Wall Street Battles for Digital Plumbing

Wall Street Goes Public: 21 Financial Giants Commit to Joint H1 2027 G7 Stablecoin Launch

Thu Sep 03 2026 /Mpelembe Media/ —Twenty-one of the world’s largest financial institutions have committed to establishing a new operating company in the second half of 2026 to support the issuance of a regulated, reserve-backed digital asset pegged to the U.S. dollar, with a commercial launch targeted for the first half of 2027. The consortium, which includes Wall Street anchors like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Citigroup, as well as European heavyweights like UBS and Deutsche Bank, plans to focus initially on institutional, wholesale, and retail use cases such as cross-border payments and atomic digital asset settlement. The venture represents a significant expansion of an exploratory pilot launched in October 2025 with just ten banks, although certain original participants like Barclays and BNP Paribas have withdrawn from the joint venture. While the consortium plans to eventually expand into other G7 currencies, prioritizing a euro-denominated token next, it stands alongside a highly competitive landscape where JPMorgan Chase has notably chosen to remain independent, focusing instead on its proprietary commercial bank token networks, JPM Coin and Kinexys.

This institutional pivot is directly underpinned by a shifting regulatory landscape, most notably the enactment of the U.S. Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, signed into law on July 18, 2025, by President Donald Trump. The GENIUS Act establishes strict rules for payment stablecoin issuers, mandating 1:1 backing with high-quality liquid reserves such as cash or Treasury bills, monthly attested third-party audits, and an explicit prohibition on the payment of interest or yield directly to token holders. In implementing these rules, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has proposed regulations that establish a rebuttable presumption of a violation if an issuer attempts to pay yield indirectly through affiliates or related third parties. Coordinated with similar rulemakings from the FDIC, NCUA, and FinCEN, the regulatory runway introduces a July 2028 deadline after which digital asset service providers are barred from offering non-compliant or unapproved stablecoins to U.S. customers, forcing a migration toward regulated options.

The bank-backed venture enters a market currently dominated by crypto-native incumbents Tether and Circle, but it also faces competition from other novel institutional structures. In Europe, the Qivalis consortium has expanded to include thirty-seven major banks across fifteen countries, aiming to launch a fully MiCA-compliant, euro-backed stablecoin under Dutch Central Bank supervision by the second half of 2026 to secure the Eurozone’s digital monetary autonomy. Meanwhile, Open Standard has introduced Open USD (OUSD), supported by a massive coalition of over 140 companies—including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, and Coinbase—which challenges existing models by returning reserve earnings directly to its partner networks rather than retaining them for the issuer. Collectively, these initiatives signify a profound industry-wide transition away from isolated private ledgers toward public blockchains, as legacy institutions leverage regulated digital fiat currency to compete for global on-chain liquidity.

Wall Street’s $308 Billion Pivot: Why 21 Global Banks Are Finally Betting on Stablecoins

For years, the legacy financial establishment dismissed digital assets as either a peripheral experiment or, in the words of some prominent CEOs, a “fraud.” That era of skepticism has officially collapsed. We are now witnessing a fundamental realignment of global capital. A consortium of 21 of the world’s most powerful financial institutions—including Bank of America, Citi, and Goldman Sachs—is preparing for a 2027 market launch that will move stablecoins from the “crypto fringe” into the very center of Wall Street’s plumbing.This isn’t merely a pilot project; it is a defensive power move to capture a $308 billion liquidity pool that, until now, has lived almost entirely outside the regulated banking perimeter. By front-running the regulatory curve, these lenders are preparing to displace crypto-native giants like Tether and Circle by offering something they cannot: “bank-grade” infrastructure.

Takeaway 1: The “If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em” Consolidation

The rapid growth of the banking consortium—doubling from 10 members in late 2025 to 21 by 2026—reveals an industry-wide consensus: standing outside the stablecoin market is now a greater systemic risk than the volatility of the assets themselves. However, this alignment is not a monolith. Strategic “defections” underscore the high stakes; notably, Barclays and BNP Paribas dropped out of the original group, signaling that the path to a unified digital dollar is fraught with internal competition.Strategic Implications:

The $308 Billion Prize: With the market growing from $200 billion in early 2025 to over $308 billion today, banks are moving to aggregate their distribution power to claw back liquidity.

