"Stablecoins and digital assets are fundamentally reshaping the nature of money—a trend that remains severely underestimated by the market." In May 2026, Nathan McCauley, CEO of Anchorage Digital, made this assertion at the Consensus conference. His confidence stems from a set of data poised to redefine the competitive landscape of the stablecoin industry: since the passage of the GENIUS Act, Anchorage has secured every major stablecoin issuance authorization in the market. Around 20 financial institutions and large tech companies are queued up to issue their own stablecoins through Anchorage. Almost simultaneously, Anchorage launched the "Agentic Banking" platform in partnership with Google Cloud, aiming to provide regulated capital access channels for AI agents. The convergence of these two milestones signals a paradigm shift in crypto financial infrastructure—from "compliant asset issuance" to "intelligent payment agency."
Anchorage’s Strategic Surge: A Three-Dimensional Perspective
In early May 2026, Anchorage Digital executed a series of high-impact strategic moves:
First, it announced the acquisition of all major stablecoin issuance authorizations. McCauley stated unequivocally that Anchorage has obtained all regulatory approvals needed for large-scale stablecoin issuance, serving banks with specific objectives as well as stablecoin issuers with established distribution channels.
Second, it revealed that approximately 20 institutions are lined up to issue stablecoins. This group includes both financial institutions and major tech companies, all preparing to launch their own stablecoins via Anchorage. McCauley emphasized that agency services are reshaping the industry landscape. Notably, in February 2026, Tether made a $100 million strategic equity investment in Anchorage Digital, valuing the company at roughly $4.2 billion. Anchorage Digital Bank is also the issuer of Tether’s "Made in America" stablecoin, USA₮, targeting the US market.
Third, it launched the AI-powered "Agentic Banking" platform. Leveraging Anchorage’s federally chartered crypto bank status, the platform provides AI agents with compliant trust, governance, and settlement layers. This enables enterprises to allocate funds to AI agents and execute transactions under controlled conditions. The platform’s partnership with Google Cloud focuses on building the "intelligence layer" for agent discovery and collaboration, while Anchorage handles capital execution and settlement.
The timing of these three developments suggests that the market should view them as integrated components of Anchorage’s "compliant issuance + agency payment" dual-engine strategy under the GENIUS Act framework, rather than isolated actions.
How the GENIUS Act Is Redefining Industry Rules
Key Milestones from Legislation to Implementation
On July 18, 2025, the United States officially signed the "Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act" (GENIUS Act) into law, following passage by the Senate (68-30) and House (308-122). This marks the first federal legislation in US history specifically targeting digital assets.
The core institutional arrangements of the Act can be summarized as follows:
- Issuance Access: Establishes the "Permitted Payment Stablecoin Issuer" regime, including subsidiaries of insured depository institutions (approved by federal banking regulators), federally qualified non-bank issuers (approved by the OCC), and state-qualified issuers.
- Reserve Requirements: Issuers must maintain at least a 1:1 ratio of high-quality liquid assets, which may include US dollar cash, deposits at insured depository institutions, US Treasury securities with maturities of no more than 93 days, and other liquid federal government financial instruments. The Act prohibits paying interest or any yield to stablecoin holders.
- Legal Characterization: Defines payment stablecoins as tools for payment and settlement, neither national currency nor securities or commodities. Stablecoins are not covered by federal deposit insurance.
- Large Issuer Upgrade Mechanism: State-level issuers exceeding certain thresholds must upgrade to the federal regulatory framework to prevent regulatory arbitrage.
- Effective Window: The Act will be fully effective no later than January 18, 2027, or 120 days after major federal stablecoin regulators issue implementation guidelines, whichever comes first.
On the legislative front, the CLARITY Act passed the House in July 2025, aiming to resolve the longstanding issue of digital asset classification as securities or commodities. In March 2026, the SEC and CFTC jointly issued Interpretive Release No. 33-11412, establishing a five-category digital asset classification system. While stablecoins are explicitly excluded from the definition of securities, algorithmic or yield-bearing stablecoins may still fall within the securities category. This provides more precise compliance boundaries for the stablecoin industry.
