Last week, when I outlined the 3 interest-income revenue models for stablecoins, I had no idea just how much bigger the opportunity would become a few days later - courtesy of the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). On Friday, in a dramatic reversal, the OCC scrapped Biden-era restrictions that had kept US banks from engaging in stablecoin transactions and crypto custody.
Overnight, the stablecoin market’s potential didn’t just grow—it likely 10x’d.
With top US banks now free to integrate stablecoins into their digital asset strategies, the landscape has fundamentally changed.
Right on cue, SBI VC, a subsidiary of Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings (a SoftBank spinout), announced it had secured a license to offer and handle transactions in USDC for a select group of clients.
At first, I wondered why a Japanese trading platform would make such a big splash about offering a USD stablecoin product. Then it clicked: they want their slice of the risk-free revenue stream that Tether has been raking in—more than $10 billion a year on interest income alone.
In this Weekly Research, I’ll break down SBI VC<>Circle’s USDC play and explain why Japan, from both a regulatory and market potential standpoint, is shaping up to be an ideal go-to-market strategy for stablecoin businesses.
Let’s dive in.