How Wyoming’s Power Circle Built a State-Backed Stablecoin in Near Plain Sight

The original story by Tim Tolka for Disruption Banking.

In August, Wyoming did something no other state has: it quietly launched its own stablecoin.

It’s called FRNT — short for “Frontier” — and it’s the latest twist in a place better known for cattle brands than blockchain. A state that once staked its future on cows and coal is now pitching itself as a global crypto lab, and it’s not just talk: Wyoming now has more digital asset laws on the books than any other state.

To some, the state stable token is visionary. To others, especially libertarians, it looks like the government elbowing its way deeper into finance — and into people’s lives.

And the way it all came together is raising questions about transparency, power, and just how “public” this public project really is.

This is the third story in a series on Wyoming’s state stable token. The first lays out the basics; the second digs into the project’s private-sector partners, including Franklin Templeton.

On paper, the Wyoming Stable Token Commission (WSTC) looks like a lean startup bolted onto the state government.

It’s led by Anthony Apollo, a New Yorker with a background in blockchain and auditing. He’s not from the cowboy boot crowd — and that’s kind of the point. He talks fast, works the press easily, and plays the role of “crypto insider” for state officials trying to navigate an industry they barely knew existed a few years ago.

The Commission itself grew out of the Select Committee on Blockchain, where Wyoming’s political heavyweights — Gov. Mark Gordon, Treasurer Curtis Meier, Auditor Kristi Racines, and others — hashed out strategy in public meetings that still live on YouTube.

Disruption Banking reviewed and transcribed many of those meetings going back to 2022, along with Commission sessions. One moment stands out: in a June 6, 2023 Commission meeting, Gov. Gordon casually handed out subcommittee roles like a CEO assigning department heads, underscoring how tightly he steers the project.

The WSTC has a $6 million budget and, so far, has spent less than $2 million. Between Apollo joining in September 2023 and February 2025, he says there’s been heavy interest: 730+ people from over 360 organizations have reached out wanting to partner or build on top of the token.

For a supposedly sleepy Western state project, that’s not nothing.

What really concentrates the power is how small the inner circle is.

The same handful of officials — Gov. Gordon, Treasurer Meier, and Auditor Racines — aren’t just sitting on the Commission. They also control the boards tied to Wyoming’s sovereign wealth fund and other committees the WSTC reports to.

In other words: the same group of people are steering both the state’s investment engine and its experimental stablecoin.

For crypto boosters, that tight alignment is a strength. For critics, it’s a giant flashing warning light.

If you watch enough Blockchain Committee and Commission meetings, a pattern emerges.

Industry folks show up to brief state leaders — lawmakers, treasury officials, staff — and walk them through the jargon. Apollo is often there as translator, the guy who can explain yield-bearing stablecoins and cross-border settlement while everyone else is still getting used to the acronyms.

Importantly, the real decisions weren’t being made in the Commission meetings the public sees.

By the time the WSTC started meeting regularly, most of the big calls were already baked in — worked out in the Select Committee on Blockchain and in subcommittee meetings, then scrubbed by:

• Lawyers in the governor’s office;
• Outside legal counsel at Paul Hastings, which represents the Commission.

Those communications? Privileged. The public doesn’t get to see them.

That’s why Commission meetings can sometimes feel oddly empty. The officials around the table often behave like everyone already knows what’s going to happen. Because, in many cases, they do.

It’s a process that technically checks the “open meeting” box, but does little to reassure anyone who cares about meaningful public oversight.

And Wyoming’s not just building this framework for itself. The legal model they’ve designed is something the Commission openly wants to export to other states.

FRNT (which follows an earlier iteration called WYST) isn’t being pitched as a small, Wyoming-only experiment.

Apollo has been very clear about the scope. Earlier, talking about WYST, he told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle:

“WYST can be used to settle dollar-denominated transactions anywhere on Earth, in seconds, with fees under $0.01, while mitigating counterparty risk.”

