By Tyler Warner
5 min read
Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.
GM!
Today’s top news:
Forget crypto winter.
The stablecoin market doesn’t care.
On the same day, Stripe announced a $159B valuation driven largely by its stablecoin infrastructure, Meta confirmed it is re-entering the payments space with a stablecoin strategy targeting 3B users.
Meta sent RFPs to crypto infrastructure firms seeking a third-party partner to administer stablecoin-based payments across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, targeting a launch early in H2 2026.
Stripe, which acquired stablecoin platform Bridge last year and whose CEO Patrick Collison sits on Meta’s board, is the leading candidate. This comes after Stripe processed $1.9 trillion in total payment volume last year, up 34%. Bridge volume quadrupled. Stripe also received a national bank trust charter from the OCC last week, letting it custody crypto and manage stablecoin reserves directly.
Meta is not issuing its own token, wanting a “stablecoin agnostic” integration and a new in-app wallet. Meta spokespeople clarified the project is about enabling payments, calling it “enabling people and businesses to pay using their preferred method.”
“It may be a crypto winter, but it’s a stablecoin summer.”
“Stablecoin payments are advancing quietly and inexorably as real-world uptake continues apace.” - Patrick and John Collison, Stripe annual letter
“Nothing has changed; there is still no Meta stablecoin. This is about enabling people and businesses to make payments on our platforms using their preferred method.” - Andy Stone, Meta communications director
A Meta stablecoin is a big deal.
Facebook has 3.2 billion monthly active users. WhatsApp has 3 billion, with an 84.1% daily open rate (the highest of any major app) and 100 billion messages sent every day. Instagram hits another 3 billion.
Meta's full family of apps reaches 3.98 billion unique people per month. That's roughly half the world's population.
For those who don’t remember, Meta’s prior stablecoin attempt failed because regulators came down hard on a company trying to issue its own global currency. This time, Meta is doing none of that. They’re opting to be stablecoin agnostic, using third-party rails.
They learned the lesson and now the regulatory environment under the GENIUS Act has made it easier to execute.
If Meta gets this working across WhatsApp alone—remittances, creator payouts, cross-border transfers—that’s a stablecoin use case at a scale that could dwarf everything currently on-chain.
Stablecoin supply and volumes would soar.
For traders: the clearest beneficiaries are Circle (USDC issuer, likely integration candidate), Tether (always in the driver's seat), Stripe itself, and any infrastructure layer that sits between the wallet and settlement. And Meta of course…
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