Bank-affiliated stablecoins accelerate onto the blockchain: Solana becomes the core battleground in payment infrastructure competition

On May 6, 2026, U.S. federally chartered bank SoFi announced at the Solana Accelerate Conference in Miami that it has officially deployed its SoFiUSD stablecoin onto the Solana blockchain. Ben Reynolds, Head of Corporate Banking at SoFi, said it chose Solana because of its “lower costs, faster settlement speeds, and higher transaction volume.” This is already the third financial or technology giant in 2026 to anchor stablecoin payment infrastructure on Solana. Previously, cross-border remittance giant Western Union had just launched its USDPT stablecoin on Solana on May 4, and the Solana Foundation also partnered with Google Cloud to launch Pay.sh, a stablecoin-based AI agent payment protocol. In just a few days, the Solana network has repeatedly received endorsements from multiple major institutions—this dense signal means that the wave of banks and fintech companies issuing stablecoins has moved from sporadic pilots to systematic rollout.

Behind this is a deeper industry shift than the surface-level hype suggests. When PayPal’s PYUSD market capitalization rose from about $500 million to over $4.1 billion within a year, when U.S. bank CEO Brian Moynihan publicly warned that “interest-bearing stablecoins could drain $6 trillion in deposits from the banking system,” and when the stablecoin market size surpassed $320 billion and Citigroup predicted it could reach $1.9 trillion in the baseline scenario by 2030, traditional financial institutions can no longer afford to stand on the sidelines.

Within a week, multiple institutions have rapidly anchored Solana

In the first week of May 2026, Solana’s ecosystem saw an unprecedented influx of institutional players.

On May 4, Western Union officially launched its USDPT (USD Payment Token) stablecoin. It is issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, the first federally chartered crypto bank in the United States, with the underlying chain being Solana. The initial pilots were rolled out in Bolivia and the Philippines, with plans to expand to consumer products in more than 40 countries during 2026. USDPT is designed to replace the traditional SWIFT proxy-bank settlement route, enabling 24/7 instant funds clearing between global branches.

On May 6, SoFi announced that it will expand SoFiUSD to Solana. SoFiUSD was first introduced in December 2025 by SoFi Bank (which holds a U.S. federal banking charter), and its early deployment was on Ethereum. Solana marks its first cross-chain expansion outside Ethereum. SoFi positions the product as a “stablecoin infrastructure provider,” targeting banks, fintech companies, and large enterprise platforms.

In addition, the Pay.sh service jointly launched by the Solana Foundation and Google Cloud is also already live. It allows AI agents to pay Google Cloud API fees on demand using stablecoins on Solana. Three institutions, three different routes, and the same underlying network—this is not a coincidence, but a concentrated surge of a trend.

The step-by-step evolution of bank-issued stablecoins

Banks and fintech companies entering the stablecoin race has not happened overnight. From the earliest internal settlement experiments to today’s full-scale public issuance, this evolution can roughly be divided into three stages.

The first stage: internal settlement experiments (2019—2022). In 2019, JPMorgan launched JPM Coin for wholesale settlement between institutional clients, not for retail users. The hallmark of this stage was a “closed network, internal use,” with stablecoins serving only as a tool to improve efficiency within the bank.

The second stage: trial runs for consumer use (2023—first half of 2025). In August 2023, PayPal launched PYUSD, becoming the first mainstream consumer financial platform to issue a stablecoin. It was issued by Paxos Trust Company and deployed on Ethereum. In 2024, PYUSD expanded to Solana, entering a multi-chain phase. During this period, Visa and Mastercard also began laying groundwork for stablecoin settlement infrastructure.

The third stage: banks actively issuing (second half of 2025—2026). The timeline accelerates and the window tightens:

• July 2025: The U.S. Congress passes the GENIUS Act, establishing for the first time a federal prudential regulatory framework for payment stablecoins. It requires issuers to hold 100% reserves, complete redemptions within a specified timeframe, and be supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
• December 2025: SoFi launches SoFiUSD, positioning it as a “stablecoin infrastructure provider.”
• January 2026: U.S. Bank CEO Moynihan warns that interest-bearing stablecoins may lead to a loss of $6 trillion in deposits for banks and reveals that the bank is preparing to issue stablecoins.
• February 25, 2026: The OCC publishes a proposed rule notice to implement the GENIUS Act, launching a 60-day public comment period.
• March 2026: PayPal expands PYUSD to 70 markets, with market capitalization surpassing $4.1 billion.
• May 4, 2026: Western Union launches USDPT; May 6, 2026: SoFiUSD officially goes live on Solana.

