For decades, Visa and Mastercard have competed for dominance in card issuance, merchant acceptance, and transaction volume. In 2026, that rivalry is extending into stablecoin infrastructure, where the prize is not simply moving money across a blockchain, but controlling the financial networks that turn digital dollars into spendable money.
On August 3, Mastercard completed its acquisition of UK-based stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK in a deal valued at up to $1.8 billion. Just two weeks later, CoinDesk reported that Visa was seeking new partners for stablecoin settlement and over-the-counter (OTC) trading across markets including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Singapore. Visa has not publicly commented on the reported tender’s details.
The sequence highlights a broader industry shift. Rather than building every component of stablecoin payments internally, major financial companies are buying businesses that already have the banking relationships, licenses, and payment networks required to connect blockchain transactions with traditional finance.
The strategic question is no longer whether stablecoins will enter mainstream payments. It is who will control the infrastructure that makes them useful.
- Three Acquisitions, One Strategic Direction
Over the past two years, three major deals have highlighted the growing value of stablecoin payment infrastructure.
Stripe announced its acquisition of US-based stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge in 2024 for slightly more than $1.1 billion. Mastercard’s acquisition of BVNK included $1.5 billion in base consideration and up to $300 million in contingent consideration. Meanwhile, USDC issuer Circle is acquiring Singapore-based cross-border payments platform Tazapay for $400 million in stock, with completion expected in 2027.
Together, the transactions represent approximately $3.3 billion in announced deal value.
The companies share several characteristics. They were founded between 2020 and 2022, raised approximately $200 million collectively, and built infrastructure that connects digital assets to conventional payment systems.
BVNK’s valuation trajectory is particularly striking. Its Series B round in December 2024 valued the company at approximately $750 million. Less than two years later, Mastercard’s acquisition valued it at as much as $1.8 billion.
The premium reflects more than the volume of payments these companies currently process. Their value lies in the infrastructure they have assembled and the time a buyer could save by acquiring it rather than reproducing it market by market.
Venture investor Alex Lazarow has examined these transactions as evidence of a broader consolidation trend. The underlying logic is straightforward: as stablecoins move beyond crypto trading, access to reliable payment infrastructure becomes increasingly valuable.
- The Real Prize Is Everything Off-Chain
BVNK’s annualized payment volume is approximately $30 billion. Mastercard, by comparison, processes roughly $9.5 trillion in payments annually. BVNK’s volume is equivalent to only about 0.3% of Mastercard’s annual payment volume.
That gap raises an obvious question: why pay up to $1.8 billion for a business that processes a fraction of the volume already flowing through the acquiring company’s network?
The answer lies in what happens after a stablecoin moves on-chain.
Consider a Chinese manufacturer paying a supplier in Southeast Asia. The manufacturer may send USDT or USDC across a blockchain within minutes. But the supplier generally needs local currency deposited into a domestic bank account, not dollar stablecoins sitting in a digital wallet.
Completing the transaction may require currency conversion, access to local bank accounts, domestic payment rails, custody arrangements, compliance checks, and the ability to reconcile the payment with the recipient’s records.
The blockchain handles one part of the transaction. The surrounding financial infrastructure handles much of the rest.
These capabilities are difficult to replicate through software development alone. Banking partnerships must be negotiated, licenses obtained, local payment systems integrated, and compliance processes established across individual jurisdictions.
That is why acquiring an established infrastructure provider can be faster than building one from scratch.
Commenting on Circle’s acquisition of Tazapay, Clear Street analyst Owen Lau noted that independently developing the necessary banking relationships and payment rails could take Circle years. Reuters similarly reported that Mastercard viewed acquisition as a faster route than internal development.
The assets being acquired are therefore not simply payment-processing software. They include established distribution, regulatory access, banking relationships, and the operational ability to move money between digital and traditional financial systems.
What the three companies bring to the table
BVNK’s disclosed capabilities include authorization under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework in Malta, money-transmitter licenses across approximately 50 US states, and a UK electronic money institution license.
