Australian stable coin startup Stables expands to Europe

Australian stablecoin payments startup Stables has announced a partnership with Mastercard to expand into Europe, which co-founder Bernardo Bilotta says reflects a wider trend towards mainstream dollar-denominated assets.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Bilotta said the expansion was an important step for the company, noting that the total market size of new customers in Europe had increased to roughly twenty times that of Australia.

The new partnership will allow Stables users to shop with Circle's USD Coin (USDC) at locations where MasterCard is accepted in 27 countries across Europe and through digital providers such as Apple and Google Pay.

He added that stablecoins are not limited to “living and breathing crypto”. Instead, dollar-denominated assets are taken by people who want to use them on a daily basis.

Bilota stablecoin – described by Morgan Stanley as a “crypto killer app” – is now out of “crypto-native” circles.

Although crypto itself is known for its high volatility, it's ironic that the product with the best “product-market fit” is so stable, according to Bilota.

“Everybody in crypto is talking about dogwhiphat – things going up and down – but if you look at the data, what the commodity market is really in favor of is the digital dollar.”

As of today, Stablecoin is used by hundreds of thousands of crypto-native and non-crypto-native users for trade, remittance, cross-border payments and other payment applications worldwide.

Bilotta said countries with high inflation such as Argentina and Turkey, as well as regions with high “currency diversity” such as Southeast Asia, were flocking to the stablecoin as a “stable” alternative.

Australia is a suitable “sandbox” to build a crypto firm

In the year Founded in 2021, Stables is an Australian stablecoin payments startup that allows users to purchase everyday goods in USDC with a digital debit card anywhere MasterCard is accepted.

Stables is backed by crypto venture fund Jump Capital, Pocketbook co-founder Alvin Singh, Bosco Tan and Zip founder Larry Diamond.

In March, Stables launched the ability for users to participate in international money transfer payments between Australia and the Philippines.

On June 25, Stables partnered with MasterCard to enable euro support on the app, allowing users to withdraw USDC in 23 countries across the European Union.

Although crypto regulation in Australia is not as clear as it is in the European Union – in December MICA is set to introduce a clear crypto framework – Bilato said Australia was an ideal “sandbox” for building a crypto firm.

“When it comes to financial services, Australia has one of the highest levels of regulation in the world. Therefore, operating in such a standardized system means that it will be easier for us to export our models in other regions,” he said.

Other large crypto businesses, including the Australian arms of Kraken and Coinbase, have previously expressed concern over the country's lack of regulatory transparency, citing unclear frameworks for how exchanges and crypto companies should operate.

Bilota does not share many of the concerns, his company does not want users to be at risk in the same way as crypto exchanges and already fully complies with all necessary local regulations.

Related: Stablecoin transaction volume has increased 16x in the last 4 years.

He added that the Australian government only needs to make a few small changes – the most pressing of which is resolving banking issues with crypto companies – if it wants to become a “crypto hub”.

“[Australia] It can be a very convenient place to come and build crypto businesses. We have ourselves Synthetix, Infinex, Immutable and THORChain,” said Bilotta, listing several large Australian-born crypto firms.

He added: “There is a lot of crypto innovation coming out of Australia.

He pointed out that the biggest threat to crypto companies in Australia is being banned from banking by local financial institutions.

Australia's crypto industry suffered a major blow in May 2023 when Binance announced it was suspending its Australian dollar fiat service in the country following the decision of Kuscal, a third-party payment service provider.

Additionally, over the past 18 months, several of Australia's largest “Big Four” banks have made inroads into both retail and commercial crypto usage in Australia.

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