Samsung Wallet adds USDC transfers on Solana for 82 million Galaxy phones

Samsung Wallet will let Galaxy smartphone owners in the US send the USDC stablecoin abroad. Launch is planned for the last week of October, with the Solana blockchain as the technical base. Stablecoins rarely land inside an app that already sits on the phones of tens of millions of people, so the news stands out.

What exactly was announced?

Solana Foundation announced the partnership this week. According to its release, Samsung Wallet and Samsung Pay will get transfers in USDC, the dollar stablecoin from Circle. Funds can go to a compatible crypto wallet abroad or to a bank account in more than 60 countries. In the second case the recipient sees local currency and does not have to open a crypto wallet.

At launch the feature will run on 82 million Galaxy devices in the US. Samsung has not named other countries yet, because everything depends on local regulation. The company hints that online payments and tap-to-pay may follow later.

The idea is not new. In July at the Galaxy Unpacked event in London, Samsung showed a wallet mockup holding USDC, but named neither a blockchain nor a date. According to CoinDesk, in August the company also talked about stablecoin savings and payments for hundreds of millions of phones. The US launch is the first big step.

How does it work inside?

To understand the setup, it helps to split it by roles. Samsung provides the familiar wallet interface. Coinbase holds the stablecoins through its Coinbase Prime Vault service, and Bastion handles the regulated infrastructure. Blockchain support, per CoinDesk, will come from Solana and Sui.

Samsung also stresses that nobody needs to install another app. Everything runs in the same wallet that already holds cards, IDs and tickets, so the entry barrier is minimal for a person who has never thought about stablecoins.

For the user, the path looks like this.

• Funding: money enters through a built-in on-ramp, a service that turns ordinary dollars into USDC.
• Confirming a transfer requires biometrics on a registered Galaxy device.
• The user does not manage private keys, a custodian does that.
• The recipient takes USDC to their own wallet or receives local currency through an off-ramp, the reverse service that pays out to a bank account.

All the crypto machinery hides behind a screen people already know from card payments and boarding passes. That is exactly what Samsung was aiming for.

How much will it cost?

Samsung will not charge a fee for transfers to compatible external wallets. Third-party services may take their own cut, for example an exchange or the recipient's wallet. Terms for payouts to bank accounts have not been disclosed yet.

Decrypt pointed out one more detail. The release does not directly say whether Circle is a partner in the project, and it does not state the full cost of transfers. That will have to be clarified after launch.

Why bet on Solana?

Solana Foundation cites these numbers. Stablecoin supply on the network grew nearly 20% over the year, and stablecoin volume in 2026 passed $5.25 trillion. Among companies already using the network, the foundation names PayPal and Western Union, and Visa settles in USDC there.

According to CoinDesk, the main value of the deal is the distribution channel that crypto companies have not managed to build on their own. An app already installed on tens of millions of phones gives stablecoins access to people who never opened a crypto exchange. The IMF annual report, which the outlet cites, says stablecoin use in cross-border payments expanded this year because of low transaction costs.

Samsung has its own backstory. A blockchain wallet for Galaxy appeared back in 2019, followed by crypto support, a Stellar integration and hardware wallet connections. Last October Coinbase arrived in the app for 75 million US users. USDC, the second-largest stablecoin after USDT, is valued by institutions for its regulatory backing, and it fits this kind of setup.

"Stablecoins have the potential to make moving money around the world faster and easier, and we want Galaxy users to be able to take advantage of that without having to navigate the complexity of traditional crypto tools."

- Woncheol Chai, head of the digital wallet team at Samsung Electronics, from the Solana Foundation release

Not everyone believed in such moves. Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani wrote that 99% of people thought Solana's phone initiatives were dumb, and he thought so too. Anatoly Yakovenko replied that 99 out of 100 founder-led initiatives are dumb, but doing nothing is dumb as well.

What comes next?

Kevin Lehtiniitty, CEO of Borderless.xyz, expects Apple and Google to follow Samsung. That is only his forecast. The logic is simple: when a dollar transfer becomes a button in the wallet, a separate crypto app is no longer needed.

Ukrainian users cannot use the new feature, because the launch is limited to the US. Still, the direction matters for us too. Stablecoins are increasingly used as a way to send money, not just as a trading tool. If you hold USDT or USDC, we compare the rates at which you can exchange USDT for hryvnia across dozens of exchangers.

The first real test comes in the last week of October. That is when we will see what a bank transfer actually costs and whether this simplicity is enough for ordinary people.