Stabledash Live · · 23 min

Inside Rain's Western Union Partnership: Stablecoins to Cash and Back

With Charles Yoo-Naut

Key takeaways

  • Rain raised a $250 million Series C led by Iconiq in January 2026 at a $1.95 billion valuation.

  • Rain is integrating Western Union's Digital Asset Network so users can turn stablecoins into cash, and cash into stablecoins, at Western Union locations, and is opening it to all its customers.

  • Rain launched on-chain rewards as a service, and Charles Yoo-Naut says an Avalanche test lifted spend by around 25% just by offering rewards.

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0:00Western Union moved at startup speed despite legacy infrastructure1 of 7

Summary

Rain's CTO says the company is moving past stablecoin cards to a wider platform, with Western Union's Digital Asset Network letting users swap stablecoins and cash.

Rain, which raised a $250 million Series C led by Iconiq in January 2026 at a $1.95 billion valuation, is integrating Western Union's Digital Asset Network into its platform. Co-founder and CTO Charles Yoo-Naut says the network lets people walk into a Western Union location to convert stablecoins into cash, or hand over cash and get stablecoins back in their app.

Cash at the last mile

Yoo-Naut calls the Digital Asset Network "a new network that Western Union has been working on" and says the integration is the most exciting part of the partnership. Rain is opening it up for all of its customers, not only the Western Union program.

Rain also added Mastercard Principal Membership in May 2026, alongside its non-bank Principal Membership with Visa.

“We did an experiment with Avalanche on our rewards and just introducing rewards as an option increased spend by around 25%.”
Charles Yoo-Naut

Beyond dollar stablecoin cards

Yoo-Naut says the pitch a year ago was dollar-backed stablecoin cards for everyone. Now Rain is building a full platform for launching global programs, which may include virtual accounts and wallets. He says dollar stablecoins still carry the most volume, but he sees CBDCs, tokenized deposits in the US and tokenized real-world assets coming up, and argues the future is much broader.

The company is also organizing sales around use cases. Yoo-Naut says a cross-border B2B payments company, a global neobank or a firm like Western Union will be sold the capabilities it needs as a package.

Rewards and acquisitions

Rain acquired Uptop, a card-linked rewards program reaching beyond sports into retail, entertainment, travel and dining. It then launched rewards as a service, letting any partner run a program with rewards held on chain. Yoo-Naut says an experiment with Avalanche showed that adding rewards as an option increased spend by around 25%.

Rain also bought Guardrail, a security infrastructure company it had been a customer of. Yoo-Naut ties the deal to investment in security "in the era of mythos level models."

A partner to watch

Yoo-Naut points to Carta, a Rain partner that is distributing its card through brokerages such as Raymond James, comparing the approach to Amex's work with Charles Schwab and Morgan Stanley.

Taken together, Yoo-Naut's account shows Rain using its new capital to widen what it offers: cash access through Western Union, support for more tokenized assets, on-chain rewards and more security, all sold as packages built around how customers use them.

Western Union, Up Top, Rain, and Guardrail come up most.

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