Tazapay, meanwhile, has reported more than 60 banking and fintech partners, local payout rails across over 100 markets, and annualized payment volume exceeding $25 billion. Approximately 60% of that volume involves stablecoins.
Using these disclosed annualized volumes, Mastercard’s maximum $1.8 billion offer for BVNK represents approximately 6% of BVNK’s annualized payment volume. Circle’s $400 million offer for Tazapay represents approximately 1.6% of its reported annualized volume.
These ratios are useful for comparing the scale of the transactions, but they are not traditional valuation multiples. Annualized payment volume is neither revenue nor profit, and the deals may reflect differences in margins, growth expectations, licensing, technology, and strategic value.
The broader point remains: the buyers are paying for infrastructure that could take years to assemble independently.
- Trillions in Stablecoin Transactions, but Payments Remain a Fraction
In 2025, stablecoins recorded approximately $35 trillion in raw on-chain transaction volume. At first glance, that figure suggests a payments industry operating at a scale comparable to major global financial networks.
But raw blockchain volume does not equal economic payment activity.
Transactions can include exchange-internal movements, automated trading, arbitrage, bot activity, and other transfers that do not represent a customer paying a merchant or a business settling an invoice.
A bottom-up analysis by McKinsey and blockchain data firm Artemis estimated actual stablecoin payment volume at approximately $390 billion, roughly 1% of raw on-chain transaction volume and around 0.02% of global payments. The estimate was more than double the corresponding 2024 level.
The distinction matters because the commercial opportunity is not necessarily the largest number recorded on a blockchain. It is the portion of activity that represents recurring, monetizable demand for payments.
Business-to-business (B2B) transactions are particularly important. The analysis estimated B2B stablecoin payments at approximately $226 billion, nearly 60% of the total and up 733% year over year.
This is precisely the segment targeted by providers such as BVNK and Tazapay: businesses making cross-border payments, collecting funds, converting currencies, and paying counterparties across different financial systems.
Stablecoins can offer these businesses faster settlement, more flexible operating hours, and access to dollar-denominated liquidity. However, the final cost and speed of a payment still depend on the off-chain infrastructure available in the relevant markets.
The opportunity is therefore not just to facilitate more blockchain transfers. It is to capture a greater share of the payment process surrounding them.
Visa’s stablecoin business remains small relative to its network
Visa offers a useful comparison.
According to a figure disclosed on September 8, Visa’s stablecoin settlement volume had reached an annualized rate of $20 billion, representing 15-fold year-over-year growth.
Yet that figure remained below 0.2% of Visa’s approximately $14.2 trillion in annual payment volume.
The contrast illustrates both the opportunity and the challenge. Stablecoin settlement is growing rapidly, but its current scale remains small relative to the established card networks.
For Visa and Mastercard, the strategic incentive is to position themselves before stablecoin payments become a much larger part of cross-border commerce. Acquiring infrastructure now could allow them to participate in that growth without waiting for the market to mature first.
- Mastercard Bought a Company That Had Served Multiple Networks
BVNK’s acquisition is particularly significant because the company had operated as an independent infrastructure provider serving the broader stablecoin ecosystem.
Its investors included Coinbase Ventures, which participated in its Series B round at the end of 2024, as well as Visa Ventures and Citi Ventures, which invested separately in 2025. Reports also indicated that BVNK supported multiple card networks, including Visa’s stablecoin settlement business.
That made BVNK valuable beyond a single corporate ecosystem. Its infrastructure could serve different financial institutions and payment providers without being owned by any one of them.
Mastercard’s acquisition changes that relationship.
The deal does not automatically mean that Mastercard will discontinue services to other networks or that Visa will lose access to every BVNK capability it previously used. Those outcomes depend on the acquisition’s commercial arrangements and Mastercard’s subsequent strategy.
