Your Payment Strategy Starts Now
So here we are, one month into 2026.
We have a rich history of digital payment innovation in Treasury Management. Wires, International Wires, Credit and Debit Cards, SWIFT, ACH, Fed Now, RTP.
Now we are adding Stablecoins and Tokenized Deposits.
Itâs all soâŠmuch.
But itâs not a time rest. As treasury management professionals, itâs up to us to be the experts in our field â particularly in the realm of payments. We need to completely understand the underpinnings of traditional payments along with embracing and understanding the immediate future.
Stablecoins and Tokenized Deposits are cousins in the programmable, digital payments landscape. We feel Tokenized Deposits (TDs) are a few years off and until we have a number of banks get together to build a clearing house for TDs, they will be a niche served by very large banks and their very large customers. (Note that several banks in Texas, along with several Credit Union CUSOs have independently started building some plans around clearing houses for TDs.)
As of this writing in late January 2026, congress and bank lobbies are fighting over the Clarity Act. Banks are (legitimately) trying to keep cryptocurrency exchanges from paying interest or rewards in any shape or form. Of course, the exchanges want to keep that door open.
That a lot of noise. If you are focused on watching the action in Washington D.C., you need to change your focus.
Stablecoins will go mainstream for payments â particularly for international payments. Itâs not a matter of if, but how fast. You need to be ready.
What can you do?
LEARN
We need treasury management professionals to learn at a rapid pace in 2026. In fact, youâll need to be testing just about everything you can get your hands on. Try it, break it, look for the benefits and drawbacks for your business customers.
Learn the Credit Card Networks
I know it sounds strange, but learning how the credit card networks process payments is important. Learn how credit is issued, how pre-auth works, how settlement happens. At the end of your studies you should be able to draw a simple 10,000 foot diagram of how each of the Visa, Master Card, Discover, and American Express networks operate. Your knowledge of this base system is important as all four of these networks are building their parallel stablecoin settlement networks which will run in parallel with their credit card processing systems.
Also note where fees are collected and understand the economic incentives to each of the players in each transaction.
Learn Blockchain Networks
Even though in your day-to-day work, youâll probably never need to understand the technology that runs blockchains, you do need to understand there are many of them.
Understand, at a high level, that there are several blockchain networks all competing to run the next stablecoin. Understand that the blockchain network is like a highway in the automobile world. Your car is the actual stablecoin.
At the end of your studies, you should be able to name five blockchains announced stablecoins will be running on. (HINT: Every press release for a new stablecoin always includes the blockchain network the coin will run on.)
Learn Digital Currencies and Payment Stablecoins
Now we are starting to dig a little deeper into your research. You can go deep and go down many rabbit holes in understanding this area. To save time concentrate on the top 20 cryptocurrencies.
If time is short, study the top ten by asset size. They are Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Tether (USDT), BNB (BNB), XRP (XRP), USDC (USDC), Solana (SOL), Tron (TRX), Lido Staked Ether (STETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE).
Things to learn: What makes them unique? Who runs them? Is there a single person or group in charge? Are they transaction or store of value oriented? Do they have a fixed supply or is the supply unlimited? Can transactions be reversed? Is it a stablecoin, digital asset, or digital money?
We recommend using your favorite AI to help in your research. Each of the top ten has their strengths and weaknesses. Doing this research and understanding them gives you the knowledge to talk at a high level to business owners who might already be using them.
Learn the GENIUS Act
Itâs important to understand the GENIUS Act. It is short to read. However, to fully understand it, you might want to go through it paragraph by paragraph with an AI tool to help you translate government speak to English. Once you understand the Act, youâll have an âAh-Haâ moment and realize these are for payments and will continue to drive demand for short term US Treasuries. You should also understand the entities legally allowed to create a GENIUS Act stablecoin, who will regulate them, what will back them, and their redeemability back to US Dollars.
Ask yourself: Why would I want to hold a dollar-denominated stablecoin if I live in the United States? Why would I want to hold a dollar-denominated stablecoin if I live in Venezuela? Argentina? Greece? Japan?
Ask yourself: What are the advantages to the United States banking system (and in particular the United States Dollar and United States Soverignty) because of the GENIUS Act?
