21 financial institutions target $1.9T stablecoin market to retain customers

Twenty-one major financial institutions committed to build a US dollar-denominated stablecoin. The institutions include Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo. The group plans to establish a company in the second half of 2026. The group plans to launch the stablecoin in the first half of 2027. The venture began as a 10-bank exploration in October 2025. It now includes institutions from North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The institutions plan to comply with the GENIUS Act and MiCA. The stated use cases include wholesale activity, institutional activity, cross-border payments, digital-asset settlement, and retail markets where client benefits can be achieved. Standard Chartered estimated that stablecoins could pull about $500 billion from US bank deposits by the end of 2028. Citi's base case projects $1.9 trillion in stablecoin issuance by 2030. Citi's bull case projects $4 trillion. Citi's base case projects annual stablecoin transaction activity near $100 trillion at 50 times velocity. The bull scenario approaches $200 trillion in annual activity. Total stablecoin market capitalization stands near $303.7 billion, according to DefiLlama. Tether's USDT accounts for more than 60% of that market. A bank-issued stablecoin can preserve the distribution relationship around a deposit. It can also preserve the compliance layer, settlement business, and a share of reserve economics. Banks appear to accept the loss of part of their traditional funding model to avoid surrendering customer relationships to crypto-native competitors. Stablecoins, tokenized deposits, deposit tokens, and central bank digital currencies are expected to coexist in Citi's research. Citi's research also projects that bank-token transaction volume could exceed stablecoin turnover by 2030. Qivalis is a separate consortium of 37 institutions building a euro-pegged stablecoin. The GENIUS Act takes effect on the earlier of 18 months after its July 2025 enactment or 120 days after federal regulators finalize implementing rules. The 18-month date is Jan. 18, 2027. Societe Generale's dollar-backed token had $12.5 million in circulation. Institutional trust and compliance infrastructure do not by themselves provide minting volume, secondary-market liquidity, exchange listings, wallet support, or merchant demand. The stablecoin must attract liquidity, listings, wallet support, and real demand to challenge USDT and USDC. The bull case has bank-backed tokens becoming one of several dominant digital-money formats. The bear case has the consortium creating a compliant stablecoin that fails to attract liquidity.