Stablecoin

The European Parliament has approved the European Central Bank's annual report, including language that brands the planned digital euro as essential to strengthening EU monetary sovereignty and the single market. Lawmakers stressed that both cash and the future digital euro should remain legal tender, while underlining that the ECB must stay independent from political pressure. Several MEPs and experts framed the digital euro as public digital money that could reduce reliance on non-EU payment providers and private stablecoins in Europe's retail payments.

At a second White House-hosted meeting with top banks and crypto firms, talks on stablecoin yield policy ended without a deal, though participants said progress was made. The administration set a March 1 deadline, with banks advocating a ban on rewards for holding payment stablecoins and industry groups seeking clearer allowances.

On 11 February 2026, policymakers were reported to be evaluating Ethereum as the blockchain infrastructure for a potential euro-denominated stablecoin. ETH/USD traded near $1,949.60, down 0.04%, with intraday action stabilizing around $1,945–$1,955. The discussion highlights growing confidence in public networks for sovereign-grade digital assets.

Stripe introduced a preview integrating the x402 protocol to let developers bill autonomous agents in USDC on Base. CoinGecko simultaneously activated x402 for its API, offering fixed $0.01 USDC per-request access to price and onchain data. The product rollout also coincided with a reported tender offer that values Stripe at $140 billion.

Crypto and banking representatives held a second White House meeting on the U.S. crypto market structure bill, but they remain divided over stablecoin yield restrictions. Banking groups are pushing for prohibitions on stablecoin rewards, while industry figures argue the bill should move forward without further delay. Both sides say more talks are needed to align innovation with financial stability concerns.

LayerZero Labs has launched a new blockchain network named Zero to target institutional-scale financial markets, with backing from Citadel Securities, ARK Invest and Tether Investments. The network is built on a heterogeneous, zero-knowledge-proof-based architecture that separates transaction execution from verification and distributes work across specialized zones. Early institutional partners are exploring use cases in tokenization, collateral management, continuous trading and AI-related micropayments.

On February 11, 2026, Forbes data showed Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong fell out of the top 500 as his net worth declined to $7.4 billion from $17.7 billion. Coinbase shares are down over 50% since Bitcoin's October peak, and JPMorgan cut its COIN target by 27% as analysts flag weaker Q4 volumes and EBITDA.

The White House held a second round of discussions on stablecoin yields that participants described as productive but which concluded without an agreement. The focus was on rewards programs and access, with stakeholders asked to submit compromise bill language by the end of February 2026, while current consumer offerings remain unchanged. Coinbase Global's shares were around 161.04, up about 10.21% intraday.

MoonPay will partner with Deel to enable stablecoin payroll for about 40,000 businesses, with initial rollout in the UK and EU. In a statement on Tuesday, February 10, MoonPay said payments will be sent directly to employee wallets via its Iron division, and reports indicated plans to expand into the US.

On February 9, 2026, leading U.S. banking trade groups filed a joint comment urging the Federal Reserve to tighten its skinny master accounts plan. The proposal would let qualified fintech and crypto firms access FedNow and FedWire with strict limits, including no interest or emergency lending and daily caps of $500 million or 10% of assets.