There is more to the GENIUS Act than payments. đ
Learn Crypto Wallets and Crypto Payment Transactions
Now for the fun part. As part of your education, youâll need to complete several tasks. Nearly all of these tasks will involve you spending some of your money for fees. Consider it tuition for learning. The whole goal of learning wallets and transactions is to mirror what a business owner would do for transactions.
Note: Please create these accounts using your PERSONAL email address. These accounts have nothing to do with your bank. Youâll use these long term. Please don't delegate this to your IT person or nephew. You need to learn this yourself.
Disclaimer: This tutorial walks you through performing stablecoin and cryptocurrency transactions. This is not investment advice, and you may lose all funds during this test if you do something wrong. Participate only if you can afford to lose the $30.00.
Create an account at Coinbase using the desktop web interface. This is usually the first learning step with anyone new to a cryptocurrency. Go through their AML/KYC process. Purchase $10.00 of Bitcoin (BTC). Purchase $10.00 of USDC. Purchase $10.00 of USDT. Transfer these funds to Coinbase via ACH. Note the fees for your purchases. The reason we have you start at Coinbase is that they offer a competitive business-class crypto exchange service. Once you have purchased all three, leave them there. Weâll loop back later.
Side Note: Youâve just entered the taxable transactions zone. All cryptocurrencies are considered assets by the IRS and subject to capital gains taxes. Be sure to keep detailed records of your purchases, fees, and sales.
Side Note #2. Coinbase has two separate companion apps for your phone. One is a mirror of the desktop site and the other is the Coinbase wallet (which is called Base at the time of this writing). We wonât be using these for this exercise.
Create an account at Kraken using the desktop web interface. Kraken is a well-known crypto exchange. Create an account using the standard (non-pro) version. Go through the AML/KYC process.
There is nothing to do with Kraken at this time.
Now we need to wait for up to two days for both Coinbase and Kraken to go through the AML/KYC process. Once you have received the email confirmations that the process is complete, we can continue with our tutorial.
Sell all the USDT you purchased at Coinbase. The reason we are selling USDT is that we need cash on hand in your Coinbase account to do some upcoming transfers. Note the fees.
Transfer (send) all the USDC you have at Coinbase to Kraken. The general steps are: Login to Kraken and click deposit or receive. Select USDC. In another browser tab, login to Coinbase and click on send crypto. Youâll have to copy/paste some information (usually a long string of characters called an address) from Kraken to Coinbase to complete the transaction. Please refer to their documentation for detailed instructions. At the end of the transaction, you are sending all your USDC stablecoin from Coinbase to Kraken.
To sum this up, we put ourselves in the shoes of a business owner who understands modern savings and store of value and has vendors who accept stablecoin payments.
We created an account at Coinbase replicating what a business owner would do.
We purchased Bitcoin for savings and USDC/USDT for payments.
We replicated a vendor by creating an account at Kraken.
We sold USDT to generate cash for fees.
We transferred USDC from Coinbase to Kraken as though we were paying a vendor invoice.
We kept Bitcoin because we know Bitcoin is our long-term savings and we never sell it.
Learn Programmable Money
The final step in your mini education is to learn more about programmable money. Programmable money is about eliminating human interaction for payments through programmable smart contracts. Again, your AI tool of choice can assist in helping you learn more about programmable money in the light of stablecoins and tokenized deposits. Here is the prompt we would use:
âI am in the process of learning more about programmable money in the light of stablecoins and tokenized deposits. I am a sales representative at a local community bank and work with our business customers in planning and supporting digital and programmable payment strategies. Can you walk me through what programmable money is, how they benefit our customers, and how our bank can assist in deploying and supporting them for our customers.â
Put It All Together
You are probably at about 20-40 hours into your education around stablecoins and tokenized deposits. Congratulations! You are off to a great start.
Now that you understand how payments work, understand the financial incentives to all parties in the transaction, and have gone through a stablecoin payment, you are much more ready to analyze, interpret, and assist your bank and business customers in deploying digital payment strategies.
Next month, weâll go over why you, as a banker, would want to know about stablecoins and digital payments.
- Marci and Tim
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