SoFi Bank Launches SoFi Stablecoin on Ethereum, Targeting Enterprise Payments Infrastructure

TL;DR

• SoFi Bank has launched SoFiUSD, a fully reserved, dollar-backed stablecoin on Ethereum, issued by its nationally chartered bank.
• The focus is infrastructure, not retail crypto. SoFiUSD positions as a backend payments and settlement rail for banks, fintechs, and enterprise partners.
• The move signals growing comfort among regulated banks with public blockchains as settlement layers.

SoFi has entered the stablecoin market through its regulated banking arm, launching a fully reserved dollar token designed for payments and settlement rather than retail crypto trading. The SoFi stablecoin, issued by SoFi Bank, N.A., is live on Ethereum. Banks, fintechs, and corporate partners can integrate it into their payment flows as enterprise-grade infrastructure.

The token, branded SoFiUSD, is backed one-to-one by U.S. dollars held by the bank and redeemable at par. The initial focus is always-on settlement rails for institutional partners. Consumer-facing use cases may follow later as part of SoFi’s push into embedded financial infrastructure, not speculative crypto products.

What SoFiUSD Is — and What It Is Not

SoFiUSD is issued directly by SoFi Bank, the company’s nationally chartered banking subsidiary, and runs on the public Ethereum blockchain. According to the company, the token is fully reserved with cash or cash-equivalent assets and designed to support programmable, near-instant settlement.

Crucially, the launch is not framed as a retail crypto token or a yield-bearing product. Instead, SoFi describes it as a payments and settlement instrument to move dollars on-chain with the compliance and reserve structure of a regulated bank. In that sense, SoFi’s Ethereum stablecoin is closer to financial plumbing than a consumer crypto offering.

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Why SoFi Is Building a Stablecoin at All

The move reflects a broader shift in stablecoin usage across finance. Rather than competing for retail mindshare, banks and fintechs are increasingly looking at stablecoins as backend settlement tools. They want to enable 24/7 payment settlement, expedite reconciliations, and lower operational friction.

Traditional bank rails remain constrained by batch processing and business-hour cutoffs. Blockchain-based settlement, on the other hand, allows dollars to move continuously, with finality that can be directly integrated into modern payment and treasury systems. SoFi bets that this infrastructure layer will matter more over time than consumer-facing crypto features.

Enterprise-First Stablecoin Infrastructure, Not a Consumer Crypto Product

SoFi is positioning SoFiUSD explicitly as stablecoin infrastructure for partners rather than a consumer-facing crypto product. The company says banks, fintech platforms, and enterprise clients will be able to use the token for enterprise payments settlement, internal treasury movements, and programmable disbursements.

A key part of the pitch is flexibility. Partners can integrate SoFiUSD directly or use it as the foundation for white-label stablecoin issuance, allowing them to access public blockchain rails without issuing or managing a token themselves. In this model, SoFi acts less like a consumer crypto brand and more like a provider of on-chain dollar settlement services.

That approach fits into SoFi’s broader push toward regulated, embedded financial infrastructure. SoFiUSD can function as both an internal settlement tool for the company’s own crypto and payment flows and as external infrastructure for partners. Over time, the same Ethereum-based rail could support merchant settlement and cross-platform transfers. It could even underpin embedded finance use cases where end-users may not even notice the blockchain involvement.

Why the National Bank Label Matters

SoFi has repeatedly emphasized that SoFiUSD is issued by a nationally chartered bank. That distinction is central to its positioning. A bank-issued stablecoin carries different expectations around reserve quality, redemption rights, and regulatory oversight than tokens issued by crypto-native firms.

At the same time, SoFi’s choice to deploy the token on a public, permissionless blockchain highlights a growing convergence between traditional banking and open financial networks. The result is what some observers describe as tokenized bank money. Dollars that retain the legal and regulatory characteristics of bank deposits while gaining the interoperability of blockchain-based assets.

Whether regulators ultimately treat this as a national bank stablecoin or a form of tokenized deposit remains an open question. However, the structure reflects how banks are experimenting with on-chain settlement without abandoning existing oversight frameworks.

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A Quiet Shift in Payments Infrastructure

Rather than launching another consumer crypto product, SoFi is using SoFiUSD to make a structural play for the payments stack. What matters here isn’t the branding. It’s that regulated banks are now willing to use public blockchains as settlement layers.

If that trend continues, stablecoins like SoFiUSD may operate largely behind the scenes, powering faster and more flexible financial systems while remaining invisible to most end users.