Why Anchorage?
Anchorage Digital received a federal bank charter from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in 2021, becoming the first federally chartered crypto bank in the US. This status gives Anchorage a structural first-mover advantage under the GENIUS Act: institutions with an existing federal bank charter inherently meet the Act’s requirements for "subsidiaries of insured depository institutions," eliminating the need for a lengthy and uncertain licensing process. McCauley has publicly positioned Anchorage as an infrastructure provider for crypto banking, aspiring for all banks to become crypto banks. Anchorage leveraged the GENIUS Act’s implementation window to upgrade its capabilities from licensed bank to stablecoin issuance infrastructure provider.
Data and Structural Analysis: The Supply Landscape of Enterprise Stablecoins
Key Data Points
All figures below are as of May 8, 2026:
- Queue Size: About 20 banks and tech giants are queued to issue stablecoins via Anchorage.
- Authorization Coverage: Anchorage has secured all major stablecoin issuance authorizations.
- Partnership Network: On April 30, 2026, Anchorage partnered with M0, which provides modular stablecoin design and interoperability layers, while Anchorage delivers regulated backend services for issuance, custody, and reserve management, forming an integrated issuance solution.
- Disclosed Issuance Cases: Western Union’s USDPT launched on Solana, with Anchorage as the issuing bank; Tether’s USA₮ for the US market is also issued by Anchorage Digital Bank; Ethena Labs’ USDtb (Anchorage is its sole issuer), OSL’s USDGO, and other stablecoins are likewise issued by Anchorage Digital Bank.
- Strategic Investment Relationships: Tether made a $100 million strategic equity investment in Anchorage Digital in February 2026, deepening cooperation in regulated digital asset infrastructure.
- International Business Expansion: In February 2026, Anchorage launched "Stablecoin Solutions" for international banks, supporting multiple stablecoin issuances including Tether USA₮, Ethena Labs USDtb, OSL USDGO, and Western Union USDPT (then pending issuance).
- Platform Capabilities: Agentic Banking, in partnership with Google Cloud, covers identity authentication, policy control, and settlement across crypto and traditional financial systems.
Overall Stablecoin Market Data:
- Market Size (as of May 2026): MakerDAO’s USDS has surpassed $5 billion, making it one of the fastest-growing stablecoins. The overall stablecoin market continues to expand, with Wall Street analysts widely predicting that regulatory certainty brought by the GENIUS Act will drive the market from hundreds of billions to over a trillion dollars within the next decade.
- Institutional Adoption Pace: In April 2026, PayPal expanded PYUSD to over 20,000 merchant payment points; Visa’s Q2 2026 financial report disclosed a 200% year-over-year growth in stablecoin card payments, with more than 160 card programs and annualized stablecoin settlement volume reaching $7 (note: original data formatting appears anomalous); BitPay reported in April 2026 that stablecoins account for 18% of its processed payments and continue to grow.
The Supply Structure of Enterprise Stablecoin Narratives
Based on the above data, the current enterprise stablecoin issuance market can be preliminarily divided into three categories of participants:
First: Bank-affiliated stablecoin issuers. SoFi is a prime example. In December 2025, SoFi launched the fully reserved US dollar stablecoin SoFiUSD via its national bank subsidiary, SoFi Bank, N.A., becoming the first national bank to issue a stablecoin on a public, permissionless blockchain. SoFi positions itself as a "stablecoin infrastructure provider," offering white-label stablecoin issuance or SoFiUSD integration services to banks, fintechs, and large enterprise platforms. In May 2026, SoFiUSD expanded to the Solana network. Ben Reynolds, SoFi’s Head of Enterprise Banking, cited "low transaction costs, ultra-fast settlement, and robust throughput" as reasons for choosing Solana.
Second: Licensed infrastructure issuers (Anchorage as the archetype). These institutions do not issue their own branded stablecoins but provide regulated issuance, custody, and settlement infrastructure for third parties. Anchorage’s clients include banks with specific use cases, stablecoin projects with distribution channels, and payment platforms or fintechs seeking to embed on-chain dollars. Tether’s $100 million strategic investment in Anchorage further validates this model’s market acceptance.
