Deel Launches DLUSD to Pay Workers in Dollars — No US Bank Needed

Two announcements from traditional financial powerhouses this week signal that stablecoins are becoming the plumbing of everyday finance.

Getting Paid in Stablecoins

Deel, the global payroll platform serving 40,000 businesses and 1.5 million workers across 150 countries, launched DLUSD on June 3, a custom USD-backed stablecoin. Contractors can hold, earn rewards, and spend without ever leaving the Deel app, thanks to a new crypto wallet

The product went live in Argentina first, as the Argentine peso lost between 20% and 40% of its dollar value in a single year. In 2025, 85% of Deel’s Argentine contractors said they wanted to be paid in dollars rather than pesos. DLUSD gives them that opportunity without a US bank account.

Deel deployed Stripe’s full crypto stack in a single product. A bridge for stablecoin issuance, Privy for wallet infrastructure, and Tempo, a payments-focused Layer 1 blockchain, for settlement. It is the first enterprise to combine all three. Latin America rollout continues in the coming weeks, with Asia-Pacific, MENA, and Africa to follow.

Crucially, contractors never see the blockchain layer. They see a dollar balance and can use the wallet like a traditional digital wallet from their app.

Mastercard Rewires Its Global Network

A day before, on June 2, Mastercard announced it would expand settlement capabilities across its global payments network to include stablecoins, supporting USDC, Ripple’s RLUSD, Paxos-issued PYUSD, USDG, and USDP, and SoFi’s SoFiUSD across eight blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Solana, Base, and XRPL.

The move adds intraday, weekend, and holiday settlement options alongside the stablecoin rails, directly addressing the issue of banks closing and money freezing

“The next phase of stablecoin adoption is about real-world utility, especially in settlement, where timing and liquidity matter most,” said Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s executive vice president for Blockchain and Digital Assets.

The Bigger Picture

Stablecoins accounted for an estimated $46 trillion in transaction volume last year, more than 20 times PayPal and nearly three times Visa. The global stablecoin market reached $317 billion in market capitalisation as of April 2026, growing more than 50% in a single year.

Analysts now expect stablecoins to represent 3% of all US dollar payments in 2026 and 10% by 2031.

One company is using stablecoins to pay workers in countries where local currency is collapsing. The world’s second-largest card network is using them to settle transactions around the clock.