May 2026

Welcome to the latest edition of The Stable Standard, where we share progress across the Stable network and the broader shift toward stablecoin-native financial infrastructure. This month, we cover the v1.3.0 upgrade, the launch of StableEarn, growing network activity, developer ecosystem updates, programmable finance conversations, and continued progress toward StablePay.

• Mainnet activity surpassed 2.76M transactions and 5,840+ deployed contracts

• We activated the Stable v1.3.0 mainnet upgrade focused on execution safety and reliability

• We introduced StableEarn, extending Stable’s infrastructure into treasury management and capital efficiency

• We launched Stable Thesis #1, exploring stablecoins and the future of global payouts

• Continued focus on agent-native payments and programmable finance

• Development continues toward higher throughput, parallel execution, and deterministic transaction inclusion

• Our CEO Brian Mehler joined discussions across AI-native finance, RWAs, and stablecoin infrastructure

• StablePay continues progressing toward seamless global USDT transfers

May marked an important step forward for Stable’s execution infrastructure and positioning around real-world stablecoin payments.

Stable mainnet activity continued scaling in May as developers and applications expanded deployments across payment and settlement flows.

• 2.76M+ transactions processed

• 45.8K+ total addresses

• 5,840+ smart contracts deployed

• 611 verified contracts

This continued growth reflects increasing usage across stablecoin payments, smart contract execution, and developer activity on the network.

On May 13, Stable activated the mandatory v1.3.0 mainnet upgrade, focused on improving execution safety, validation, RPC reliability, and EVM consistency.

Key improvements included:

• stronger transaction and waiver validation

• tighter RPC exposure and signing controls

• improved protections around execution paths and precompiles

• fixes for gas accounting, rollback handling, and RPC consistency

Node operators were required to upgrade before the activation height to maintain compatibility with the network.

Why it matters

As stablecoin payments move toward real-world and machine-driven usage, execution reliability becomes increasingly important infrastructure.

This month, we introduced StableEarn,  an institutional-grade Earn experience designed to extend Stable’s stablecoin payment rails into treasury infrastructure and capital efficiency.

The first StableEarn vault launches with:

• Morpho powering the vault infrastructure

• Gauntlet curating onchain yield strategies

• Theo Network supporting RWA-backed products and yield infrastructure

The initial launch begins with a USDT vault on Morpho, designed around structured and transparent yield strategies for institutional-grade stablecoin capital management.

StableEarn expands Stable’s broader vision for stablecoin infrastructure, where capital can move efficiently and continue earning when idle. Read here.

Incentives are now live. Put your USDT to work 

Vault: https://app.morpho.org/stable/vault/0xb7Df8db22A5DBBFA9ebeb94b3910aec6a4f05c08/stable-earn

This month, we launched Stable Thesis #1, a new series exploring stablecoin use cases and infrastructure trends. 

The first edition focused on how stablecoins are transforming global payouts and payroll through faster cross-border transfers, always-on settlement, and programmable payment flows. The piece also explored how Stable supports these emerging payment systems through USDT-native execution and simplified settlement infrastructure.

Read the full thesis here: https://blog.stable.xyz/global-payouts-through-stablecoin-rails-or-stable-thesis

• The @stablechain/sdk:  If you're building on Stable, whether that's a neobank, a payments product, a wallet, or a treasury tool, the SDK is your backend. It lets your app move USDT0 between user balances, bridge it in from other chains, and swap between tokens. Earning yield on idle balances is coming next.

• Our documentation on the SDK quickstart walks through creating a client, sending your first transfer, and previewing a bridge or swap on testnet in about five minutes. Grab testnet USDT0 from the faucet before running through it.

In May, Stable continued expanding its presence across conversations around AI-native finance, stablecoin infrastructure, programmable payments, and RWAs.

• Our CEO, Brian Mehler, joined a panel hosted by @rwaweek on Stablecoins & PayFi to discuss how stablecoins are evolving into core financial rails. The conversation explored internet-native payments, liquidity, wallet adoption, stablecoin issuers, and the future of global financial infrastructure. Watch the discussion here.

• Our CEO, Brian Mehler joined Water Tower Research for a discussion on Stable’s USDT-native architecture, global payment infrastructure, and the broader evolution of programmable financial systems. The conversation explored how stablecoin-native execution can support faster, more programmable global payments. Read Here.

• Stable also participated in the zCloak Network roundtable AMA, “Future Finance: Human-Led or AI-Native?”, where Brian joined alongside leaders across AI infrastructure and programmable finance. Read here.

• At the LongTree Labs interview, our CEO Brian Mehler discussed Stable’s approach to stablecoin-native gas, full EVM compatibility, developer-first UX, and building compliant infrastructure for global payments. The conversation explored how simplifying execution and improving developer experience can accelerate real-world stablecoin adoption. Watch the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XFQfzOxDmA

Stable continues building toward a higher-performance execution environment optimized for stablecoin payments, agent-driven systems, and real-time financial applications.

Upcoming work remains focused on:

• StablePay: A simplified stablecoin-native payments experience for seamless global USDT transfers

• Continued work toward parallel execution, deterministic transaction inclusion, higher throughput, and improved developer tooling

As programmable payments continue evolving, the focus increasingly shifts toward scalability, predictable execution, and production-grade infrastructure.

• Documentation: https://docs.stable.xyz

• Mainnet Hub: https://hub.stable.xyz

• Blog: https://blog.stable.xyz

• X: @Stable

• Community: https://discord.gg/stablexyz

Thank you for building with Stable.

The next issue of The Stable Standard will arrive in June.