Your Weekly Crypto Roundup: Stablecoins Move an Inch Closer to Mass Adoption

Samsung is adding USDC transfers to Samsung Wallet for eligible US Galaxy users starting the last week of October, covering roughly 82 million devices at launch. Users will be able to send USDC across borders and transfer funds to bank accounts in more than 60 countries without downloading a separate crypto app. Samsung charges no fees to send USDC to overseas wallets, though receiving wallets or exchanges may apply their own. Bastion, a US-regulated stablecoin infrastructure provider, handles custody, identity verification, compliance, and cross-border remittances. Coinbase Prime serves as sub-custodian, holding all USDC stored in Samsung Wallet. Solana and Sui provide the underlying blockchain infrastructure. What makes this worth paying attention to is what users don’t have to do. No private keys to manage, no seed phrases to store, no separate crypto account to open. The service runs inside an app that millions of Samsung users already have on their phones. Whether people actually use it will depend on fees, conversion rates, and how smooth the experience is, but Samsung’s distribution alone puts this in a different category than a typical crypto partnership announcement. The company sells roughly 250 million devices annually and has more than one billion devices in use worldwide. Even if adoption stays thin at first, this is stablecoins landing inside mainstream consumer hardware at a meaningful scale. A few other stories worth your attention this week: Greece proposed a 10% tax on crypto gains with a €500 annual exemption, coming in below the 15% rate that had been discussed earlier. It is a softer landing than the industry expected, but it is still a tax where there was none before. The US government moved $103 million in Bitcoin and BNB this week, sending 833.6 BTC worth $71.6 million to Coinbase Prime and routing 40,285 BNB worth $31.6 million through several wallets. No explanation has been given for the transfers, and the question of whether a sale is coming remains open. India raised interest rates by 5.50% for the first time in four years to fight inflation and support the rupee. Higher rates and a weakening currency in the same moment tend to push investors toward alternatives. Some of that money is finding its way into crypto through less visible channels. FNB launched crypto trading for its 9 million customers through a partnership with South African exchange VALR. A major retail bank giving its entire customer base direct access to crypto is a different kind of adoption story from exchange signups. South Korea’s Meritz Securities separately partnered with Ripple on crypto custody and tokenization infrastructure, adding another traditional financial institution to the on-chain migration. In AI, India plans to release an AI regulation paper within 30 days and is seeking public and industry feedback before finalizing rules.