- U.S. Bank is testing a fully regulated, deposit-backed stablecoin on the Stellar network, demonstrating strong institutional trust in the network.
- Despite XLM’s short-term dip, this pilot could boost Stellar’s real-world utility and support future price resilience.
U.S. Bank has started a consequential pilot that brings regulated banking onto public-chain infrastructure. In collaboration with PwC and the Stellar Development Foundation, the bank is testing the issuance of a bank-grade stablecoin on the Stellar network. Stellar was chosen because of its low transaction fees, near-instant settlement times, and existing tools that meet strict banking standards.
As we highlighted, in a recent Stellar CEO Denelle Dixon interview, previous Stellar trials showed real assets tested with permissionless networks for faster, compliant settlement activity. The stablecoin will be fully backed 1:1 by customer deposits held at the bank and is designed for use in regulated payment and settlement systems.
Furthermore, unlike many existing stablecoins, this token will include built-in compliance features such as clawback functions and the ability to freeze assets if required by law enforcement or regulators. As announced on the U.S. Bank Money 20/20 podcast, José Fernández da Ponte, President and Chief Growth Officer at SDF, stated:
“When you are doing mission-critical systems, when you are doing financial services, and you are moving consumers’ money, you need to make sure that your blockchain is going to be there. So we are very honored to have the confidence of U.S. Bank and our partners at PwC. We take that confidence and that trust very, very seriously.”
Growing Institutional Trust and Its Impact on Stellar (XLM) Price
The trial has signaled rising institutional confidence in stablecoin infrastructure. Thus, if successful, banking entities may adopt tokenized deposits or assets, reshaping how money moves behind the scenes while preserving regulation, consumer protections, and auditability.
Confirming this, Mike Villano, Senior Vice President and Head of Digital Asset Products at U.S. Bank, added:
“For bank customers, we have to think about other protections around know-your-customer, the ability to unwind transactions, the ability to claw back transactions, and one of the great things about the Stellar platform as we did some more research and development on it was learning that they have the ability at their base operating layer to freeze assets and unwind transactions.”
As of now, Stellar (XLM) is trading at $0.2514, down 1.06% over the past 24 hours and 1.19% over the past week. Despite this short-term decline, analysts note that a bank-grade stablecoin pilot could boost Stellar’s real-world utility.