A stablecoin transfer button, on 82 million Galaxy devices

Samsung Electronics America said on Wednesday that stablecoin wallet functionality will launch in Samsung Wallet in the last week of October for eligible Galaxy users in the United States, starting with the dollar stablecoin USDC, according to its announcement. The company said the feature will be available across 82 million US Galaxy devices at launch. It did not give a launch date within that week.

The announcement describes two uses. Eligible users will be able to send USDC to compatible external crypto wallets, and to bank accounts in more than 60 countries, where recipients receive local currency. Samsung said it does not charge a fee for transfers to external wallets, but its footnotes add that recipient wallet providers or exchanges may impose their own, and that speed depends on blockchain network conditions. Bank transfers carry fees that vary by destination country and amount, and the app will show them before the sender confirms. The release does not publish a fee schedule.

Eligibility is narrower than the device count suggests. Per the footnotes, the service is open only to US residents aged 18 or over with a Samsung Account, on a Galaxy device compatible with Samsung Wallet running Android 13 or higher, and requires account registration, identity verification and biometric authentication setup. Samsung defined the 82 million as the number of US Galaxy devices compatible with Samsung Wallet. It did not say how many of those meet the other conditions, and it did not disclose any transfer volumes or sign-up targets.

Samsung says it is not providing the financial services itself. A footnote states that accounts, custody and money movement are provided by regulated partners, and that Samsung "is not a bank, money transmitter, or digital asset custodian and does not hold customer funds". Bastion, which Samsung describes as a licensed stablecoin custodian and infrastructure provider, will power the service, with Coinbase as its sub-custodian holding the USDC in Coinbase Prime Vault. Solana and Sui are named as blockchain network partners.

Bastion's own account is more specific about the division of labour. In its release on the same day, the New York company called itself "the licensed custodian and money transmission partner" for the service, and said it keeps a ledger of each user's balance, verifies identities, screens blockchain addresses for fraud and sanctions risk, and converts USDC for bank payouts through local regulated partners. Coinbase announced its part in a blog post on Thursday. "Samsung's global reach makes this a significant distribution milestone for USDC," Alec Lovett, Coinbase's head of infrastructure products, wrote there, PYMNTS reported.

Samsung's Woncheol Chai, executive vice president and head of the digital wallet team at the Mobile eXperience Business, said: "Sending money abroad should feel as convenient as using the wallet already on your phone." Nassim Eddequiouaq, Bastion's chief executive, said in the Bastion release: "Financial infrastructure works best when people don't have to see it."

Bastion's regulatory footing is partly in place. Samsung's description of the company says it holds a New York trust charter, through Bastion Platforms Trust Company, and has preliminary conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank charter. Cointelegraph reported in September that the proposed national bank could not accept deposits or make loans. A preliminary conditional approval is not a final charter, and Samsung's release does not say which licence covers the Samsung Wallet service at launch.

The scale claim needs context. Coinbase said in its post that USDC circulation grew 72 per cent last year to more than $75bn, and that wallets holding USDC grew 59 per cent to nearly 7 million, according to PYMNTS. By our arithmetic, 82 million compatible devices is more than eleven times that wallet count, though the two figures measure different things: devices that could use the feature, against wallets that already hold the token. All of the figures are the companies' own and none was independently verified.

Coinbase appears at several points in the arrangement. Samsung's release notes that Samsung Pay became a payment option in the Coinbase app and that Coinbase One benefits are available through Samsung Wallet. It also lists Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures among Bastion's backers, so Coinbase is a partner, the sub-custodian and an investor in the primary custodian. Samsung said future capabilities "may include" paying with stablecoins online or by tapping a Galaxy device in store, and expansion into other markets in line with regulation in each country. It made no commitment on either.

For now the test is use rather than reach. The feature removes the separate app and the private keys, but it still depends on identity checks, partner terms and fees that Samsung has so far shown only in outline. The licensing beneath it is still being settled: Komposite reported last week that the stablecoin card company Rain applied for a national trust charter of the kind community bankers are suing the OCC over, and OKX has launched its own stablecoin app. Samsung's version arrives preinstalled.