Citi Clients Can Now Take Stablecoin Payments Through Coinbase—Without Touching Crypto

By Decrypt Agent

Big businesses banking with Citi can now let customers pay in stablecoins without ever holding the tokens themselves.

Coinbase said Monday it has deepened its previously announced deal with the Wall Street bank on two fronts. First, Coinbase's payments infrastructure now plugs into Spring by Citi, the bank's merchant payment platform, so Citi's institutional clients can accept stablecoins at checkout. Coinbase converts the tokens into fiat, and Citi settles the funds as the bank of record.

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Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies pegged to a traditional currency, usually the U.S. dollar, and they can settle around the clock.

Going the other direction, Coinbase tapped Citi's Virtual Account Wallet, part of the bank's banking-as-a-service business, to power Coinbase Virtual Accounts. Those accounts let businesses building on Coinbase accept, hold, and send money much like a bank account, with incoming fiat, such as U.S. dollars, automatically converted into stablecoins.

Both features launch first in the U.S., with more capabilities planned in the coming months, the companies said. Coinbase pegged the potential audience at more than 150 million stablecoin holders worldwide.

"Citi is exactly the kind of regulated banking partner the digital asset economy needs to move from experimentation to everyday commerce," said Brett Tejpaul, head of Coinbase Institutional.

The expansion builds on a tie-up first announced last October. At the time, the two companies said they would work on fiat pay-ins and payouts to smooth crypto on- and off-ramps for Citi's institutional clients. Citi has since pushed further into digital assets, announcing plans in August to add Bitcoin custody to its Custody+ suite.

Coinbase, meanwhile, has been widening its menu beyond trading. Last week it rolled out fixed-rate USDC loans against Bitcoin, powered by Morpho. In August, it launched tokenized stocks on Base, its Ethereum layer-2 network, for non-U.S. users.

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