Financial technology company Dakota launched a stablecoin infrastructure platform as more enterprises look to adopt digital dollars without taking on the operational and regulatory burden of custody and compliance.
Dakota will handle custody, compliance and settlement on behalf of its clients. CEO Ryan Bozarth told Cointelegraph that the company operates in the US as a registered Money Services Business, while working with licensed banking and regulated payments partners in other regions. It is also pursuing Electronic Money Institution and Crypto-Asset Service Provider licenses in Europe.
This arrangement, according to Bozarth, enables Dakota to offer cross-border money movement without customers becoming regulated financial institutions themselves.
“Teams can program when money moves, where it goes, how it’s governed, and what happens after it settles — including approvals, limits, reconciliation and treasury actions,” Bozarth said.
According to the company, its platform is used by more than 700 businesses, including crypto companies and fintech platforms.
“Stablecoins make this possible because they’re digital dollars built on programmable infrastructure,” he said. “That lets money behave like modern software – composable, automatable, and consistent across borders.”
Related: Fidelity readies digital dollar as stablecoins move into institutional finance
The rise of programmable money
2025 marked the rise of stablecoins as a major crypto narrative. But while most stablecoins still function as primarily as digital cash, a growing number of companies and countries are experimenting with programmable money by embedding rules, automation and controls directly into how funds move inside applications.
In August, M0 raised $40 million in a Series B led by Polychain Capital and Ribbit Capital to build infrastructure that lets developers issue application-specific stablecoins with embedded rules around access, liquidity and use. The Switzerland-based company has partnered with projects such as MetaMask to integrate custom stablecoins directly into consumer-facing apps.
The same month, Rain raised $58 million in a Series B led by Sapphire Ventures to expand tools that allow banks and enterprises to issue regulated stablecoins and automate compliant money flows. The company is focused on use cases such as real-time payroll, programmable cards and controlled spending programs across multiple blockchains.
Beyond enterprise payments, programmable money is also being tested in government-led pilots where rules are enforced directly at the money layer.
In 2024, Kazakhstan tested programmable money through two pilots using its digital tenge, a central bank digital currency, including a rail infrastructure project where funds were released only when predefined milestones were met and a separate program from the National Bank that automated VAT refunds, cutting processing times from more than two months to roughly two weeks.
The Reserve Bank of India also plans to expand its digital rupee pilots by adding features such as programmability and offline payments. The central bank said the enhancements are intended to tailor payment flows for specific use cases, including government transfers and corporate spending.
Magazine: Indian outrage at Pudgy Penguins, China CBDC boss’s crypto scandal: Asia Express