MERGE Madrid 2026: Banks Turn to Stablecoin Infrastructure

At MERGE Madrid 2026, held October 27 to 29, banks and financial firms focused on stablecoin payment rails, tokenized assets and settlement infrastructure rather than crypto trading. Cross-border stablecoin transfers rose 80% while crypto economic activity reached about $9.4 trillion between June 2025 and June 2026, down 1.6% year on year, according to BeInCrypto. Western Union launched its dollar-backed USDPT on Solana in May, and euro stablecoin consortium Qivalis has expanded to 37 institutions across 15 countries, with plans to operate under MiCA on public Ethereum. Discussions also covered banks’ infrastructure role, liquidity for tokenized assets and permissions and digital identities for AI-agent payments.