Phantom launches Cash stablecoin on Bridge's Open Issuance to bring crypto into daily spending
Sep 30, 2025 with Brandon Millman
Key Points
- Phantom launches Cash, a stablecoin on Bridge's Open Issuance platform, positioning it as infrastructure competitors can white-label without rebuilding compliance from scratch.
- Cash reaches merchants at launch through Stripe's network, with Phantom betting that demonstrated transaction volume will prompt other payment processors to adopt stablecoin payments.
- Phantom users can acquire Cash by swapping existing crypto or connecting bank accounts and debit cards, targeting crypto-native spenders initially and international dollar-seekers as entry points later.
Summary
Phantom is launching two products built around stablecoins: Cash, a stablecoin issued on Bridge's Open Issuance platform in partnership with Stripe, and Phantom Cash, a consumer experience inside the Phantom app that uses Cash for daily spending — bills, coffee, online purchases.
The stablecoin itself was an accidental product. Phantom set out to build the consumer spending experience and discovered the stablecoin it needed didn't exist. USDC offered liquidity and compatibility but no reward-sharing for the issuer. Fully branded stablecoins like MetaMask USD offered revenue but came with heavy operational overhead that only large, well-resourced companies can absorb. Cash is positioned in between — open for any company to build on, with reward-sharing baked in, but without the compliance and distribution burden of rolling a proprietary coin.
Brandon (Phantom's representative) frames the initial user base as existing crypto-native Phantom users who want to spend their on-chain assets in the real world. Over time, he expects international users seeking dollar-denominated financial tools to arrive through Cash as an entry point into crypto, rather than the other way around.
Users can acquire Cash two ways: swapping existing crypto via a DeFi tool or decentralized exchange inside the app, or connecting a bank account, debit card, or Apple Pay to bring dollars on-chain directly.
The Stripe relationship is central to the merchant side. Because Bridge is part of Stripe, Cash will be directly accepted across Stripe's merchant network at launch. Brandon expects that once Stripe demonstrates real transaction volume, other payment processors will follow — his framing is that stablecoin payment adoption is "right on the precipice."
Phantom positions Cash as infrastructure others can build on, not a proprietary wallet coin. The commercial logic is that Phantom earns yield from stablecoin issuance while other consumer apps can white-label the same rails without rebuilding compliance from scratch.