Stablecoin Transfers Jump 80% as Banks Rethink Their Role at MERGE Madrid

Banks are shifting past crypto buying and selling to construct the infrastructure behind stablecoins and tokenized property, executives mentioned on Wednesday at MERGE Madrid 2026, held at the Palacio de Cibeles.

Chainalysis information helped clarify why. Cryptocurrency financial exercise reached about $9.4 trillion between June 2025 and June 2026, down simply 1.6% from the earlier 12 months regardless of weaker markets. Over the identical interval, cross-border stablecoin transfers rose 80%, in keeping with Jordan Wain, the agency’s Global Policy Lead. In his view, the figures present digital property are more and more used for actual transactions, even when costs fall.

Trading continues to be the place the income is. “Where are banks being profitable in the present day on digital property? This continues to be the crypto providing they’ve in the direction of their shoppers,” mentioned Stijn Vander Straeten, CEO of Crypto Finance Group, a part of Deutsche Börse. Even so, banks are additionally investing in staking, tokenized deposits and new settlement infrastructure.

Stablecoins Take Center Stage

Alexandra Soroko of Visa highlighted stablecoin card settlement, which lets establishments settle obligations seven days per week, and named cross-border enterprise funds and company treasury as the following areas for development. Executives from Commerzbank, N26 and Applied Blockchain described banks as more and more performing as the infrastructure that lets shoppers use stablecoins, as a substitute of holding massive quantities of them.

Issuers additionally had their say, in two panels moderated by Luis De Magalhães, Head of Latin America at BeInInformation.

Malcolm Clarke of Western Union and Emilio Rivero Coello of Anchorage Digital mentioned USDPT, the dollar-backed stablecoin Western Union launched on Solana in May. Issued by Anchorage, the token debuted in Bolivia and the Philippines, two markets closely depending on remittances. Rather than a client product, the corporate has positioned it as a alternative for the normal rails it makes use of to settle with its brokers. On Anchorage’s facet, the concept is to swap pre-funded correspondent accounts for stablecoin balances, slicing settlement from days to minutes.

Europe’s response got here from the Qivalis consortium, with Vid Hribar of Qivalis, Elma Saric of Raiffeisen Bank, one of many founding members, Niccolò Bardoscia of Intesa Sanpaolo and Tania Griffith of Ripple. Based in Amsterdam, the bank-led euro stablecoin has grown from nine founding banks to 37 institutions across 15 countries, and plans to function beneath MiCA, supervised by the Dutch central bank, on public Ethereum. The hole it targets is vast: euro stablecoins add as much as lower than $1 billion in market cap, towards greater than $300 billion for dollar-backed tokens.

An Operations Problem, Not a Technology Problem

Speakers agreed the largest obstacles to institutional scale are inside. “It’s not primarily a know-how downside, it’s an working mannequin subject,” mentioned Shrutisagar Chandrasekaran of Fireblocks. “It’s about folks, course of and governance.”

Luis Nacarino of Santander CIB harassed that new digital cash programs should be capable to discuss to at least one one other quite than function as remoted networks. Alberto Carlos Alonso Temprado of Iberpay mentioned Europe’s cost rails already work effectively, and blockchain ought to construct on them. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We must make it higher,” he mentioned.

Tokenization Gets a License

The day’s important announcement got here from Bit2Me. CSO Abel Peña mentioned the corporate has acquired authorization to launch STX, a safety token providing for tokenizing shares and bonds, aimed initially at medium-sized corporations. On the identical panel, BBVA and Bullish warned that tokenization solely works if there may be sufficient liquidity for traders to commerce, together with throughout unstable durations.

AI was additionally on the agenda. Mastercard, Tether and the Cardano Foundation mentioned how AI brokers may make funds on behalf of shoppers and companies, and why clear permissions and digital identities will likely be important.

MERGE Madrid 2026 closes in the present day with periods on regulation and funding, bringing collectively supervisors from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus and Luxembourg.

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