Banks and platforms seize stablecoin distribution, Coinbase builds a multi-rail settlement stack

Owned Distribution Becomes the New Stablecoin Battleground

On 23 October, HSBC moved RedCoin from a roughly 100-user staff pilot into PayMe, exposing its HKD stablecoin to more than 3.3 million users and 100,000 merchants and signaling a path toward tokenised investment subscriptions tied first to an HKD money-market fund. Cross River’s addition of Ripple’s RLUSD on XRP Ledger to its core banking stack pushed the same model into bank infrastructure, where stablecoin transfers sit alongside ACH, wires, and real-time payments through one API.

The strategic shift is ownership of distribution and control. Mastercard’s planned acquisition of BVNK for up to $1.8 billion shows major networks want to own stablecoin settlement infrastructure, not just route through partners. Visa is scaling through the network, with reported stablecoin settlement volume above $25 billion in fiscal Q4 2026, about 10 times the prior year, while Inyo Global extended USDC prefunding payouts to more than 180 countries. ECB digital euro and tokenised settlement work still matters, but it remains architecture selection, not live commercial deployment.

For operators, stablecoin capability is now a treasury and settlement decision layered onto existing customer and merchant channels. For vendors and investors, the value keeps moving toward integrated control planes that bundle compliance, liquidity, conversion, reconciliation, and custody, increasing pressure on narrower middleware providers.

Coinbase Turns Stablecoins Into a Multi-Rail Settlement Stack

Coinbase spent late October wiring stablecoins deeper into the transaction stack. On Oct. 28 it added Ripple’s RLUSD to Retail, Exchange, and Prime, with deposits and withdrawals on XRPL, Base, and Ethereum; on Oct. 19 it linked USDC settlement on Base to Thunes for supplier payments, remittances, and gig-worker payouts in 140 countries; and on Oct. 16 it expanded stablecoin-backed card programs with Marqeta, with Coinbase handling custody and fiat conversion while Base moves and settles transactions. Citi Virtual Accounts and Spring extend the same model into fiat-to-stablecoin conversion and merchant settlement.

That extends the earlier fee-capture story from where revenue lands to how settlement gets routed across products. Tokenized assets are broadening beyond Treasuries, with tokenized equities now estimated at roughly $1 billion to $2 billion as Ondo, Backed, WisdomTree, Securitize, Kraken, Nasdaq, and ICE push issuance and distribution. Revenue is already following the rails: Robinhood generated $173 million from event contracts in Q3, or 12.1% of net revenue, while Coinbase’s prediction-market revenue topped a $200 million annualized run rate after partner distribution and CFTC approval to list its own contracts.