Venture investors have poured nearly $100 million into stablecoin startups, backing new infrastructure for programmable money.
M0, a Switzerland-based platform that lets developers issue custom stablecoins, announced a $40 million Series B raise on Thursday led by Polychain Capital and Ribbit Capital. Founded in 2023, the company has partnered with projects including MetaMask and Playtron to integrate its infrastructure into consumer-facing apps.
Another stablecoin infrastructure raise came from Rain, a US startup developing tools for banks to issue regulated stablecoins. The company secured $58 million in a Series B funds led by Sapphire Ventures, with backing from Dragonfly, Galaxy Ventures and Samsung Next, bringing its total funding to $88.5 million.
The announcements came as the stablecoin market capitalization reached a record $280 billion on Thursday, according to data from DefiLlama.
Related: Japan wrote the first stablecoin rulebook — so why is the US pulling ahead?
Different paths to programmable money
The funding rounds underscore investors’ renewed interest in “programmable money” (PM), a digital currency with built-in rules that dictate how it can be used. Unlike traditional subsidies or vouchers, these conditions are enforced automatically through blockchains and smart contracts by issuers. One common analogy is food stamps limited to groceries.
While all stablecoins are technically programmable since they run on blockchains, most function as simple payment tokens. What sets M0 and Rain’s services apart is that programmability is built directly into their design.
M0 provides rails for issuing application-specific stablecoins with embedded rules for liquidity, access and use. One of its clients, Playtron, directly integrated an M0-powered “Game dollar” into its handheld gaming system.
Rain focuses on the flow of funds, enabling real-time, compliant payrolls in more than 100 jurisdictions through its partnership with Toku. It has also expanded to Solana, Tron and Stellar to support programmable cards and spending programs across multiple chains.
Related: GENIUS Act yield ban may push trillions into tokenized assets — ex-bank exec
Governments and startups test PM
Programmable money has been evolving for some time, and M0 and Rain aren’t alone in the pursuit.
In July 2024, Kazakhstan launched a pilot program using its digital tenge CBDC to fund a rail link to China. The “marked,” or programmable token was programmed to disburse payment only when designated milestones were met, with the aim of ensuring greater transparency and accountability in state infrastructure delivery.
In October 2024, the National Bank of Kazakhstan conducted another programmability pilot demonstrating that VAT refunds could be processed far more efficiently — reducing the wait time from 70–75 days to 10–15 days by automating eligibility checks.
In May, the Monetary Authority of India’s digital rupee pilot expanded to include features like programmability and offline capabilities, aimed at improving accessibility and tailoring payment flows.
This use of programmable money by governments hasn’t gone without criticism. Financial analyst Susie Violet Ward, co-founder and CEO of the think tank Bitcoin Policy UK, cautioned on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction daily X space on Aug. 21 that CBCDs could amount to the “weaponization of money in its purest form.”
But experimentation hasn’t been limited to governments. Private-sector projects are also pushing programmability into digital money for a variety of use cases.
In June 2024, Circle introduced programmable wallets and gas-station functionality on Solana, enabling USDC-based transactions to autonomously trigger smart contracts or automatically manage transaction fees.
More recently, in July 2025, the blockchain infrastructure startup TradeOS debuted a programmable settlement layer for global commerce. The platform ties stablecoin payouts to real-world outcomes, verified by cryptographic proofs, enabling automated and conditional payments in trade scenarios.
Magazine: Programmable money: How crypto tokens could change our entire experience of value transfer
