At the Money20/20 USA conference held in Las Vegas on October 19, 2026, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and international payment network Thunes officially announced a strategic partnership. The collaboration between the two entities addresses one of the biggest hurdles facing the cryptocurrency market today: connecting stablecoin infrastructure to the bank accounts and digital wallets that people actually use every day.

Linking Stablecoin Infrastructure with Local Payment Networks

Under the signed agreement, Coinbase will integrate Thunes’ Direct Global Network into its platform. In return, Coinbase will provide a suite of stablecoin payment infrastructure solutions, enabling Thunes to integrate digital assets more deeply into its international transaction processing network.

Thunes is currently one of the world’s largest cross-border payment networks, connecting to more than 140 countries and supporting over 90 different currencies. The core advantage of Thunes lies in its ability to directly access over 12 billion mobile wallets and bank accounts, along with 15 billion payment cards through 220 local payment methods, including popular apps such as GCash, M-Pesa, Airtel, WeChat Pay HK, and Alipay.

Through this alliance, Coinbase users and business clients can execute real-time payouts to regions that historically faced significant constraints with traditional banking infrastructure across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Solving the Last-Mile Payment Challenge for the Real Economy

For a long time, the advantage of stablecoins has been near-instant transaction speeds with minimal costs on the blockchain. However, cashing out from on-chain wallets into fiat accounts for real-world spending (last-mile payout) has remained a complex bottleneck, requiring multiple intermediary conversion steps and incurring high costs.

The partnership between Coinbase and Thunes focuses on addressing three key use cases:

  • Payouts for global freelancers: Helping gig economy platforms (such as drivers, content creators, and remote developers) receive earnings in stablecoins and automatically convert them into local fiat currencies in local digital wallets on the same day.

  • Cross-border supplier payments: Enabling small and medium-sized enterprises to settle international invoices without incurring expensive bank wire transfer fees or prolonged foreign exchange risks.

  • International remittances: Reducing the time and cost for migrant workers sending money home to their families.

Neither party has announced a detailed rollout timeline for specific countries. However, the direct tie-up between a leading cryptocurrency exchange and a traditional payment infrastructure provider demonstrates a clear trend: the real-world value of stablecoins lies not just in their on-chain market capitalization, but in their ability to turn into spendable cash in every corner of the world.