Third: Large enterprise proprietary stablecoins and regional collaboration projects. Payment giant PayPal has launched PYUSD and continues to expand its use cases. Fiserv, in partnership with the Bank of North Dakota, plans to launch the state-backed stablecoin Roughrider Coin in 2026, marking the first stablecoin issued at the US state level. Targeted at state banks and credit unions, it aims to facilitate interbank transactions and global capital flows.
Structurally, the core driver of enterprise stablecoin narratives is that the regulatory clarity provided by the GENIUS Act lowers institutional entry barriers. Institutions with bank charters leverage their first-mover advantage to quickly secure the infrastructure layer, offering end-to-end services from issuance and custody to settlement.
Dissecting Public Opinion: Optimism, Competitive Concerns, and Political Dynamics
Public sentiment around the enterprise stablecoin issuance wave can be grouped into three perspectives:
Optimists: Represented by Anchorage and industry researchers, this camp believes that regulatory clarity from the GENIUS Act will propel the stablecoin market from its current hundreds of billions to over a trillion dollars in the next decade. McCauley’s assertion that "agency services are reshaping the industry, and stablecoins and digital assets are reconstructing money itself" reflects this view. SoFi CEO Anthony Noto also describes blockchain as a "technology supercycle," predicting it will fundamentally transform every aspect of payments and finance.
Competitive Concerns: The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis highlighted in December 2025 that while the GENIUS Act creates a regulatory framework, detailed implementation rules are still being developed. The timing and standardization of rule rollout by federal agencies will directly affect industry progress. Additionally, the Act distinguishes compliance obligations between primary and secondary stablecoin markets, with secondary market compliance boundaries remaining uncertain.
Political Dynamics: Senator Elizabeth Warren warned of "major loopholes" in the GENIUS Act, potentially allowing large tech companies like Meta to re-enter the stablecoin sector with minimal oversight. On May 7, 2026, Warren again publicly questioned Meta’s integration of stablecoins, citing concerns over financial stability, illicit finance, and consumer protection, demanding a response by May 20, 2026. This underscores ongoing regulatory and political controversy as tech giants enter the stablecoin arena.
Industry Impact Analysis: Triple Transformation at the Infrastructure Layer
First Transformation: From "Permissionless Issuance" to "Licensing Access"
Prior to the GENIUS Act, stablecoin issuance in the US operated in a regulatory gray area. With the Act’s implementation, stablecoin issuance now falls under federal banking supervision, and only licensed entities can issue legally. This raises industry barriers from "technical capability" to "license acquisition." Anchorage, as the earliest federally chartered crypto bank, is converting its "license first-mover advantage" into tangible client acquisition.
For banks, fintechs, and enterprise platforms seeking to issue branded stablecoins, building their own issuance channels requires a lengthy licensing process. Partnering with licensed entities like Anchorage enables rapid, compliant launches—essentially "compliance-as-a-service." This division of labor is fostering a new B2B stablecoin infrastructure layer that doesn’t target retail customers. Tether’s $100 million investment in Anchorage is, in effect, a recognition of this infrastructure layer’s value.
Second Transformation: Cross-Border Agency Mechanisms for Non-US Bank Stablecoins
In February 2026, Anchorage launched "Stablecoin Solutions" for international banks, offering compliant US dollar stablecoin issuance, custody, and settlement as an alternative to traditional correspondent banking relationships. McCauley describes it as "banks providing federally regulated global dollar channels to other banks, without sacrificing custody, compliance, or operational control."
The global correspondent banking system currently faces high costs, long delays, and shrinking coverage. Data shows a sustained decline in correspondent banking relationships over the past decade. If stablecoin-based cross-border settlement gains scale, it could structurally impact international payment infrastructure—especially for small and mid-sized non-US banks operating in emerging markets and struggling to access dollar liquidity. Western Union’s launch of USDPT on Solana, with Anchorage as the issuing bank, exemplifies the shift from traditional cross-border payment infrastructure to blockchain.
