Wall Street Embraces Stablecoins: 90% of Institutions Now Using or Testing Digital Dollars
Forget ’exploring blockchain’—institutional adoption just hit ludicrous speed. A tidal wave of TradFi players now hold or pilot stablecoins, cutting settlement times from days to seconds (and bypassing enough middlemen to make a Swiss banker sweat).
Why the rush? The 2023 banking crisis spooked CFOs into diversizing treasury reserves, while regulators—slow as ever—finally stopped pretending stablecoins were a ’niche experiment.’
JPMorgan’s Onyx now settles $1B daily in JPM Coin, while BlackRock tokenizes money market funds. Even pension funds—yes, those pension funds—are dipping toes in. Cynics note this coincides perfectly with banks realizing they can’t kill crypto, so they’re commoditizing its least disruptive aspect.
The real question: When do Visa and Swift admit they’re becoming legacy rails?
U.S. States Boost Bitcoin Exposure Through Strategy Stock Surge
Legacy payment rails are falling short in the globalized economy, and traditional banks appear to be taking stablecoins seriously as an upgrade. The report highlights that 58% of banks are leveraging these digital assets for cross-border transfers, with others using them for payment acceptance, liquidity optimization, and merchant settlements.
Because stablecoins are pegged to fiat currencies, banks see them as easy to slot into existing treasury infrastructure without overhauling backend systems. Fireblocks described them as a “path to modernization” and a potential tool for regaining ground lost to agile fintech rivals.
