October 1, 2025

Welcome to the Meridian Update, your daily on-chain report. Let’s dive, something you really hope never happens to a stablecoin, in. That will make sense in a second.

How many stablecoins would a stablecoin chuck chuck if a…

…our sincerest apologies. We don’t get the joke either.

Anyway, Open Issuance:

“Open Issuance is a new platform that allows any business to launch and manage its own stablecoin. With its own stablecoin, a business can control its product experience, mint and burn without limits or unnecessary fees, and earn rewards from reserves. Businesses using Open Issuance plug into a shared liquidity network to reduce costs and get to market quickly—without depending on a handful of incumbent issuers.”

It’s been an absolutely huge year for stablecoins.

If your friend asks you for $1 you can hand them a $1 bill. If your friend asks you for $1 but they want it on-chain, you cannot hand them a one-dollar bill. To have something on-chain, it has to exist on-chain. People want a very important something on-chain: United States dollars (Euros too!). Enter US dollar stablecoins.

The idea is for something (a) on-chain to be (b) stably (c) equivalent in value to a US dollar. A way to do this is to hold some number of US dollars off-chain and only have an exactly equivalent number of US dollar tokens on-chain. If people want more US dollars on-chain than you have US dollar tokens, you can add dollars off-chain and increase the number of US dollar tokens on-chain. If people want fewer US dollars on-chain than you have US dollar tokens, you can decrease the number of US dollar tokens on-chain and remove dollars off-chain. The concept is one-to-one backing. This is how USDC works. On another day, we might talk about other ways people have tried to do this. Also it has happened that one-to-one backing may not have been one-to-one backing perfectly at all times.

Bridge is a Stripe company. Bridge is a company that some people in the on-chain world know about. In simple terms, Bridge offers products for interfacing between on-chain stablecoins and off-chain currencies. A lot of companies use it.

Bridge announced Open Issuance yesterday. The stablecoins will be supported on Solana and Ethereum networks.

So what does this really mean for the on-chain world? More stablecoin names to watch out for. Probably.

(Part 2) How many stablecoins would a stablecoin chuck chuck if a…

…our sincerest apologies (part 2). We really don’t get the joke either.

The difference between a phantom stablecoin and the Phantom stablecoin is that the first is a figment of your imagination, the second was announced today by a company called Phantom. It is one of the “more stablecoin names to watch out for” as famously predicted by the Meridian Update just a few sentences ago.

Phantom’s stablecoin is one of the famous Bridge Open Issuance stablecoins. Phantom is a company some people in the on-chain world know about. In simple terms, it is a crypto wallet. 10s of millions of dollars of on-chain trading volume originated on Phantom yesterday according to our friends at Meridian Research.

Crypto Twitter talked about this. More stablecoins? Probably.

Time to SEC what’s happening in regulatory…

The “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act” (GENIUS Act) became US law over the summer. It and stablecoins have been getting a lot of attention this year as you know.

Tokenized stocks are another thing getting a lot of attention this year. We think it is a reasonable bet (not financial advice, do your own research) that tokenized stocks will come up again. So no explainer today.

But the on-chain world was abuzz from a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner’s remarks to a summit audience. The Commissioner spoke during discussions about stock tokenization. The idea of the US government exploring a path to stocks trading on-chain seemed fanciful to Crypto Twitter a few years ago. That is no longer the case.

Anyway, do not ask SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce for gardening advice:

“I have an affinity for orchids because I managed to keep one alive for nearly fifteen years—an amazing feat given my complete lack of gardening skills. Plants that friends have entrusted to my care have not enjoyed similar good health…I look forward to hearing your comments and answering some questions, but—for your own sakes—please avoid asking me anything about gardening.”

That’s a wrap

Stablecoins, stablecoins, orchids. We’ll see you tomorrow.

Think we missed something today? Email ideas@meridianupdate.com.