Stablecoin

Coinbase's x402 protocol, launched in May 2025, is an open-source web payment standard that lets AI agents and human users pay with stablecoins directly over the internet. By embedding onchain payment requests into HTTP interactions, it enables fast, low-cost micropayments across networks like Base, Solana and Ethereum without traditional processors. Backed by firms including Cloudflare, Circle, Stripe and Amazon Web Services, x402 is already handling hundreds of millions of transactions for use cases ranging from pay-per-inference compute to metered web content.

On Tuesday, major U.S. equity benchmarks recovered from steep intraday declines, with the S&P 500 ending 0.9% lower after an earlier 2.5% plunge as conflict involving Iran and a spike in oil prices unnerved investors. Bitcoin traded around $68,000 after briefly touching $70,000 on Monday, while Brent crude surged above $87 per barrel and rate-cut expectations were pushed further out.

On Tuesday, United States President Donald Trump criticized banks for blocking progress on the Senate’s crypto market structure legislation over restrictions on stablecoin yield payments. He warned that attempts to undermine the GENIUS Act and delay the CLARITY Act are unacceptable, and urged banks to reach an agreement with the crypto industry. Lawmakers and industry groups remain divided over whether the bill should ban all stablecoin yield, leaving the legislation stalled in the Senate.

As of March 4, 2026, U.S. lawmakers remain divided over whether stablecoin issuers and crypto platforms may provide yield-style incentives to users, leaving the CLARITY Act stuck in the Senate after a strong bipartisan vote in the House. Representative French Hill is urging senators to accept the House-approved language, while traders on platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket are still assigning notable odds that the bill will be enacted in 2026.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump argued that U.S. banks are undermining key crypto legislation by stalling the Clarity Act, following the earlier passage of the GENIUS Act on stablecoins. He warned that disputes over whether stablecoins can offer yield are delaying broader market structure reforms and could drive digital asset activity to China and other jurisdictions. The Clarity Act remains stuck in the Senate as lawmakers, banks and the crypto industry clash over stablecoin rules and their impact on traditional banking.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump used Truth Social to claim that the GENIUS Act, a U.S. stablecoin framework, is being undermined by banks amid a dispute over stablecoin yields. He urged Congress to quickly pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, arguing that Americans should earn more on their money and that the crypto market structure bill must move forward.

Visa is expanding its stablecoin settlement pilot while extending its collaboration with Bridge, which is working toward launching stablecoin-linked Visa cards in more than 100 countries by the end of 2026. The initiative lets users spend stablecoin balances at over 175 million merchant locations and tests onchain settlement options via Bridge’s partnership with Lead Bank. The program remains in a pilot phase focused on settlement flexibility and operational efficiency rather than replacing fiat rails.

On 3 March 2026, Ripple introduced an upgraded Ripple Payments platform that consolidates fiat and stablecoin transactions into a single end-to-end system for institutions. The service, powered by the RLUSD stablecoin and technology from recent acquisitions, is live in more than 60 markets and has processed over $100 billion in volume. The company supports its institutional offering with over 75 licenses worldwide, including approvals in the US, EU, and UK.

A European Central Bank working paper finds that stablecoins can function as substitutes for retail bank deposits, potentially shrinking banks' funding bases and constraining lending if adoption becomes widespread. The authors argue that this shift could alter how policy rate changes pass through the euro area banking system and indirectly expose the region to U.S. monetary policy via dollar-denominated stablecoins. While current usage is largely tied to crypto trading, the study warns that scale and evolving use cases will determine how strongly stablecoins reshape bank balance sheets and monetary transmission.

XRP Ledger developer Panos Mekras has highlighted a new RLUSD liquidity pool incentive on the XRP/RLUSD pair, offering a 12.8% APR and drawing around $500,000 in XRP liquidity in less than 24 hours. He noted that a similar proposal his team made in 2025 was not supported by Ripple, and urged the company to use the one billion XRP reserved for community initiatives to back DeFi builders. Despite this progress, XRP Ledger still trails leading DeFi ecosystems in total value locked, fee generation and active addresses.