From this timeline, it becomes clear that establishing a regulatory framework is indeed the core catalyst for large-scale entry by bank-issued stablecoins. The passage of the GENIUS Act eliminates the biggest compliance concerns for traditional financial institutions, moving stablecoin issuance from a “regulatory gray area” into “commercial activities governed by clear rules.”

The matrix of bank stablecoins and on-chain migration

Comparison table of bank stablecoin projects

Currently, the status of bank/fintech stablecoins that have been issued or publicly announced is as follows (data as of May 18, 2026):

Based on the table above, three structural characteristics can be identified:

First, there is differentiation in the regulatory hierarchy of issuers. The issuers of bank stablecoins include federally chartered banks, federal trust banks, state-level trust companies, and national banks, with regulatory intensity distributed in a gradient pattern. This differentiation means bank stablecoins are not a single uniform category; rather, they form an ecosystem with varying levels of compliance depth and trust.

Second, the choice of public blockchain is highly convergent toward Solana. Although Ethereum is still the dominant chain by total locked value, in payment and settlement scenarios, Solana is becoming the preferred settlement layer for bank stablecoins thanks to its block time of roughly 400 milliseconds and extremely low transaction fees. SoFi, Western Union, and PayPal (partially) have all chosen Solana. This trend also indicates that Solana is transitioning from a “speculative chain” to a “payment infrastructure chain.”

Third, there is a misalignment in positioning and competition between bank-issued stablecoins and native crypto stablecoins. Bank products focus on B2B settlement and consumer payments, emphasizing compliance, transparency, and brand trust; native crypto stablecoins, meanwhile, are deeply rooted in DeFi ecosystems and high-frequency trading scenarios. The two are not directly in head-to-head confrontation right now, but the overlap is expanding rapidly.

Solana stablecoin transfer volume growth curve

The growth in stablecoin transfer volume on the Solana network is the key data for understanding why bank-issued stablecoins choose Solana. According to a report published by Grayscale on March 4, 2026, and tracking from multiple on-chain data platforms, the following is the trend of Solana’s monthly adjusted stablecoin transfer volume:

• October 2025: approximately $300 billion (the historical peak at the time)
• January 2026: Solana first surpasses Ethereum and TRON in monthly adjusted stablecoin transfer volume
• February 2026: about $650 billion, setting a new all-time high. Compared with the prior peak in October 2025, growth exceeds 100%, making it the leading blockchain across all networks

This dataset reveals a key fact: with a relatively small stablecoin supply on Solana (about $15.4 billion, far smaller than Ethereum’s scale), Solana generates monthly transfer volume that exceeds Ethereum’s. This “small supply, high velocity” characteristic indicates that stablecoins on Solana are mainly used as payment and settlement media rather than as stores of value. This is exactly what payment institutions value—higher fund turnover efficiency translates into lower working-capital utilization.

As of the first quarter of 2026, the total stablecoin supply on Solana has already exceeded $15.4 billion. USDC maintains about 53% market share. The number of daily active addresses on-chain is in the millions, and daily transaction volume stays at around 150 million.

Breakdown of public sentiment: three voices—optimism, caution, and concern

With banks making intensive moves into stablecoins, the market has formed three representative viewpoints.

Optimists believe that banks entering will push the stablecoin market from the current level of about $320 billion toward the trillion-dollar range. Citigroup’s baseline forecast suggests stablecoin issuance could reach $1.9 trillion by 2030, and in the optimistic scenario could exceed $4 trillion. The core logic is that traditional financial institutions have massive existing customer bases (PayPal alone has over 400 million users) and deep trust; the stablecoins they issue are expected to bring millions of users who previously never touched crypto assets into the on-chain economy.

Cautious voices focus on compliance costs and competitive pressure. In a research note in March 2026, Mizuho Securities pointed out that USDC’s “adjusted transaction volume” has already surpassed USDT within the year, with a market share of 64%, indicating that compliant stablecoins are eroding the market share of non-compliant competitors. However, bank-issued stablecoins face the same kinds of problems—under the GENIUS Act, they must hold 100% reserves, are prohibited from paying interest on stablecoins, and must accept periodic audits. These compliance costs are far higher than the operating cost baselines that crypto-native issuers have previously had, which could reduce banks’ flexibility in price competition.

