Fintech Giant Revolut Said to Be Planning Stablecoin

Revolut, a London-based fintech company that offers cryptocurrency trading, intends to issue its own stablecoin, according to four people who have heard about the plan.

The company, which snagged a U.K. banking license in July and was valued at $45 billion earlier this year, is said to be quite far along in creating the stablecoin, according to two of the people.

Asked about its stablecoin plans, a spokesman for Revolut said the firm wants to expand its crypto offering, taking a compliance-first approach to become a safe harbor for the entire crypto community.

“Crypto is a big part of our belief in banking without borders and we have a clear mission to become the safest and most accessible provider of crypto asset services,” the spokesman said in an email.

The highly lucrative stablecoin sector, dominated by Tether's USDT with a market cap of about $119 billion, has seen a growing crop of new entrants. Circle's USDC ranks second, at about a third of the size. Last year, payments service PayPal started issuing a stablecoin, with blockchain firms Ripple aiming to join in the coming weeks and BitGo announcing a planned introduction at Token2049 in Singapore earlier this week.

The tokens, whose value is pegged to a real-world asset, often buy government-issued debt to support their value. That provides a steady stream of interest payments to the companies, making them highly profitable. Tether reported first-half profit of $5.2 billion.

The trend may also be driven to some degree by incipient guidance on crypto-tokens coming out of Europe, in the form of the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework.

Revolut has allowed the buying and selling of crypto within its app for several years and launched a standalone cryptocurrency exchange for experienced traders in May.