Goldman Sachs, Citi and 19 Other Banks Plan a Dollar Stablecoin by 2027
By Dave Barr
Twenty-one major banks, including Goldman Sachs, Citi, Bank of America and UBS, are forming a company to launch a US dollar stablecoin by the first half of 2027. The token is designed to comply with both the US GENIUS Act and the EU’s MiCA rules, with a euro-denominated stablecoin planned to follow. JPMorgan notably isn’t joining, opting instead to build out its own JPM Coin and Kinexys network.
Twenty-one of the world’s biggest financial institutions want their own dollar stablecoin on the market in 2027. You should read that as Wall Street moving from watching Tether and Circle to building a rival network.
On September 1, 2026, a group of 21 banks and asset managers said they had committed to establish a new company in the second half of 2026 to support a US dollar-denominated stablecoin. That’s the plan, in short. Goldman Sachs, Citi, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Santander, MUFG Bank, Fidelity Investments and Standard Bank are on the list, according to CoinDesk and the joint announcement carried by Wells Fargo. Names span North America, Europe, East Asia, the Middle East and Africa. That’s not a pilot program. It’s a bank consortium telling the crypto industry it wants a piece of the rails.
The venture builds on a smaller effort from October 2025, when ten banks started exploring a one-for-one reserve-backed form of digital money available on public blockchains, CoinDesk reported. That group has more than doubled. The new company still has no public name, but the target is clear enough: form the company in H2 2026, then bring the dollar token to market in the first half of 2027, subject to closing conditions. For banks, that’s fast.
You don’t get North American titans, European lenders, MUFG Bank, Sirius International Holding and Standard Bank at the same table by accident. The consortium’s reach says something the individual names don’t. This isn’t just a US stablecoin story. It’s a coordinated bet that dollar tokens are moving from crypto trading venues into the plumbing of payments and settlement.
The rulebook is part of the product
The timing tracks regulation. The stablecoin is meant to comply with the US GENIUS Act and the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, known as MiCA, where those rules apply. The GENIUS Act was signed into law on July 18, 2025, and the statute sets out reserve, redemption and monthly disclosure rules for payment stablecoin issuers. MiCA’s stablecoin rules have applied in the EU since June 30, 2024, with e-money token issuers generally needing authorization in the bloc.
That legal work is not a side issue. It is the pitch. One bank can build a token. Twenty-one institutions can split the compliance cost, widen distribution and tell corporate treasurers that the token was designed for regulated markets from the start.
Once the dollar token ships, the consortium plans to expand into other G7 currencies, with a euro-denominated stablecoin named as the next priority, according to Cointelegraph and the joint announcement. Dollar first, then the euro. If that sounds less flashy than a crypto launch, good. The point is not spectacle. The point is a multi-currency payments network with banks standing behind it.
Tether and Circle now have company
Here’s the part that makes this a real threat to crypto-native issuers. CoinDesk, citing DeFiLlama data, put the stablecoin market at about $303 billion as of September 1, 2026, up from roughly $200 billion at the beginning of 2025. Tether’s USDT accounted for about 60% of that total, while Circle’s USDC held more than 20%. Between them, they still dominate the market.
Banks have a different kind of advantage. They already sit inside corporate treasury departments, settlement systems and regulated payment businesses. Tether built its lead largely outside the banking club. Circle went public and built a more regulation-facing brand. Now the club is trying to issue its own instrument, and you can see why Circle shares fell on the day CoinDesk covered the announcement.
Not everyone is joining. JPMorgan Chase, the biggest US bank by assets, does not appear on the participant list. It has been building its own tokenized deposit infrastructure through JPM Coin and Kinexys, and Banking Dive reported in July 2025 that CEO Jamie Dimon questioned why a customer would want a stablecoin instead of a payment, while still saying JPMorgan needed to be involved to understand the technology. Frankly, that’s the more interesting split to watch. Not crypto versus banks, but banks that want to own the rails outright versus banks that would rather share the cost and the network.
The open question is governance. Twenty-one competitors can agree that stablecoins matter. Running one company together is harder. The announcement says the name will come later and that the venture remains subject to closing conditions, which is the dry language that matters here. A mid-2027 launch gives the group a deadline. It does not yet prove that Wall Street can move like the market it wants to challenge.
