Fiserv to Launch Stablecoin

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Introduction

Welcome to the Tokenized newsletter, brought to you by the creators of the Tokenized Podcast; Simon Taylor of Fintech Brainfood and Pet Berisha of Sporting Crypto, written by Jeremy Batchelder.

We are the newsletter for institutions that need help preparing for a Tokenized future.

We run through the headlines every week, what it means for you and a market readout. Always with an institutional, business-focused perspective. 

Join us every week as we meet your Tokenization needs.

Stories You Can't Miss 📰

🚀 Fiserv Launches FIUSD Stablecoin with Massive Distribution Network

Payments giant Fiserv has announced plans to launch its own stablecoin (FIUSD) across its vast global network by year-end, leveraging partnerships with Paxos and Circle for infrastructure.

Key Points:

• Massive built-in distribution: FIUSD will launch across Fiserv's network of ~10,000 financial institution clients and 6 million merchant locations processing 90 billion transactions annually

• No additional cost to clients: Fiserv plans to enable FIUSD through existing technology infrastructure at no extra charge to financial institution partners

• Multi-provider approach: Using stablecoin infrastructure from both Paxos and Circle, with interoperability across leading stablecoins on Solana blockchain

The Tokenized Take:

• Scale advantage: Fiserv's existing payment infrastructure provides instant distribution that most stablecoin projects spend years trying to build

• Strategic positioning: By offering FIUSD at no additional cost, Fiserv is treating it as a value-add service rather than a revenue driver, potentially accelerating adoption

• Multi-partner approach: Working with both Paxos and Circle suggests Fiserv prioritizes interoperability and redundancy over exclusive partnerships

🤝 Yellow Card Partners with Visa to Drive Stablecoin Innovation in Africa

Yellow Card, the leading licensed stablecoin payments orchestrator for Africa, has announced a strategic partnership with Visa to explore stablecoin use cases and streamline cross-border payments across emerging markets.

Key Points:

• Strategic collaboration focus: Visa and Yellow Card will explore stablecoin applications for treasury operations, liquidity management, and faster cross-border money movement across Yellow Card's 20+ African markets

• Massive market opportunity: Yellow Card has already generated over $6 billion in volumes since 2019, providing stablecoin solutions to banks, financial institutions, importers/exporters, and fintech companies across Africa

The Tokenized Take:

• Visa's stablecoin strategy acceleration: Partnership signals Visa's recognition that "every institution that moves money will need a stablecoin strategy" as they expand beyond traditional card networks

• Africa as stablecoin testing ground: Yellow Card's regulatory licenses across 20+ African countries provide Visa with compliant infrastructure to pilot stablecoin innovations in high-growth emerging markets

💰 Digital Asset Raises $135M for Privacy-Focused Canton Network

Digital Asset, builder of the privacy-focused Canton blockchain, has secured $135 million in strategic funding led by DRW Venture Capital and Tradeweb Markets to expand real-world asset tokenization.

Key Points:

• Blue-chip investor lineup: Round included major traditional finance and crypto players including BNP Paribas, Circle Ventures, Citadel Securities, DTCC, Virtu Financial, Goldman Sachs, and BNY Mellon

• Configurable privacy advantage: Canton Network allows assets with varying privacy levels to coexist on the same network, from fully transparent (like Ethereum) to completely private assets that are invisible to other users

The Tokenized Take:

• Enterprise privacy solution: Canton addresses the decade-long enterprise concern about blockchain privacy by allowing institutions to control exactly what transaction data is visible to whom

• RWA momentum building: With "trillions of dollars' worth of real-world assets already leveraging the Canton Blockchain" across bonds, repos, commodities, and insurance, the platform is gaining serious institutional traction

💸 Stablecorner ⚖️ → The Corporate Stablecoin Strategy Explosion

The stablecoin landscape is witnessing a fundamental shift as major corporations move beyond exploration to active implementation. As revealed in the latest Tokenized Podcast discussion between Simon Taylor, Chris Arms (BVNK), and John O'Brien (D-Local), we're seeing a clear progression in how businesses adopt stablecoin infrastructure.

The Three-Step Corporate Adoption Pattern

Chris Arms outlined how enterprises are approaching stablecoins through a methodical three-step process. Companies begin with controlled treasury use cases where they can manage risk—typically B2B stablecoin settlements or corporate treasury movements. Once they see the benefits, they progress to B2B payouts, particularly for global marketplace platforms paying sellers in emerging markets. Finally, as those payouts land in wallets across the Global South, recipients begin demanding merchant acceptance of stablecoins, creating a natural flywheel effect.

This progression explains why announcements like Shopify's stablecoin acceptance aren't just PR moves—they're responding to real customer demand generated by the previous steps in this adoption cycle.

