Circle Foundation is backing two United Nations initiatives that will test how regulated stablecoins and digital payment infrastructure can be used to move money through development and humanitarian programs more efficiently.
The philanthropic initiative, established by Circle Internet Group, is providing grants to support the United Nations Development Programme and the World Food Programme. The programs will examine whether digital payment systems can reduce the cost and complexity of moving funds while improving access for people who may be underserved by conventional financial infrastructure.
The two initiatives are separate and have different objectives. UNDP will establish a Digital Asset Innovation Pool intended to move previous digital-payment experiments toward regular program delivery. A separate grant to World Food Program USA will support WFP in building and testing infrastructure for regulated stablecoin-enabled payments.
Elisabeth Carpenter, Chief Strategic Engagement Officer, Circle, and Founding Chair, Circle Foundation, said: “Around the world, the need for humanitarian aid keeps growing while the resources to meet it are stretched thinner than ever.”
“If we can help humanitarian and development institutions move value faster, more transparently, and at lower cost, we can ensure more of every aid dollar actually reaches the people who need it. Circle Foundation's support for UNDP and WFP is about strengthening the shared infrastructure powering these organizations so that life-saving and life-sustaining aid reaches people in crisis faster, without the delays and costs of outdated systems.”
UNDP Moves Beyond Digital Payment Pilots
UNDP’s Digital Asset Innovation Pool will provide a framework for country offices to use regulated payment stablecoins where existing payment channels create significant costs, delays or access problems. The program will include implementation support, regulatory and operational guidance, beneficiary safeguards, and tools for measuring factors such as cost, delivery time and reach.
Robert Pasicko, Team Lead, UNDP Alternative Finance Lab, said: “Getting resources to people should not be the most difficult or expensive part of delivering a programme. The Digital Asset Innovation Pool will support UNDP in using digital payments responsibly to make last-mile programme payments faster, more affordable and easier to access – especially for people underserved by conventional banking. We want to make sure more of every dollar reaches the people and communities it is meant to support.”
The initiative builds on work conducted through UNDP’s SDG Blockchain Accelerator, which is led by the organization’s Alternative Finance Lab. UNDP describes the accelerator as a program designed to move blockchain and decentralized artificial intelligence applications from experimentation toward practical deployment in areas connected to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Previous digital-payment projects cited in the new announcement include Cash-for-Work payments in Aleppo, Syria; payments designed for low-connectivity conditions in Haiti; a remittance-linked community investment model in Guatemala; and mobile wallets connected with existing cash-agent networks in The Gambia. The new pool is intended to take lessons from those projects and create a more structured route for country offices considering similar payment systems.
Conventional banking is not being displaced under the plan. Circle’s announcement explicitly states that the Digital Asset Innovation Pool is intended to provide an additional option when established payment systems create barriers, rather than replace those systems. That approach leaves individual programs with the ability to choose payment infrastructure based on local conditions, regulation and accessibility.
WFP Prepares Real-World Payment Tests
WFP’s part of the initiative is focused heavily on the infrastructure needed to make stablecoin payments workable across humanitarian operations. Funding will support governance and risk frameworks, treasury and reconciliation systems, compliance tools, and connections with local fintech and mobile-money providers.
Over the next three years, WFP plans to test two to three country corridors, linking its payment systems with local financial providers and markets. The trials are expected to generate evidence on costs, speed, transparency, operational feasibility and resilience.
Bernhard Kowatsch, Director, WFP Global Accelerator and Ventures, said: “Digital payments have the potential to make humanitarian assistance faster, more efficient, and more resilient, while also fostering greater financial inclusion for the people we serve. Circle Foundation’s support enables us to explore regulated stablecoin-enabled payment solutions in real-world contexts and build the evidence, partnerships, and infrastructure needed to scale responsibly.”
WFP already operates at a scale that makes payment infrastructure a significant part of its humanitarian work. The organization says it distributed $2 billion in cash-based transfers during 2025, allowing recipients to purchase food and meet other essential expenses in markets where goods are available but households may lack the money to buy them.
Blockchain is also not new to WFP. Its Building Blocks network has been used to coordinate humanitarian assistance among participating organizations. WFP says the system has processed $555 million in cash-based interventions through 25 million transactions and generated $3.5 million in bank-fee savings.
Stablecoins Enter a Larger UN Payment Network
The latest projects form part of a wider effort across the UN system to modernize the financial infrastructure behind aid delivery. UNHCR leads the Digital Hub of Treasury Solutions, or DHoTS, which connects more than 150 banking and financial systems across more than 100 countries. Fifteen agencies have joined the project.
Circle Foundation made its first international grant in January 2026 to support DHoTS. The foundation itself is backed by Circle Internet Group’s equity commitment. Circle's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show that its board reserved up to 2,682,392 Class A shares for contributions to or for the benefit of Circle Foundation over a 10-year period, representing approximately 1% of the company’s capital stock when the reservation was approved.
There is already precedent for dollar-linked stablecoins being used directly in UN humanitarian assistance, although it should be distinguished from the newly announced UNDP and WFP projects. In December 2022, UNHCR launched a pilot in Ukraine that distributed assistance in Circle’s USDC stablecoin through digital wallets to people displaced. Recipients could hold the digital dollars or convert them into dollars, euros or local currency.
UNHCR now says DHoTS includes live blockchain-disbursement projects in Ukraine, Argentina and Afghanistan. The broader platform combines traditional bank connectivity with digital wallets, blockchain systems and other technologies rather than relying on a single payment method.
Testing the Practical Limits of Digital Aid
Stablecoins can potentially shorten the path between an organization sending funds and a recipient gaining access to usable money, particularly where conventional cross-border transfers are slow or expensive. Yet moving value digitally is only part of the problem. Recipients ultimately need a practical way to spend or convert those funds within their local economy.
UNDP has already highlighted that issue in its work on financial inclusion. During a May 2026 UN Blockchain Talks session, its Alternative Finance Lab noted that faster transfers alone do not resolve questions around whether digital funds can be converted, spent, trusted and supported through services available locally.
The WFP trials are structured to examine some of those questions under real operating conditions. Integrating stablecoin infrastructure with local financial providers, fintech companies and mobile-money networks could show where blockchain-based payments offer measurable advantages and where established payment rails remain more practical.
At this stage, the initiatives are better viewed as an expansion of the UN system’s experimentation with digital financial infrastructure than a wholesale shift toward stablecoins.
