoin systems in the knowledge they will be compliant when the regulation does come into force. It is this boost in confidence which has caused the timing on growth in stablecoin investment by the likes of Visa and Mastercard. Conversely, in markets without clear regulation on stablecoins, there has not been a corresponding growth in their infrastructure investment. 

An issue that persists with stablecoins is the unrecoverable nature of transactions. As they are settled so quickly, there is a much smaller time window in which a transaction could be cancelled. There is also no equivalent of a chargeback for reversing transactions should fraud take place. This means that preventing fraud from accruing in the first place is of more importance for transactions settled in stablecoins than for traditional card payments. It is important to note that settling a transaction in stablecoins does not remove a merchant’s legal obligation to provide refunds where appropriate. 

A challenge that stablecoins will face outside of the US is governmental opposition to US dollar pegged stablecoins; grounded in concerns around currency sovereignty. If a significant proportion of a country’s economic activity is being conducted in a stablecoin that is pegged to a currency other than its national currency, it significantly reduces the country’s central bank’s ability to influence the economy through monetary policy. This would likely lead to regulators promoting or providing preferential treatment to stablecoins linked to national currencies in order to protect its currency sovereignty. While using stablecoins in a country’s own currency addresses this issue, it also removes all the benefits stablecoins offer in the cross-border use case. In the coming years, it will be important for regulators to strike the right balance between protecting control of currency while still capitalising on the cross-border potential of US dollar denominated stablecoins. 

An issue that must be overcome is the need for on- and off-ramps in each country. For stablecoins to be widely adopted, on-ramping and off-ramping must be seamless and widespread. There is no benefit to a merchant accepting a stablecoin transaction if they cannot off-ramp it into fiat currency. Fundamentally, Visa and Mastercard are among the best placed players in the market to address this challenge; both have strong reach, with their networks spanning card, account and wallet connections. As such, via a combination of pushing to and pulling from common payment methods, they are well set to power on- and off-ramping for stablecoins. This would allow these card networks to capitalise on stablecoin adoption while keeping the consumer experience the same at either end. It is this ability to provide end-to-end stablecoin solutions that offers the card networks a unique opportunity to capitalise on the growth of this technology. 

Where regulation sets a clear framework for financial institutions to work within, Juniper Research believes the race is now on to become the leaders in stablecoin adoption. Stablecoin vendors should focus on providing white-label solutions for this market. The majority of payment infrastructure providers - outside of the largest players - will not be able to invest in their own stablecoin infrastructure, but will wish to be able to offer its benefits to customers.