The concern voices mainly come from within the banking system. During a January 2026 earnings call, U.S. Bank CEO Moynihan publicly warned that if the U.S. Congress allows stablecoins to pay interest, the banking system could lose up to $6 trillion in deposits, roughly accounting for 30% to 35% of total U.S. commercial bank deposits. This warning is highly significant: even though U.S. Bank itself is preparing to issue stablecoins, its executives are still clearly aware that widespread stablecoin adoption poses a structural threat to traditional banks’ deposit-attraction model. The Independent Community Bankers of America also expressed concern, saying that if legislation allows stablecoins to pay interest, small banks could face the risk of losing $1.3 trillion in deposits.

Industry impact analysis: reshaping from payment infrastructure to bank business models

The systemic rollout by bank-issued stablecoins will create deep impacts on at least four levels.

First, global cross-border payment infrastructure is undergoing a generational shift. SWIFT has dominated cross-border settlement for nearly half a century, but its T+1 and even T+2 settlement cycles and the added cost created by multi-layer proxy-bank structures make it increasingly fragile in comparison with Solana’s sub-second confirmations and transaction fees far below those of traditional payments. Western Union’s USDPT pilots in the Philippines and Bolivia, at their core, replace proxy-bank networks with on-chain settlement—once validated, this model is highly replicable. SoFi has also reached a partnership with Mastercard to enable SoFiUSD to settle through Mastercard’s global payment network. When stablecoin settlement is embedded into card-organization networks, on-chain payments shift from “an alternative” to “the default option.”

Second, the stablecoin market will move from “crypto-native dominance” to a “dual-track” structure. One track is led by crypto-native issuers represented by Tether and Circle, which focus on DeFi ecosystems, exchange liquidity, and high-frequency trading. The other track is driven by compliant issuers represented by banks and fintech companies, which focus on consumer payments, cross-border remittances, and enterprise settlement. These two tracks are not replacement relationships; they serve different scenarios and customer groups. However, it’s important to note that the boundaries between the two tracks are becoming blurred—Circle has already deeply integrated with the U.S. banking system, and PayPal’s PYUSD has also entered DeFi scenarios.

Third, the “float yield” from stablecoins becomes a new revenue engine for banks. In its Q1 2026 earnings report, Western Union explicitly stated that USDPT’s strategy will bring “float yield opportunities.” Float (floating funds) refers to the interest income generated by stablecoin collateral (typically short-term U.S. Treasuries, commercial paper, and similar instruments). This is precisely the core reason Tether can still generate massive profits under a zero-fee model. Banks entering the stablecoin market are, in essence, competing for a profit pool that crypto-native institutions have already validated.

Fourth, the traditional deposit-and-lend model of banks faces bottom-up disaggregation. When users can hold stablecoins issued by banks and (subject to policy allowances) earn yields, the incentive to keep funds in bank checking accounts with low interest rates (often below 0.5%) will weaken significantly. Moynihan’s warning about $6 trillion in deposit outflows is not alarmist—whether the float yield generated by banks’ own stablecoins can fully offset the net interest margin losses caused by deposit outflows remains an open question. In a sense, by entering the stablecoin market, banks are choosing between “cannibalizing themselves” and “being cannibalized by others,” and they are opting for the former.

Conclusion

SoFiUSD landing on Solana is a micro event, but it reflects a macro transfer of power across global financial infrastructure. Stablecoins have evolved from being “trading tools” within the crypto industry into a critical entry point for traditional financial institutions to participate in on-chain economies. When banks and fintech giants begin systematically deploying their own stablecoins, when Solana’s monthly stablecoin transfer volume reaches $650 billion, and when regulatory frameworks move from absence to improvement—when these three conditions align, it means we are at the starting point of a structural transformation.

For industry participants, what matters is not only whose market cap is larger, but also who is defining the standards for payment infrastructure. The rise of bank-issued stablecoins does not necessarily mean the decline of Tether and Circle—over the short term, there are significant differences in scenarios, customer bases, and technology paths. But over a longer cycle, as the traditional SWIFT-style settlement layer is gradually replaced by on-chain real-time settlement, whoever becomes the dominant player in the next generation of payment infrastructure will gain the authority to shape the rules governing global capital flows.

According to Gate.io market data, as of May 18, 2026, SOL is priced at $84.92, with a market cap of approximately $49.107 billion. The 24-hour trading volume is about $862,200, and market sentiment is neutral. The Solana ecosystem is absorbing stablecoin deployments from traditional financial institutions at an unprecedented pace. The impact of this trend on the on-chain economic value of SOL is worth continuing to track.