Western Union Joins The Stablecoin Race — But Visa, Ripple, And PayPal Already Have A Head Start

Western Union (WU) announced on Monday that it has selected Fireblocks to power its new stablecoin backed by the U.S. dollar, USDPT, which the 173-year-old money transfer company plans to use to settle transactions with agents around the world. Western Union is the latest legacy financial player to announce stablecoin rails, but it comes as rivals like Visa (V), PayPal (PYPL) and Ripple (XRP) have already scaled up substantially. 

USDPT’s infrastructure is built on Fireblocks' custody platform, Dynamic’s embedded wallet, and TRES’ financial tools, which Fireblocks recently acquired. Western Union said the stablecoin will allow customers in markets with volatile local currencies or limited banking access to hold dollar-denominated value and choose when to convert. 

WU stock was down 0.02% in pre-market trading. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around WU dropped to the ‘bearish’ from a ‘bullish’ zone, while chatter around it dropped to ‘low’ from ‘high’ levels over the past day. 

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