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Stablecoin Treasury Brief: Institutional Infrastructure Moves Forward
In June, the supply of stablecoins decreased, even as transaction volumes reached a record high. Global market capitalization has fallen roughly $10 billion from its May peak to around $300 billion, and June alone accounted for $7.7 billion of that, marking the largest monthly contraction since the Terra collapse in May 2022. Over the same month, adjusted transaction volume reached an all-time high of $1.79 trillion, up 63% from May and 125% year over year.
USDT fell from nearly $190 billion to $184 billion, while USDC dropped from its March high of around $80 billion to about $74 billion. Overall supply has decreased by approximately 3%, but transaction turnover has surged to around six times per month, which is roughly double the rate observed two years ago. All of it points to stablecoins being spent, not stockpiled.
That shift is happening as the infrastructure around stablecoins moves further into regulated markets. In July, we saw the emergence of banking charters, a new licensing regime in Europe, tokenized securities settlement, and enterprise payment platforms all taking shape simultaneously. Here is what moved.
Stablecoins Move Closer to Regulated Banking Infrastructure
Circle has received final authorization from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to set up Circle National Trust, which will initially offer fiduciary digital asset custody under federal supervision; managing the USDC reserve is expected to be added later.
Japan is moving in a similar direction. SBI Group launched JPYSC, the country's first trust bank-backed yen stablecoin, classified as an electronic payment instrument under Japan's Payment Services Act, with SBI Shinsei Trust Bank handling issuance and SBI VC Trade handling distribution. In the United States, Sony Bank is pursuing a parallel plan through Connectia Trust, a proposed national trust bank subsidiary that would issue a dollar-backed stablecoin.
The money itself stays concentrated with dollar-pegged assets making up about 99% of stablecoin value. Ethereum hosts roughly $150 billion, Tron about $90 billion, and Solana and BNB Chain around $13 billion each. In contrast, non-dollar issuances are relatively minor: EURC sits near $440 million, and the largest yen-linked stablecoins continue to be measured in the tens of millions.
MiCA Reshapes Access to the EU Digital Asset Market
The final transitional deadline for the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) passed on July 1. This regulation replaced the European Union's previous system of national registration regimes with a unified authorization framework for Crypto-Asset Service Providers (CASPs). As a result, the market has significantly shrunk. Previously, over 3,000 firms operated under national regimes, but the MiCA register now lists only 243 authorized CASP holders.
Most of those authorizations cover core infrastructure: 149 firms for custody and administration, 137 for transfer services, and 119 for exchange against funds. Only 16, or 6.6% of the register, are cleared to operate a trading platform.
The concept of passporting illustrates the geographical dynamics at play. Germany boasts 56 domestically licensed firms but has 185 providers that serve its market. In contrast, Belgium has only one domestic license, yet 138 firms can access its market through passporting. Meanwhile, Portugal, Greece, Poland, Hungary, and Romania currently have no domestic CASP licenses, but they can each be served by over 115 authorized providers from other European Economic Area (EEA) countries. One license can open all 30 EEA markets after the required notification, while firms without one have to stop onboarding and marketing into the EU.
Additionally, MiCA diverges from the Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) on a crucial point regarding market entry: there is no agent model. A company cannot offer crypto-asset services in its own name by operating under someone else's authorization. While a technology provider can support a licensed CASP, the customer accounts, wallets, assets, and transactions have to stay with the licensed entity. For anyone planning European operations, licensing structure is now part of the build, not a compliance box to tick afterward.
DTCC Begins Live Trades of Tokenized Securities
On July 15, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) conducted its first limited-production trades using its tokenization service, with more than 30 firms trading in live environments ahead of a broader launch set for October. The service tokenizes securities already sitting in DTC custody rather than minting synthetic exposure, so the tokens carry the same ownership rights, investor protections, and entitlements as the underlying instruments. With more than $114 trillion in securities under custody, DTC is wiring this directly into the plumbing of U.S. capital markets.
The opening scope covers Russell 1000 securities, major index ETFs, and U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds, under a December 2025 SEC no-action letter that cleared DTC to run the service on approved blockchains for three years. July's activity tests live settlement, custody, and reconciliation, while the legal record of ownership remains within the regulated depository. The system runs on DTCC's ComposerX platform, and more than 50 firms shaped it ahead of launch, among them BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citi, State Street, Nasdaq, NYSE, Charles Schwab, Franklin Templeton, Anchorage Digital, Circle, Fireblocks, and Ripple.
Visa Introduces Stablecoin Operations Within Its Enterprise Network
On July 16, Visa launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform, providing banks, fintechs, and payment providers with a unified environment to issue, store, transfer, and redeem stablecoins. The platform initially supports Open USD and integrates wallet infrastructure, blockchain connectivity, and Visa's existing payments network into a single operational layer.
The controls are built for treasury operations: dual-control approvals, transfer allowlists, audit logging, and secure passkeys, so institutions can separate who initiates a transaction from who authorizes it. A Wallet-as-a-Service layer handles creating and managing on-chain wallets alongside minting, redemption, and transfer workflows.
The platform builds on the volume Visa is already running. Its stablecoin settlement activity reached an annualized $7 billion as of March 2026, up from $3.5 billion at the end of 2025, and Visa is now packaging those capabilities for other institutions to build on. Open USD comes with a different economic model: rather than keeping reserve income with the issuer, Open Standard removes minting and redemption fees and returns nearly all of that income to the banks, payment providers, and exchanges that distribute it, turning distribution economics into a competitive lever, not just settlement speed.
Wall Street Rallies Behind the CLARITY Act
BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, SoFi, and Charles Schwab have publicly backed the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, giving the proposed U.S. market-structure framework serious weight from traditional finance. The bill would sort out how oversight is split between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and set registration pathways, disclosure obligations, customer protections, and anti-fraud authority for digital asset markets. The Senate Banking Committee advanced it in May, with lawmakers continuing to revise the text through July.
The firms behind it manage trillions and already run tokenized funds, custody, brokerage, and market infrastructure, so where an asset lands—SEC or CFTC—carries real consequences for how they operate. Stablecoin yield is the sharpest point of disagreement. JPMorgan and other banks advocate for stricter limits on yield-bearing products due to concerns about a potential reduction in bank deposits, while Coinbase and other digital asset firms argue that such limits would stifle competition and undermine the bill's effectiveness. Either way, this ongoing debate indicates that stablecoins are increasingly intertwined with issues related to bank funding, payments, and securities markets, rather than being confined to a separate crypto sector.
From Stablecoin Access to Stablecoin Operations
July pointed one direction: while the supply of stablecoins decreased, their usage experienced an upward trend, indicating a growing acceptance among regulated institutions moving towards issuance and custody. Europe has traded fragmented access for a structured licensing framework, paving the way for a more cohesive market. Furthermore, DTCC started settling tokenized securities inside existing infrastructure, and Visa turned stablecoin operations into a product other institutions can buy. The open question is no longer whether institutions can touch digital assets, but rather how they run them once stablecoins become part of day-to-day finance.
For treasury and finance teams, that means handling stablecoins like operating value, with real controls around liquidity, payments, counterparties, approvals, reconciliation, compliance, and reporting. That is the layer Alphapoint Treasury is built for: stablecoin inflows and outflows, payments, beneficiary management, mass disbursements, issuer integrations, policy-driven approvals, and compliance workflows across institutional treasury operations. The hard part is no longer connecting to a blockchain; it is operating on-chain value with the governance, visibility, and control institutional finance expects.
