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

Banks are moving beyond crypto trading to build the infrastructure behind stablecoins and tokenized assets, executives said on Wednesday at MERGE Madrid 2026, held at the Palacio de Cibeles.

Chainalysis data helped explain why. Cryptocurrency economic activity reached about $9.4 trillion between June 2025 and June 2026, down just 1.6% from the previous year despite weaker markets. Over the same period, cross-border stablecoin transfers rose 80%, according to Jordan Wain, the firm’s Global Policy Lead. In his view, the figures show digital assets are increasingly used for real transactions, even when prices fall.

Trading is still where the revenue is. “Where are banks making money today on digital assets? This is still the crypto offering they have towards their clients,” said Stijn Vander Straeten, CEO of Crypto Finance Group, part of Deutsche Börse. Even so, banks are also investing in staking, tokenized deposits and new settlement infrastructure.

Stablecoins Take Center Stage

Alexandra Soroko of Visa highlighted stablecoin card settlement, which lets institutions settle obligations seven days a week, and named cross-border business payments and corporate treasury as the next areas for growth. Executives from Commerzbank, N26 and Applied Blockchain described banks as increasingly acting as the infrastructure that lets clients use stablecoins, instead of holding large amounts of them.

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

Malcolm Clarke of Western Union and Emilio Rivero Coello of Anchorage Digital discussed 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 heavily dependent on remittances. Rather than a consumer product, the company has positioned it as a replacement for the traditional rails it uses to settle with its agents. On Anchorage’s side, the idea is to swap pre-funded correspondent accounts for stablecoin balances, cutting settlement from days to minutes.

Europe’s response came from the Qivalis consortium, with Vid Hribar of Qivalis, Elma Saric of Raiffeisen Bank, one of the 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 operate under MiCA, supervised by the Dutch central bank, on public Ethereum. The gap it targets is wide: euro stablecoins add up to less than $1 billion in market cap, against more than $300 billion for dollar-backed tokens.

An Operations Problem, Not a Technology Problem

Speakers agreed the biggest obstacles to institutional scale are internal. “It’s not primarily a technology problem, it’s an operating model issue,” said Shrutisagar Chandrasekaran of Fireblocks. “It’s about people, process and governance.”

Luis Nacarino of Santander CIB stressed that new digital money systems must be able to talk to one another rather than operate as isolated networks. Alberto Carlos Alonso Temprado of Iberpay said Europe’s payment rails already work well, and blockchain should build on them. “We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We have to make it better,” he said.

Tokenization Gets a License

The day’s main announcement came from Bit2Me. CSO Abel Peña said the company has received authorization to launch STX, a security token offering for tokenizing shares and bonds, aimed initially at medium-sized companies. On the same panel, BBVA and Bullish warned that tokenization only works if there is enough liquidity for investors to trade, including during volatile periods.

AI was also on the agenda. Mastercard, Tether and the Cardano Foundation discussed how AI agents could make payments on behalf of consumers and businesses, and why clear permissions and digital identities will be essential.

MERGE Madrid 2026 closes today with sessions on regulation and investment, bringing together supervisors from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus and Luxembourg.