Emerging markets and developing economies hold two-thirds (or more) of global stablecoin supply. That is a measure of demand, and it puts a choice in front of policymakers: treat stablecoins mainly as a source of risk, or treat them as a foundational change in payment infrastructure that their economies can shape. Today we publish "Stablecoins in emerging markets: Opportunities and challenges." Stablecoins collapse messaging, clearing, and settlement into a single onchain step, settle in seconds, and can execute on conditions without an intermediary. Those gains are largest where payment frictions are highest, which is why the opportunity is concentrated in emerging markets. The paper maps four opportunities: cross-border remittances, where sending $200 still costs about 6.5 percent on roughly $650 billion a year flowing to developing economies; tokenization and smart contracts; agentic commerce at machine speed and sub-cent scale, so creators and publishers can be paid per use; and competition in banking and FX. It takes the concerns policymakers raise in turn, from deposit flight and dollarization to capital flows and illicit finance, and finds that in most cases the answer is a matter of policy design and supervision, not a flaw in the instrument. A six-part regulatory blueprint sets out what that design looks like, and case studies of India, Brazil, and Indonesia show the rails and the demand are already in place. The question is no longer whether stablecoins arrive. It is whether they arrive inside a clear regulatory perimeter, where a country can address its concerns and capture the value being built on stablecoin rails, or outside one.

Our new paper, Small Banks and Stablecoins: Nothing to Fear, Much to Gain, explains why well-regulated stablecoins are a once-in-a-generation opportunity for roughly 4,000 community and regional banks to compete on equal footing in payments and programmable financial services with the big banks—often by plugging into shared infrastructure via partners, rather than building from scratch. No billion dollar tech budget needed. As for concerns about stablecoins draining community-bank deposits, the data tell a clear story. As USDC’s market cap grew to around $75 billion, overall bank and community-bank deposits grew alongside it. Over the last 6 months, USDC grew 4.6 percent while total demand deposits grew 4.5 percent. This doesn’t look like substitution.

The Coinbase Institute's new paper makes the case for euro stablecoins — not as a threat to monetary sovereignty, but as a tool to strengthen it. A projected €570B market by 2030 won't crowd out bank lending. It will cement the euro's global role.

The U.S. tax code was built for paper-era money, not onchain finance. Treating digital assets as property means every stablecoin payment and gas fee can be a taxable event—and @Coinbase has already seen a 34% jump in crypto tax support inquiries this year vs. last. It is time to modernize the rules. Our new paper lays out practical reforms on information reporting, payment stablecoins, and de minimis relief so tax policy supports, rather than penalizes, everyday digital asset use under frameworks like GENIUS.

The internet defaults to ads, subscriptions, and bundles because small payments have always been uneconomical. Stablecoin rails + x402 could change that—letting users and AI agents pay tiny amounts for exactly what they need. Pay-per-use AI, microwork, niche data, pay-per-article. This opens the door to broader participation in the digital economy

1/ Settlement finality—the legal moment when a transfer becomes unconditional and irrevocable—is central to financial stability, and blockchains change how we deliver it. Our new Coinbase Institute piece, Settlement Finality Onchain, shows how atomic settlement removes the T+N exposure window, how technical finality on major proof-of-stake networks creates stronger economic guarantees than centralized ledgers, and how always-on public blockchains reduce operational and liquidity risks tied to business-hour settlement and single points of failure.

1/ Cornell Professor Lin William Cong released a December paper finding that well-regulated GENIUS stablecoins can enhance bank operations, strengthen deposit competition, and support financial stability—corroborating recent Coinbase Institute research on the same topics. A banking trade group recently attempted to reframe his findings. Who better than Cong to correct these misreadings and mischaracterizations of his own work.

There’s a significant (and growing) problem with global wealth creation. For decades, income growth from capital has dramatically outpaced that from labor, but capital ownership remains a privilege of the few. Roughly two-thirds of adults on earth are excluded from capital markets due to access barriers and frictions. Our new paper shows how tokenization could help billions of unbrokered savers turn a smartphone into a gateway to diversified, global ownership.