A group of 21 major financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi and Deutsche Bank, plans to create a new company in 2026 to issue a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin in the first half of 2027. The initiative has expanded significantly from the 10 institutions involved when the project was first announced in October 2025, underlining how quickly traditional finance is increasing its involvement in blockchain-based payments.
The consortium also intends to explore stablecoins linked to other Group of Seven currencies, with the euro identified as a priority. The project remains a planned launch rather than a live financial product, but its scale makes it an important development for the wider digital-asset market because some of the world’s largest banks are now considering shared blockchain infrastructure rather than leaving stablecoin activity primarily to specialist crypto companies.
Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to maintain a stable value relative to a reference asset, most commonly the U.S. dollar. Unlike Bitcoin or Ether, whose market prices can move substantially, payment stablecoins aim to preserve a one-to-one relationship with the currency they represent by holding eligible reserve assets and offering redemption at a fixed monetary value.
Their practical appeal is settlement. Blockchain-based tokens can potentially move between participants outside traditional banking hours, support cross-border transactions and connect directly with digital-asset markets. The Federal Reserve has noted that payment stablecoins could lower some frictions in international payments, while also creating implications for bank deposits, reserve demand and monetary-policy implementation as adoption grows.
For banks, the strategic question is therefore broader than cryptocurrency trading. A successful bank-backed stablecoin could become part of payment, treasury and settlement infrastructure for corporate clients and financial institutions. It could also allow banks to participate more directly in an area that has so far been dominated by non-bank issuers.
Scale is one of the most important features of the new plan. The consortium includes large U.S. and European banking groups, giving the proposed token access to established corporate relationships, payments networks, compliance systems and balance-sheet infrastructure. That differs from the development path of the current stablecoin market, where adoption grew largely from crypto exchanges, trading activity and digital-asset settlement.
Traditional banks are also considering different forms of tokenized money. Tokenized deposits remain claims on a commercial bank and represent existing bank money on distributed-ledger infrastructure, while payment stablecoins are separate digital assets issued against reserves. The distinction matters because the two models can carry different legal, regulatory, liquidity and balance-sheet implications.
The joint project suggests that large institutions do not necessarily see these approaches as mutually exclusive. Instead, banks are exploring several ways to modernize payment infrastructure while retaining regulated relationships with customers and counterparties.
The dollar initiative is not developing in isolation. Qivalis, a separate European bank consortium, has expanded to 37 financial institutions across 15 countries and is preparing a regulated euro-denominated stablecoin. Qivalis says its planned token will be backed one-to-one with the euro and is intended to support on-chain payments and settlement under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulatory framework.
This creates a developing competition between different bank-led models and the established private stablecoin market. European banks have a particular reason to focus on euro-denominated infrastructure because dollar-linked tokens account for the overwhelming majority of global stablecoin activity. A larger supply of regulated euro tokens could gradually reduce that imbalance for European payments and settlement, although adoption will depend on liquidity, interoperability and user demand.
The regulatory environment has also changed materially. The United States enacted the GENIUS Act in July 2025, establishing a federal framework for payment stablecoins. Federal Reserve research notes that the law requires payment stablecoins to be backed by relatively safe reserve assets and designed to maintain a stable one-to-one value against the U.S. dollar. U.S. agencies have since been developing detailed rules around customer identification, anti-money-laundering controls and sanctions compliance.
That framework gives banks a clearer basis for evaluating stablecoin businesses, but regulation does not remove all risks. Stablecoins can affect the composition of bank deposits, demand for short-term government securities and the transmission of monetary policy if they become large enough. The European Central Bank has also highlighted financial-stability and monetary-sovereignty concerns as the market has grown.
The broader stablecoin market has moved far beyond its early crypto niche. In May 2026, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said stablecoin supply had grown from less than $10 billion six years earlier to more than $300 billion, with nearly 90% of the market controlled by Tether and Circle. That concentration illustrates both the opportunity and the challenge facing bank-led competitors.
Existing issuers benefit from deep liquidity, established exchange integrations and large user networks. Banks, meanwhile, bring regulated distribution, corporate client relationships and experience operating payment systems. The market may therefore evolve toward several parallel models rather than a single winner: privately issued stablecoins, bank-backed stablecoins, tokenized deposits and central-bank money could all serve different settlement needs.
For crypto markets, the significance of the planned bank stablecoin lies more in infrastructure than in an immediate directional signal for Bitcoin or Ether. Stablecoins are commonly used as settlement assets within digital-asset markets, so broader institutional participation could improve links between traditional finance and blockchain networks over time.
At the same time, greater bank involvement could intensify competition for existing stablecoin issuers and raise expectations around compliance, reserves, transparency and interoperability. The effects will depend on the final design of the consortium’s token, which networks it supports, who can access it and how widely it is integrated into payment and trading systems.
ICM lists cryptocurrency CFDs including Bitcoin and Ethereum. The relevance of this story is therefore indirect but meaningful: changes in stablecoin infrastructure can influence digital-asset liquidity, institutional participation and the broader structure of crypto markets, rather than providing a direct signal on the price of any individual cryptocurrency.
- Company formation and launch timetable. The consortium plans to establish its issuing company in 2026 and target the first half of 2027 for the dollar stablecoin launch.
- Final membership and product design. Market participants will watch which banks take operational roles, which blockchain networks are supported and whether access is focused on institutional, corporate or wider payment use.
- U.S. regulatory implementation. Detailed GENIUS Act rules on reserves, customer identification, anti-money-laundering procedures and sanctions compliance will help determine how bank-issued stablecoins operate.
- Competition with Tether, Circle and Qivalis. Liquidity, distribution and integration will be critical as bank-backed tokens compete with established dollar stablecoins and emerging euro alternatives.
- Impact on banking and crypto infrastructure. Investors will assess whether stablecoins become a meaningful payment product for banks or remain concentrated mainly in digital-asset trading and settlement.
They plan to create a company in 2026 that would issue a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin in the first half of 2027. The group also intends to explore stablecoins linked to other G7 currencies, with the euro a priority.
A stablecoin is a digital asset designed to maintain a stable value relative to a reference currency or other asset. Payment stablecoins generally seek to maintain that value through reserve assets and redemption mechanisms rather than through the market-driven price formation seen in Bitcoin or Ether.
Banks are exploring stablecoins as a way to support faster digital settlement, cross-border payments and blockchain-based financial activity while keeping those services connected to regulated banking infrastructure.
Not necessarily. Banks are simultaneously exploring stablecoins, tokenized deposits and other digital-payment models. These instruments have different legal and balance-sheet characteristics and may ultimately serve different use cases.
