Anchorage expands custody deal with Bitso for US-Mexico stablecoin corridor

The expansion of a custody and listing arrangement between Anchorage Digital Bank and Bitso positions Anchorage Digital’s custody services across both segments of the significant US-Mexico remittance route.

This agreement establishes Anchorage Digital Bank’s custody framework for stablecoins traversing the US-Mexico corridor, which constitutes one of the world's largest money transfer channels, moving tens of billions annually. The partnership entails that MXNB, Bitso’s Mexican peso stablecoin, will be held by the federally chartered crypto bank across six distinct blockchains: Polygon, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Ethereum, Base, and Arc. Concurrently, Bitso has integrated USDPT and USAT, the U.S. dollar stablecoins issued and custodied by Anchorage, into its offerings from Western Union and Tether. While the specific financial terms of this arrangement were not disclosed by the participating entities, the focus remains on the U.S.-Mexico remittance corridor, a flow of capital among the largest cross-border payments globally, which currently relies heavily on slower and more expensive correspondent banking, wire transfers, and cash-pickup networks, although approximately 15% of this volume already utilizes Bitso’s infrastructure.

Anchorage is betting that regulated custody, situated where liquidity resides, will increasingly facilitate the replacement of legacy payment systems by stablecoins that settle on-chain in seconds around the clock. Nathan McCauley, Anchorage’s CEO and co-founder, asserted that the US-Mexico corridor signifies the point where stablecoins transition from a theoretical concept to the movement of substantial capital, stating the firm is now functioning as "the institutional custody layer on both sides of that flow." Furthermore, Ben Reid, Bitso’s head of stablecoin, confirmed that this development enables clients to access the complete dollar-peso corridor entirely on-chain, supported by a federally chartered bank.

This action contributes to a wider competition to integrate stablecoins into Latin America's payment infrastructure. Circle recently advanced its presence in the region through a pilot settlement using USDC in Colombia, which is part of a broader strategy to enter numerous emerging markets as stablecoin adoption grows. For Anchorage, this deal reinforces its growing presence in the stablecoin space; the bank issues Tether’s U.S.-regulated USAT stablecoin, while Bitso has been actively deploying its MXNB peso coin across networks such as Arbitrum. By securing both extremities of the corridor, Anchorage aims to become the preferred custodian for any financial institution or issuer entering this route.

This strategic positioning by Anchorage Digital Bank underscores a broader industry trend wherein regulated financial infrastructure is being sought to bridge traditional, high-friction cross-border payment systems with the instantaneous settlement capabilities inherent in decentralized finance protocols and Layer 2 scaling solutions.

Why it matters

This move signals a significant institutional push to embed regulated custody within critical cross-border payment flows. For DeFi and L2 ecosystems, this validates the increasing utility of stablecoins in replacing legacy banking rails. Watch how this establishes a precedent for regulated custody across major regional payment corridors.