This Week in Stablecoins: Building Toward T+0 Settlement

Stablecoins entered 2026 with an ambitious narrative around disrupting card networks, replacing traditional payment rails and fundamentally reshaping consumer commerce. This week’s headlines suggested a different destination. Across a series of seemingly unrelated announcements — from new foreign exchange initiatives and Japanese market expansion to infrastructure partnerships, regulatory momentum in Washington and even layoffs at some of the best-known cryptocurrency companies — the industry’s