In a conversation with Disruption Banking, he went even further:

“Because we are doing this as a sovereign entity, we can go cross-border much easier because we’re not regulated by any other country. They may regulate the exchanges, but, you know, Wyoming does not answer to the Japan Financial Services Agency.”

He also points out that Wyoming isn’t covered by the Genius Act, which defines “permitted payment stablecoin issuers” as banks, trusts, fintechs and similar entities.

“We’re not included in there. So we’re not under the Genius Act to also give us a bit more autonomy to develop our own ruleset, which we have done.”

On a panel in May, he hit the same chord:

“We are not going to be under, let’s say, the aegis of the New York Department of Financial Services. Similarly, we’re not going to be under the scrutiny of regulatory authorities abroad like MiCA and the EU markets and crypto asset regulation framework…”

In other words, Wyoming wants the reach of a global financial player — without signing up for some of the oversight that usually comes with it.

In various meetings and interviews, Apollo leans hard into the size of the stablecoin market, and increasingly, what he sees as the next frontier: yield-bearing stable tokens.

He paints FRNT as a “public goods project” that stands apart from private issuers like Circle:

“We are a public goods project, so that’s what separates us from something like a Circle that now is a public company, and definitionally has a responsibility to their shareholders, not the end user.”

He’s watching moves offshore too. Yield-bearing stablecoins like those from Agora or Mountain Protocol in Bermuda have sidestepped US securities restrictions. Wealthier investors can park $5 million into BlackRock’s BUIDL fund via Securitize to earn yield on tokenized assets.

But for everyday Americans? Access is limited.

Apollo argues that because Wyoming, as a state, enjoys certain securities law exemptions, it might be able to offer something different:

“As a state with some exemptions to securities laws, we may be able to pull that off too… If we were to have a domestic, transparent, yield-bearing stable token that was accessible globally, I think we’ve got a pretty big market cap target there. Yeah, I think so.”

Now picture that kind of product available in countries with hyperinflation or tight capital controls. For people trying to escape broken currencies, a high-yield dollar-linked token issued by a US state would be a big deal.

So far, though, most media coverage has focused more on the “quirky cowboy state does crypto” angle and less on the potential global impact.

Back home, enthusiasm is hardly universal.

In a May 14, 2025 Commission meeting, a Wyoming resident used the public comment period on YouTube to unload on the project:

“I don’t understand why anyone would actually spend money on this literal Ponzi scheme, and yes, I looked up the term it is a Ponzi scheme. If more folks in Wyoming understood that it is a Ponzi scheme, they’d shut it down in a heartbeat…”

She went on to question how the state could ever guarantee the safety of people’s data and money, and blasted the idea — floated in some discussions — that Wyoming taxpayers might someday have to make FRNT holders “whole” if things went sideways.

“We’re already paying to create this sinking ship,” she said.

It’s worth noting that investment proceeds from Wyoming’s massive permanent funds are the largest contributor to the state budget, not income or sales taxes. So the “taxpayer bailout” framing isn’t perfectly accurate.

But her broader point lands: the Commission keeps framing FRNT as a service to Wyoming residents, even while officials drool over the possibility of huge global market cap and quietly cut deals with Wall Street and major tech firms. At the same time, they talk about supporting local banks — while building a product that could compete directly with them.

So is FRNT a sinking ship or a bold new vessel?

Right now, it’s honestly too early to tell.

What’s clear is that Wyoming has taken a huge swing. A tiny circle of officials used the state’s unusually aggressive crypto laws, a bespoke legal framework, and a charismatic industry insider to build a state-backed stablecoin with global ambitions.

If it works, Wyoming could become a model — proof that a US state can play in the same arena as big stablecoin issuers, without being a bank or a Silicon Valley startup.

If it fails, the legal architecture, the playbook of private subcommittees plus public gloss, and the “state stable token” concept won’t just evaporate. They’re likely to pop back up in places like Texas, Idaho, or other states hungry for investment, attention, and a piece of the digital money future.

Either way, the experiment is no longer hypothetical. Wyoming has already left the cattle chute and stepped fully into crypto. The rest of the country — and the world — will have to decide whether to follow.