Nevertheless, ownership creates a new strategic dynamic. Mastercard now has greater control over a company whose infrastructure may be relevant to competitors as well as its own network.
This is where the transaction becomes more than a conventional technology acquisition. It potentially changes the competitive position of the entire stablecoin settlement ecosystem.
Coinbase tried to buy BVNK first
Mastercard was not the only company interested in BVNK.
Coinbase had previously pursued an acquisition. In October 2025, the two companies reportedly entered an exclusivity agreement for a transaction valued at approximately $2 billion. Negotiations ended on November 11, during due diligence, without either party publicly explaining why.
Mastercard was also reported to be among the potential buyers at the time and ultimately completed its acquisition in 2026.
The sequence illustrates how sought-after established stablecoin infrastructure has become. Companies that already operate major financial networks, exchanges, or stablecoin products are competing for businesses that can shorten their path into payments.
Visa looks for alternatives
According to CoinDesk, citing a tender document it had reviewed, Visa was seeking settlement and OTC partners with coverage in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Singapore.
The reported requirements included relevant crypto-exchange licenses and support for settlement involving multiple stablecoins and Open USD.
The number of independent providers capable of meeting such requirements across multiple jurisdictions may be limited. However, a definitive assessment would require a clearer picture of Visa’s eligibility criteria and the providers considered in the tender.
The timing nevertheless raises an important question: as infrastructure providers are acquired by larger financial companies, will independent networks still have access to a sufficiently broad and competitive pool of settlement partners?
The answer will depend on how acquirers manage their newly acquired businesses, whether alternative providers can scale, and whether banks and payment networks continue to support interoperable infrastructure.
- Three Buyers, Three Different Strategies
Although Stripe, Mastercard, and Circle are all investing in stablecoin infrastructure, their strategic objectives differ.
Stripe: Building a broader money-movement platform
Stripe’s interest in crypto payments predates the current stablecoin boom.
The company began supporting Bitcoin payments in 2014 but announced in January 2018 that it would discontinue support effective April 23. It cited slow confirmation times, high and volatile transaction fees, and declining merchant demand.
For fiat-denominated purchases, Bitcoin’s price volatility also created a practical problem: the value of a transaction could change between the time a customer initiated payment and the time the merchant received confirmation.
Stablecoins offer a different proposition. Dollar-pegged tokens are designed to maintain a stable value relative to the dollar, avoiding the direct price-volatility problem associated with Bitcoin payments, although they introduce their own issuer, reserve, regulatory, and operational risks.
Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge gives it infrastructure for stablecoin issuance and money movement. The company has also integrated Privy for wallet infrastructure and developed Tempo, its own blockchain network, which launched mainnet in March 2026.
Bridge’s support for custom stablecoin issuance also gives Stripe greater flexibility in designing payment and settlement products rather than relying exclusively on a single token or provider.
Stripe’s strategy is therefore broader than accepting stablecoins at checkout. It is building a financial infrastructure stack that can support accounts, wallets, issuance, and the movement of money across traditional and blockchain-based systems.
Mastercard: Bringing stablecoin settlement into its network
Mastercard’s objective is more closely tied to its existing position in payments.
The BVNK acquisition provides infrastructure that could help banks, payment institutions, and businesses move between stablecoins and conventional currencies, including settlement outside traditional banking hours.
The strategic advantage is not simply the ability to transfer tokens. It is the possibility of integrating stablecoin settlement into services already used by financial institutions and merchants.
Mastercard can potentially combine its existing relationships, compliance capabilities, and distribution with BVNK’s stablecoin infrastructure.
That does not mean every Mastercard transaction will move on-chain. Instead, stablecoin rails become another potential settlement option within a broader payments network.
Circle: Moving closer to the recipient
Circle’s acquisition of Tazapay represents a different approach.
As the issuer of USDC, Circle already occupies an important position in the stablecoin ecosystem. But issuing a digital dollar is not the same as controlling how businesses receive and use that dollar.
