Anchorage Digital has expanded its custody and listing partnership with Bitso to secure the stablecoin infrastructure across the US-Mexico remittance corridor. Announced on Tuesday, the arrangement places Anchorage Digital Bank’s federally chartered custody services at both ends of the flow. Specifically, Anchorage now custodies MXNB, Bitso’s Mexican peso stablecoin, across six blockchains: Arbitrum, Base, Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, and Arc. Conversely, Bitso has listed USDPT and USAT, U.S. dollar stablecoins issued by Western Union and Tether respectively, which are also issued and custodied by Anchorage.
The deal targets one of the world’s largest money-transfer routes, moving tens of billions of dollars annually. While much of this volume still relies on slow and costly correspondent banking or cash networks, approximately 15% currently runs through Bitso’s infrastructure. Anchorage aims to position itself as the institutional custody layer for this liquidity, betting that onchain stablecoin settlement will increasingly replace legacy rails due to speed and cost efficiency. Nathan McCauley, Anchorage’s CEO, stated that the corridor is where stablecoins move from thesis to real-scale application. Ben Reid, Bitso’s head of stablecoin, noted that clients can now access the full dollar-peso corridor onchain, backed by a regulated bank.
This expansion intensifies competition in Latin America’s payments sector, following Circle’s recent USDC settlement pilot in Colombia. For Anchorage, the agreement builds on its existing role as the issuer of Tether’s U.S.-regulated USAT stablecoin. By anchoring both sides of the corridor, the firm seeks to become the default custodian for any issuer or bank entering this specific cross-border route.
Anchorage’s strategic positioning within the US-Mexico corridor highlights a critical shift in how regulated entities approach cross-border liquidity. By securing custody for both the local currency (MXNB) and the dominant reserve currencies (USDPT/USAT), Anchorage effectively creates a closed-loop regulatory environment for high-volume remittances. This reduces friction for institutional participants who require compliance certainty when moving funds between jurisdictions with differing regulatory frameworks. The integration of multiple blockchains suggests an attempt to capture liquidity regardless of the underlying network preference, prioritizing accessibility over chain exclusivity.
However, the reliance on a single custodian for both sides of such a significant financial artery introduces concentration risk. If Anchorage faces operational or regulatory challenges, the entire corridor’s stability could be compromised. Furthermore, while the partnership claims to offer a fully onchain solution, the actual adoption rate depends on whether users migrate away from entrenched cash and wire networks. The success of this model will likely serve as a bellwether for whether regulated custody layers can genuinely displace traditional correspondent banking in emerging markets, or if they merely add another intermediary to the stack.
