Coinbase is taking stablecoin rails into banking, expanding the market for both

After launching USDC in 2018 with Circle, Coinbase added USDC support to Coinbase Commerce in 2019, allowing merchants to accept the stablecoin directly. The bigger shift came in 2025, when the crypto exchange launched Coinbase Payments, a stablecoin payments stack that lets businesses and payment platforms integrate USDC payments into their existing systems.

Now Coinbase is extending that infrastructure into traditional banking. In September 2026, it partnered with Moov, a payments infrastructure provider whose platform connects more than 1,000 community banks and credit unions to payment systems. Coinbase brings stablecoin payment and settlement capabilities, while Moov offers a potential distribution channel across its network of community banks and credit unions. The announcement does not say all these institutions will offer Coinbase’s stablecoin capabilities or specify when individual institutions will activate them.

Later that month, Coinbase also expanded its collaboration with Citi, connecting its stablecoin payments infrastructure to the bank’s institutional banking and merchant-acquiring systems.

The two partnerships approach the same strategy from opposite ends of the financial system. Moov gives Coinbase a route into smaller institutions that may lack the resources to build their own stablecoin technology stack. Citi, which moves approximately $6 trillion a day, connects Coinbase’s capabilities to large corporate and institutional clients. 

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Coinbase-Moov: Extending stablecoin infrastructure to community banks

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After launching USDC in 2018 with Circle, Coinbase added USDC support to Coinbase Commerce in 2019, allowing merchants to accept the stablecoin directly. The bigger shift came in 2025, when the crypto exchange launched Coinbase Payments, a stablecoin payments stack that lets businesses and payment platforms integrate USDC payments into their existing systems.

Now Coinbase is extending that infrastructure into traditional banking. In September 2026, it partnered with Moov, a payments infrastructure provider whose platform connects more than 1,000 community banks and credit unions to payment systems. Coinbase brings stablecoin payment and settlement capabilities, while Moov offers a potential distribution channel across its network of community banks and credit unions. The announcement does not say all these institutions will offer Coinbase’s stablecoin capabilities or specify when individual institutions will activate them.

Later that month, Coinbase also expanded its collaboration with Citi, connecting its stablecoin payments infrastructure to the bank’s institutional banking and merchant-acquiring systems.

The two partnerships approach the same strategy from opposite ends of the financial system. Moov gives Coinbase a route into smaller institutions that may lack the resources to build their own stablecoin technology stack. Citi, which moves approximately $6 trillion a day, connects Coinbase’s capabilities to large corporate and institutional clients. 

The partnerships give Coinbase access to established banking and payment networks, while allowing banks and businesses to integrate stablecoin payment capabilities into their existing operations without having to build the underlying infrastructure from scratch.

This infrastructure expansion gives Coinbase a potential growth avenue beyond trading revenue, which fluctuates with crypto market activity. In a September 2026 Bloomberg interview, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the stablecoin market, valued at around $300 billion, could grow nearly tenfold by 2030.

Coinbase-Moov: Extending stablecoin infrastructure to community banks

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