Tazapay adds cross-border payment infrastructure, local payout capabilities, and banking relationships across numerous markets.
That gives Circle a way to move further downstream—from issuing a stablecoin to participating more directly in the process of collecting funds, converting currencies, and delivering money to recipients.
The distinction is commercially important. A stablecoin issuer may generate revenue from reserves and related services, but payment infrastructure can create additional opportunities through transaction fees, conversion services, and business relationships.
Taken together, the three deals reflect different entry points into the same market: Stripe is building a broader money-movement platform, Mastercard is extending its settlement network, and Circle is moving closer to the end-to-end delivery of payments.
- Is Stablecoin Infrastructure Becoming a Two-Player Market?
The consolidation of payment infrastructure is taking place alongside a stablecoin market dominated by a small number of large issuers.
ARK Invest analyst Lorenzo Valente has examined the distribution of stablecoin market capitalization. His analysis indicates that the number of stablecoins valued above $1 billion has grown from single digits in 2021 to approximately 12, while the number exceeding $10 billion remains below its 2022 peak. Tether and Circle dominate the highest capitalization tier.
Valente argues that stablecoins benefit from network effects. Larger tokens can attract more exchanges, liquidity providers, payment integrations, and users, making it harder for smaller competitors to achieve comparable scale.
He has suggested that only two players may compete at the $100 billion market-capitalization level for an extended period, with perhaps one reaching $500 billion over the following two or more years.
These are forecasts rather than established outcomes, but they highlight a broader competitive dynamic: liquidity and distribution can reinforce one another.
The same logic applies to payment infrastructure, although stablecoin issuance and payment processing are distinct markets. A dominant stablecoin does not automatically imply a dominant payment network, and a large payment network does not necessarily control the stablecoins used across it.
Still, the acquisition of Bridge, BVNK, and Tazapay suggests that major players increasingly view the infrastructure surrounding stablecoins as a strategic asset.
Lazarow expects further acquisitions of local infrastructure providers across different regions. If that pattern continues, the industry could see more consolidation among the businesses connecting blockchain-based assets to domestic banking and payment systems.
The potential consequence is a market in which a small number of large companies control important gateways between on-chain liquidity and real-world commerce.
- The Next Battle Is Over Access
The three acquisitions were announced against a backdrop in which measured stablecoin payment volume was still in the hundreds of billions of dollars, rather than the tens of trillions suggested by raw blockchain transaction data.
Their eventual returns will depend on several variables: whether actual payment volume continues to grow, how much revenue providers can earn from each transaction, whether businesses adopt stablecoins for recurring commercial payments, and whether customers are willing to switch from established payment arrangements.
They will also depend on competition.
The infrastructure acquired by Mastercard, Stripe, and Circle may create valuable advantages, but ownership alone does not guarantee that those advantages will translate into lasting market power. New providers can emerge, existing payment companies can build competing services, and businesses may demand interoperability rather than dependence on a single network.
The more consequential issue is access.
A stablecoin transaction can settle on-chain in minutes, yet converting that value into local currency and delivering it to a recipient still depends on banks, payment rails, liquidity providers, and compliance systems. BVNK, Bridge, and Tazapay help connect these different layers.
As these providers are absorbed into larger financial groups, the number of independently operated infrastructure companies may shrink. That could accelerate adoption by giving stablecoins access to established distribution networks. It could also raise questions about pricing, interoperability, and whether competing payment networks can obtain equivalent access to critical services.
Mastercard’s acquisition of BVNK is therefore more than a bet on stablecoin growth. It is a strategic move to secure infrastructure that could become increasingly important to the future of global payments.
Visa’s search for additional settlement partners suggests that the competitive response is already taking shape, although the outcome of its reported tender remains unknown.
If the companies connecting stablecoins to local banking systems continue to be acquired by the world’s largest financial networks, will businesses gain a faster way to move money—or become increasingly dependent on a smaller number of gatekeepers?