The Pre-Funding Problem Gets Real

John O'Brien highlighted a critical pain point that's driving corporate interest: the massive capital inefficiency of pre-funded accounts. Companies like Unilever with stock built up in markets like Nigeria or Mexico are increasingly looking to liquidate positions through stablecoins rather than traditional banking rails. As O'Brien explained, since major acquisitions like Stripe's recent moves and regulatory clarity from the GENIUS Act, these B2B conversations have accelerated dramatically—converting existing pipeline discussions into active stablecoin implementations.

JPMorgan's Strategic Response

JPMorgan's launch of JPMD (a deposit token on Base) represents the traditional banking sector's recognition that they need a credible response to the stablecoin revolution. Unlike treasury-backed stablecoins, JPMD offers FDIC protection and integration with JPMorgan's existing Kinexys network, which has already cleared $2.5 trillion in volume within their walled garden. However, as Chris Arms noted, the permissioned nature of bank-grade tokens may limit adoption compared to more open alternatives.

The most telling aspect of JPMorgan's move? As John O'Brien observed, this would have been unthinkable just 18 months ago given Jamie Dimon's previous public stance on crypto. The shift represents institutional acknowledgment that customer demand for stablecoin capabilities has become impossible to ignore.

📰 Some More News:

🏦 Tokenization, Stablecoins & Finance

• Dragonfly-Backed Codex Launches Blockchain for Stablecoins with Native USDC Support (Read more here) 

• JPMorgan files 'JPMD' trademark, hinting at possible stablecoin offering (Read more here)

• AUDD Launches on Hedera, Becoming the Network’s First Commercial Implementation of the Hedera Stablecoin Studio (Read more here)

• ICE exec shares views on stablecoin, tokenized collateral (Read more here) 

• The potential genius of GENIUS (Read more here) 

• Stablecoin World Opens Up to Main Street Banks (Read more here) 

• Stablecoins Are the Dollar’s Digital Future (Read more here) 

• Bank of England invites firms to demo central bank money on external DLTs (Read more here) 

• Bringing real utility and global scale to stablecoins (Read more here)

• Mastercard taps Chainlink to provide direct, onchain fiat-to-crypto conversions for cardholders (Read more here)

🤑 Funding and M&A

• Stablecoin Clearing Startup Ubyx Raises $10M Round Backed by Galaxy, Coinbase, Others (Read more here) 

• Velocity comes out of stealth with $10M to power the Velocity of Money (Read more here)

💼 Government & Policy

• Coinbase secures EU crypto license, swaps Ireland for Luxembourg as main hub (Read more here) 

• Wyoming Stable Token Commission targets Aug. 20 for WYST stablecoin mainnet launch (Read more here) 

• China needs yuan-backed stablecoins ‘sooner rather than later’, state media urges Beijing (Read more here) 

• EFAMA urges reform of EU regulations for fund tokenization to keep up (Read more here)

• Stablecoins become South Korea's new national endeavor: Why and what's at risk? (Read more here) 

• ECB’s Lagarde tells EU parliament that digtal euro law is urgent (Read more here) 

• China may test yuan stablecoins in Hong Kong: Morgan Stanley (Read more here)

Simon’s Market Readout 💬 

This week, a company that most people paying attention to stablecoins have probably never heard of before, called Fiserv, announced they were adding stablecoins, and it has successfully captivated the attention of crypto Twitter. But as many people who've been in financial services for a long time will tell you, the distance between a company doing a headline and it being real is a long way.

Closing that gap has always been about execution and demand. On the demand side, every time I speak to a bank, there is one trying to build a stablecoin strategy. Every time I speak to a payments company, they're trying to build a stablecoin strategy. But the CEOs have a short-term question.

The CEO of Visa was on CNBC just this week talking about a recent Wall Street Journal article which suggested stablecoins may threaten Visa, of all things, which I'll be honest, I don't think it does.

But given the sheer scale and volume growth of Circle's stock, it appears to me that the narrative is that Circle and/or stablecoins build a new set of payment rails, and those new payment rails threaten everybody in payments equally.

I don't know that that's true, but I do know that stablecoins really will reshape the winners and losers.

The winners will be those who lean in.

The winners will be those who understand both worlds, and really bridging those gaps is what the Tokenized newsletter and podcast are about.

It's what FinTech Brainfood is about, and it's what an event I'm running in Miami in November is especially about; It's called Fintech NerdCon.

We have everybody from Nic Carter to, BVNK and our friends at Visa to talk about stablecoins.

But we also have some of the more traditional financial institutions. We have Finwise. We have companies like Increase. We have companies like Mercury—people who haven't touched stablecoins.

We also have the Chief Product Officer of Wise, who has some really hot takes on where stablecoins do and don't potentially fit into the ecosystem.

So you're probably going to want to be there 👋 

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