Global G7 Roadmap: While the initial focus is a USD-denominated token, the venture is a global play. The Euro has been identified as the immediate secondary priority, with a roadmap to expand across all G7 currencies.

Takeaway 2: The Death of the Private Ledger

In a massive strategic pivot, Wall Street is abandoning the “walled garden” approach of private, permissioned ledgers in favor of public blockchains. This represents a counter-intuitive shift from “tokenized deposits” toward “bearer instruments.”To a strategist, the distinction is vital. Tokenized deposits are bank-money, fragmented by individual balance sheets and tethered to legacy accounting. By contrast, bearer stablecoins function as cash-equivalents. They can circulate globally without hitting the issuing bank’s ledger for every individual “hop.” This is a move toward instrument-based banking , allowing lenders to capture “non-bank liquidity” and facilitate cross-border settlement with a velocity that account-based systems simply cannot match.

Takeaway 3: The GENIUS Act—The Invisible Legal Bridge

This venture is only possible because Wall Street has successfully navigated the “legal opening” provided by the U.S. GENIUS Act (enacted July 18, 2025 ). This legislation, alongside the EU’s MiCA framework, provides the federal air cover for banks to issue stablecoins through OCC-approved subsidiaries.Regulatory Markers for the C-Suite:

The 2027 Deadline: While the venture forms in late 2026, the OCC’s final rulemaking has a hard effective date of January 18, 2027 . This is the industry’s “Go-Live” signal.

The Interest Prohibition: Critically, the GENIUS Act prohibits issuers from paying interest directly to token holders. This ensures stablecoins remain high-velocity payment rails rather than direct competitors to traditional, interest-bearing deposit products—preserving the banks’ core funding moats.

Takeaway 4: The Great Wall Street Split (The JPM Outlier)

The industry remains divided on the architecture of the future. While 21 banks have joined forces, JPMorgan Chase remains a notable outlier, choosing to double down on its proprietary Kinexys and JPM Coin infrastructure. JPMorgan describes JPM Coin as a “permissioned system that serves as a payment rail… facilitating the movement of liquidity funding and payments in right time.”However, the “proprietary” defense may be cracking. Reports indicate that JPMorgan is currently conducting an internal review of its own separate stablecoin distinct from JPM Coin. This “internal split” suggests that even the biggest advocate for controlled, permissioned networks recognizes that the $308 billion open-market prize is too large to ignore.

Takeaway 5: Rewiring the Plumbing of DLT Bonds

The most profound impact of this pivot will be felt in the capital markets, specifically regarding Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) bonds. Currently, the settlement of tokenized bonds is hindered by “timing gaps” in traditional payment methods, which require banks to hold significant capital in reserve.By using “native” stablecoins, banks can finally achieve true Delivery-versus-Payment (DvP) . In this three-tier infrastructure—integrating Central Bank Money, Commercial Bank Money, and Stablecoins—the transfer of the bond and the payment occur simultaneously.

Strategic Gain: This eliminates settlement risk and frees up billions in “trapped” liquidity.

Technical Edge: On-chain settlement allows for the automated execution of coupon and redemption payments via smart contracts, removing the manual friction of traditional bond servicing.

The Forward-Looking Summary: A New Era of On-Chain Settlement

Wall Street is no longer “experimenting” with blockchain; it is re-platforming the global financial system. By aligning with the GENIUS Act and targeting a first-half 2027 launch, these 21 institutions are attempting to reclaim the digital frontier from crypto-native incumbents.The strategic question is no longer whether on-chain settlement will happen, but who will own the rail. Can traditional banks, with their superior distribution and “bank-grade” compliance, successfully displace the first-movers like Tether and Circle? Or has the banking industry arrived too late to a party where the standards—and the liquidity—have already been set? The next 18 months will determine if Wall Street’s $308 billion pivot is a masterstroke of timing or a desperate attempt to catch a train that has already left the station.