Blockchain firm Polygon Labs (CRYPTO: POL) said on Tuesday it would buy crypto payments company Coinme and crypto infrastructure provider Sequence for $250 million to make its foray into the stablecoin-based payments market. At the time, Sandeep Nailwal, founder of the Polygon Foundation said in a press release, “We aspire Polygon to be the biggest stablecoin money movement avenue in the world.”
Stablecoins are digital tokens pegged to fiat currency, namely the dollar, and are increasingly being used as a payments tool. Stablecoins seemingly got their blessing from the White House last year after the passage of the Genius Act.
This year is shaping up already to be “the year stablecoins graduated from a crypto trading primitive to a payments primitive,” said Steven Willinger, General Partner at Blockchain Builders Fund in Palo Alto.
That doesn’t mean the world needs 50 new stablecoins, even if startups will try their luck at it.
Around six distinct stablecoin projects have been announced or launched globally since Dec. 1, 2025. JP Morgan launched JPM Coin in November. This is a fast moving target for investors.
New Stablecoin Projects Since December
SoFiUSD — Launched Dec. 18, 2025
Fully reserved U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin by SoFi Bank on a public blockchain. SoFi is the first national bank to issue such a stablecoin.
USD1 stablecoin partnership for Pakistan — Announced Jan. 14, 2026
Pakistan government signed a memorandum of understanding to integrate the USD1 stablecoin into its digital payment infrastructure.
EURXM, USDXM, RONXM — Dec. 8, 2025
These three new stablecoins were formally announced with plans to launch this summer by a Romanian bank.
Wyoming FRNT stablecoin — Launched
Wyoming’s official state-issued Frontier stablecoin began public launch around early January 2026, following mainnet testing phases in August.
Despite the newcomers, the network effects in payments push value toward a small number of highly liquid, widely integrated settlement assets. Today, Tether (CRYPTO: USDT) and U.S. Dollar Coin (CRYPTO: USDC) issued by Circle Internet Group (NYSE:CRCL) account for most of the stablecoin market cap.
Do we need more stablecoins?
“For broad, everyday payments, probably not,” said Willinger. Merchants and payment service providers (PSP) “will prefer the tokens with the deepest liquidity, clearest compliance posture, and easiest integration paths.”
Where new stablecoins make sense includes when they’re product-specific, such as engineered for a protocol’s …