美国银行业推进自有稳定币与 BankChain 网络，重述数日前已公开的行业动向

Traditional finance giants are crowding into a stablecoin market long split between Tether and Circle. U.S. banks, which once scrambled to hold the sector back out of fear of deposit outflows, have shifted toward an aggressive defense — issuing dollar-pegged coins themselves and building their own networks to seize control of payments.
U.S. banks are rushing into the stablecoin market, according to blockchain industry sources on the 29th. The Wall Street Journal reported on the 26th that more than 10 financial firms, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Santander, are pursuing joint issuance of a stablecoin. The firms are considering starting with a dollar-pegged coin before expanding to Group of Seven (G7) currencies. JPMorgan Chase has also reviewed the possibility of issuing its own stablecoin but said it currently has no formal plans to do so.
The Journal described the moves as a defensive choice aimed at protecting existing businesses. Banks have long worried that customer money shifting into stablecoins would shrink deposits, their core funding source, and weaken their capacity to lend. That concern is also why they promoted deposit tokens — existing deposits represented on a blockchain — as an alternative to stablecoins.
The industry's wariness carried into this year. In January, groups representing U.S. community banks and credit unions cited Treasury Department estimates in warning that as much as $6.6 trillion in bank deposits could be at risk of leaving if stablecoin rewards spread. In May, the American Bankers Association (ABA) and 52 state bankers associations asked the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to clarify rules on stablecoin interest and rewards.
But the calculus appears to be changing as stablecoins spread rapidly beyond cryptocurrency trading into payments, remittances and corporate treasury management. With Visa and BlackRock joining in, along with non-financial companies such as Google and DoorDash, banks have grown increasingly worried that simply resisting could cost them both customers and control of payments.
The shift is spreading to smaller banks as well. Bankers associations in 39 U.S. states have launched the BankChain Alliance and begun building a blockchain network targeted for a 2027 launch. The associations represent 3,283 banks with combined assets of $21.8 trillion, though not every individual bank is taking part in the alliance.
The alliance envisions a network jointly owned and operated by the banking industry that would support deposit tokens, stablecoin issuance and automated payment and settlement based on smart contracts. The aim is to take direct control of payment infrastructure while preserving community lending functions.
The banks' entry could weigh not only on established issuers such as Tether and Circle but also on public mainnets including Ethereum, Tron and Solana. Ethereum-based stablecoins accounted for 48.6% of the roughly $304 billion total stablecoin market capitalization as of the previous day, with Tron at 30.8%, according to cryptocurrency data provider DefiLlama. That means about 80% of all stablecoins sit on those two networks. If banks' own networks grow, payment demand and liquidity could scatter across multiple networks.
Still, it is hard to view this as a simple zero-sum game. The BankChain Alliance has said it will support interoperability with other blockchain networks. If traditional financial networks link up with on-chain ecosystems, they could become a channel for vast institutional liquidity to flow into on-chain finance. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has also warned of liquidity fragmentation from a proliferation of networks and stressed the importance of securing interoperability.
The stablecoin market is entering an era of contending powers. Banks, traditional financial firms and Big Tech have joined a market once led by Tether and Circle, and the battleground is widening from coin issuance to blockchain infrastructure. Competitiveness will likely be determined less by issuance volume alone than by how much liquidity a player secures and how smoothly it connects with different networks.