Third Transformation: Financial Infrastructure for the AI Agent Economy
Anchorage’s Agentic Banking platform, alongside various AI agent payment solutions emerging in the same period, is fueling a new narrative: building financial infrastructure for the AI agent economy.
On May 7, 2026, AWS, Coinbase, and Stripe jointly launched an AI agent payment rail based on USDC. AWS introduced Bedrock AgentCore Payments, enabling developers to equip AI agents with digital wallets and automated payment capabilities, allowing agents to execute micro-payments (even below $0.01) to acquire resources and services automatically. Coinbase’s x402 protocol enables on-chain payments that unlock paid services automatically, and Stripe’s machine payments protocol supports real-time streaming payments based on computational consumption.
Other key developments include:
- MoonPay launches MoonAgents Card: On May 1, 2026, the virtual Mastercard debit card went live, allowing AI agents to spend stablecoins directly from self-custodied wallets, with no extra fund transfer steps. The product is a collaboration between MoonPay, Monavate, and Mastercard, enabling real-time crypto-to-fiat conversion at the point of transaction.
- RedotPay partners with Tempo: Using Tempo’s Machine Payments Protocol, AI agents on RedotPay can autonomously complete the entire transaction process—from product search to final settlement—using stablecoins. The first phase of payment skills is expected to launch in June 2026.
- Visa prioritizes AI/Agentic and stablecoin settlement: In its Q2 2026 earnings call, Visa highlighted AI, agent economy, ecosystem interoperability, and stablecoin settlement as strategic growth areas. CEO McInerney defined AI and agent economy as expanding Visa’s addressable market, and stablecoins/blockchain as major opportunities. Visa’s Q2 net income grew 17% year-over-year.
The current bottleneck for AI agent economic activity is that traditional payment infrastructure (credit card workflows, two-step verification, manual authorization) is not suitable for autonomous machine-to-machine transactions. Stablecoins’ programmability, low fees, and near-instant settlement make them the natural payment layer for the AI agent economy. Anchorage’s Agentic Banking serves as the nexus between AI agents’ "intelligent decision-making" and "financial settlement"—when an AI agent is ready to transact, Agentic Banking enforces enterprise spending policies, agent identity standards (Know Your Agent), and real-time compliance controls, then completes settlement via stablecoin, fiat channels, or tokenized credentials.
Conclusion
The GENIUS Act essentially answers the core question: "Who can issue US dollar stablecoins, and under what standards?" The answer: licensed financial institutions—banks and their subsidiaries, OCC-approved non-bank issuers, and state-level issuers meeting federal standards.
Regulatory clarity is rapidly translating into industry action. Anchorage’s queue of 20 clients, SoFiUSD’s official issuance and expansion to Solana, Western Union’s USDPT launch on Solana, and the rollout of Agentic Banking and other AI agent payment infrastructure all reflect this momentum. Tether’s $100 million investment in Anchorage and Fiserv’s Roughrider Coin project with the Bank of North Dakota further demonstrate that both crypto-native players and traditional financial infrastructure providers are actively staking their claims in this sector.
However, the rapid narrative progression should not obscure two fundamental questions. First, whether enterprise stablecoins can carve out meaningful space in a market dominated by USDT and USDC depends on their ability to deliver unique value beyond existing solutions—cross-border correspondent banking, closed brand ecosystems, and automated AI agent settlement are promising directions, but scaling will require time. Second, AI agent payments represented by Agentic Banking are still in the infrastructure rollout phase—AWS’s Bedrock AgentCore Payments has just launched, MoonPay’s MoonAgents Card has only been available for days, and RedotPay and Tempo’s payment skills are expected to go live in June 2026. The transition from "AI agents can pay" to "AI agents transact autonomously at scale" will require technical maturity, user adoption, and regulatory adaptation working in concert.
In the coming years, the construction of compliant stablecoin infrastructure will continue. Ultimately, the winners may not be those with the most advanced technology, but those who best integrate licensing advantages, technical capabilities, and depth of payment scenarios. The story of monetary reconstruction is just beginning—the ending is far from written.
