Stripe reportedly acquires stablecoin platform Bridge in $1.1b deal

Payments giant Stripe has completed the acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge following a deal valued at over one billion dollars.

Without revealing any details, TechCrunch co-founder Michael Arrington confirmed the acquisition in an October 20 X post, stating that the acquisition cost Stripe $1.1 billion.

As of press time, the companies have not yet made an official statement about the acquisition.

Last week, crypto.news reported that the companies were in the final stages of negotiations but no decision had been made. Neither Stripe nor Bridge confirmed this development at the time.

Founded in 2022 by former Coibase executives Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, Bridge facilitates the creation, transfer and storage of stablecoins. The acquisition follows a $40 million funding round led by Sequoia, Ribbit and Index in August.

For Stripe, meanwhile, the investment is in line with its plans to expand its services in the crypto sector. The multinational payment processor first launched Bitcoin payments in 2014 but discontinued the offering four years later due to insufficient usage.

Fast forward to 2024, the company’s president, John Collison, announced that it is re-entering the crypto industry with stablecoin payments, emphasizing the increasing demand for blockchain-based alternatives due to better transaction speeds and cheaper costs.

Stablecoins are digital currencies that are typically pegged to stable assets such as the US dollar or other fiat currencies to avoid the volatility seen in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Their values ​​remain stable, making them suitable for daily transactions.

On October 15, Stripe began accepting Circle’s USDC stablecoin under its “Pay with Crypto” option in partnership with Paxos. Following the partnership, merchants in 70 countries were able to initiate fiat stablecoin payments.

Stripe has previously been involved in the cryptocurrency industry through various initiatives, such as paying creators on X via USDC and launching a fiat-to-crypto service in 2022.

Demand for stablecoins is increasing

The latest acquisition coincides with a surge in stablecoin usage, which has reached an all-time high market capitalization of approximately $170 billion in the third quarter of 2024. According to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, this market has the potential to reach $3 trillion by 2030.

Recently, many traditional financial platforms have attempted to enter the competitive stablecoin market. For example, in early October, global payments network Visa launched a platform that allows banks to issue fiat-backed stablecoins after observing that stablecoin transaction volumes were approaching levels seen on traditional payment networks.

Last year, PayPal entered the stablecoin market with the launch of PayPal USD (PYUSD) on Ethereum to enable lower-cost transfers without a central intermediary. The stablecoin has since expanded to Solana and has a market cap of over $627 million, per Coingecko data.