On Wednesday Samsung announced that later this month its wallet will support stablecoins in the US, starting with USDC. The feature will also enable cross border payments to bank accounts in more than 60 countries, with recipients receiving local currency, alongside free P2P transfers to compatible crypto wallets. The question is whether this is noise or a signal about a broader mobile wallet wave.
Samsung’s cross border payments are enabled by Bastion, a licensed money transmitter backed by the venture arms of Coinbase and Samsung. Bastion holds a New York trust charter and has preliminary conditional approval from the OCC for a national trust charter. However, Coinbase will act as sub custodian for the USDC balances held in Samsung Wallet.
The announcement cited 82 million compatible Galaxy devices in the US, though that is a device count, not regular wallet users. Despite Samsung accounting for more than one in four US smartphone shipments, Samsung Wallet is reported to have a market share of 3% and is usually left out of discussions about the top five US wallet apps. As we show below, most leading US wallets have already moved into stablecoins, and there are signs that Apple has explored not just stablecoins but also tokenized deposits.
Article continues …
Want the full story? Pro subscribers get complete articles, exclusive industry analysis, and early access to legislative updates that keep you ahead of the competition. Join the professionals who are choosing deeper insights over surface level news.
