Major Banks Form Consortium to Issue Stablecoins on Public Blockchains

Circle Internet Group has switched on the public mainnet for Arc, a Layer 1 blockchain built for financial markets, real time payments, and AI driven economic activity, with USDC integrated at the protocol level. The rollout arrives with a validator group drawn from large financial institutions, support for USDC, EURC, and tokenized funds, and more than 100 applications and ecosystem partners already connected to Arc's infrastructure. Circle Internet Group last closed at $91.78, while the most followed narrative framework pegs fair value closer to $103.55, implying the stock is 11% undervalued. That fair value estimate uses a discount rate of 8.56% and assumes that by 2029 Circle Internet Group could be earning $723.7 million on revenue of $5.3b, with the stock trading on a P/E of 56.9x on those earnings, against a current analyst price target of $104.28. Estimates behind that single fair value number diverge widely, with 2029 earnings estimates spanning from $356.6 million to $874.2 million and price targets running from $37.00 to $243.00. The stock trades on 51.6x earnings compared with 29.5x for the wider US Software group and a fair ratio of 51.7x.

Coinbase Global reported that its agentic trading stack powered most crypto transaction flows over the past week. Management highlighted Grok as a leading AI agent on the platform, driving a large share of AI agent-driven trading volumes, while developer-built custom interfaces using Coinbase for Agents and the x402 payment protocol accounted for the majority of notional market activity. The company said the shift toward agentic trading moves it closer to a model leaning on higher margin services rather than pure retail volumes, with Grok and custom agents plugging into a payment stack built around USDC, Base and APIs. Coinbase added that heavier machine-driven flows do not remove existing risks around fee pressure, cybersecurity costs or competition from decentralized venues. The key proof point ahead is whether upcoming disclosures break out AI agent related metrics, such as the share of notional trading or fee revenue routed through Coinbase for Agents and x402, in the next couple of quarterly updates and product briefings.

The Fed raised its policy rate by 0.25 points to 3.75–4.00%. The vote was unanimous at 12–0, and 16 of the 18 participants expect at least one more rate hike before the end of the year. Major U.S. banks have raised their prime rate from 6.75% to 7.00%, and the extra cost is already flowing through to credit cards and variable-rate business loans. Homeowners who locked in 30-year fixed mortgages at rates in the 2–3% range during the pandemic's low-rate era, however, will not see their payments rise right away, while those buying now face the 30-year fixed average of 6.76% that Freddie Mac reported as of September 10, 2026, widening the divide between generations. In San Francisco, two economies coexist: AI companies and those with stock-based compensation on one side, and early-stage startups funding themselves through loans along with restaurants, retailers and freelancers on the other. Higher rates are a headwind for Bitcoin on the liquidity front, but for stablecoin issuers that hold short-term U.S. Treasuries as reserve assets, they are a driver of expanding interest income.