Samsung Wallet adds USDC transfers with Solana and Coinbase for 82 million U.S. Galaxy devices

Samsung is rolling out stablecoin transfers inside Samsung Wallet and Samsung Pay, starting in the U.S. in the last week of October. For high-risk merchants and PSPs, the detail that matters is not the gadgetry: this is stablecoin distribution built into a mainstream consumer wallet, with Coinbase handling custody and Solana providing the rails.

1. Users will be able to send money across borders from Samsung Wallet without opening a separate crypto app. The feature will sit alongside the wallet’s existing use cases for cards, boarding passes and IDs, which is exactly the point: stablecoins are being pushed into a consumer flow that already has distribution.
2. The initial rollout will reach 82 million U.S. Galaxy devices, with more markets expected to follow. In payments terms, that is a very large addressable base for a wallet-native USDC experience, especially for cross-border use cases.
3. Samsung is partnering with Solana to bring USDC transfers into Samsung Wallet and Samsung Pay. Solana says its network has already processed more than $5.25 trillion in stablecoin volume in 2026, which is the scale figure it wants people to notice.
4. Coinbase will power the USDC experience inside Samsung Wallet, with USDC automatically set as the default dollar stablecoin. Coinbase will custody the balances through Coinbase Prime, using its NYDFS-qualified custody services, so the stack here is consumer distribution from Samsung, infrastructure from Solana, and custody from Coinbase.
5. For PSPs, acquirers, and partner banks, the practical takeaway is that stablecoin payments are moving closer to the consumer interface. The wallet layer is where onboarding, brand trust, and transaction initiation happen; once that layer is owned by a large device ecosystem, crypto app fatigue stops being the bottleneck.

Separately, ACI Worldwide and Finextra asked 162 payments leaders what they expect by 2030, and A2A, instant payments, cloud, and AI came out high on the list, with compliance taking a bigger seat at the table. Different survey, same direction: the payments stack is getting more wallet-led, more real-time, and more compliance-heavy.