Editor's Note: As regulatory winds turn favorable and infrastructure matures, stablecoins are quietly becoming a core component of the next generation of payment networks. This article focuses on the latest strategic layout of payment giant Stripe—from restarting crypto payments, acquiring Bridge and Privy, to building a "full stack" stablecoin that encompasses front-end wallets and back-end clearing. This is not just a technological iteration, but a collective bet by Stripe on the future of programmable money. It sends an important signal: the proliferation of stablecoins may not originate from crypto-native sources, but rather be driven first by traditional tech giants like Stripe.
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Stripe is steadily building an unmatched stablecoin infrastructure.
The payment giant has just announced the acquisition of popular wallet infrastructure provider Privy, marking another significant move in its return to the crypto space—the driving force behind this is the explosive growth potential of stablecoins.
If you are not familiar with Stripe, it is a payment platform serving half of the Fortune 100 companies and 78% of the projects on the Forbes AI 50 list. Last year, Stripe processed a total payment volume of $1.4 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 38%. In contrast, Stripe's revenue growth rate is seven times that of S&P 500 component companies, indicating its strong coverage in mainstream business sectors. In other words, it is the "ideal player" we hope can drive the adoption of stablecoins.
The acquisition of Privy closely follows the high-profile acquisition of Bridge—Stripe's largest acquisition to date. These two transactions clearly send a signal: Stripe is seeking to control the entire technology stack of "stablecoin-native payments" and "programmable money."
Next, let's take a look at what chips Stripe holds.
What does Privy bring to Stripe?
Privy provides a set of tools to smooth out the "rough edges" of the crypto world, especially in wallet user experience.
Developers can embed crypto wallets directly into their applications using Privy's software development kit (SDK), allowing users to quickly create wallets using familiar methods like email or social accounts, significantly lowering the barrier to entry for crypto products.
According to the acquisition announcement, Privy currently serves over 1,000 teams with a total of 75 million accounts and has processed billions of dollars in transaction volume. Its client list includes core players in the crypto space such as Hyperliquid and Farcaster.
For Stripe, Privy is a natural complement to its previous acquisition of Bridge. Privy packages the originally complex wallet infrastructure into "plug-and-play" Stripe-style components, working together with Bridge's stablecoin solutions to build a complete stablecoin payment toolchain.
In other words, Stripe can now provide services across the entire crypto stack—front-end wallet tools through Privy and back-end stablecoin clearing and transfers supported by Bridge.
Bridge: The Backend Engine for Stablecoins
Bridge is a project acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion in February this year, offering three core services that developers can access with just a few lines of code:
Transaction orchestration: Helps businesses achieve stablecoin transfers, custody, and collections, with Bridge responsible for compliance and regulatory requirements.
Stablecoin issuance: Businesses can issue their own stablecoins through Bridge, with reserves invested in U.S. Treasury bonds, allowing interest income to be shared with the issuer.
Cross-border transfers: Supports account opening in USD and EUR and global fund flows.
Bridge has already demonstrated strong application value in the real world: Starlink (through its parent company SpaceX) uses Bridge to reliably remit its earnings from Argentina back to the U.S. in dollars; Nigerian users pay for YouTube Premium and ChatGPT subscriptions through Bridge; and U.S. small and medium-sized enterprises use Bridge to accept global stablecoin payments without facing the complexities of traditional international banking systems.
Since being acquired by Stripe, Bridge has expanded rapidly. Currently, its "stablecoin financial accounts" cover 101 countries, allowing businesses to hold USDC and USDB (Bridge's own stablecoin) balances in their accounts and supporting collections through traditional banks and crypto networks.
Additionally, Bridge recently partnered with Visa to launch the world's first stablecoin credit card issuance product. With this solution, fintech and crypto companies like Ramp, Squads, and Airtm have begun issuing Visa cards directly connected to stablecoin wallets, allowing users to spend stablecoin balances directly at over 150 million merchants worldwide that support Visa.
Full-Stack Bet: Stripe's Path to Stablecoins
Stripe's connection to crypto spans over a decade, marked by multiple attempts and withdrawals. As early as 2014, Stripe launched Bitcoin payment functionality but discontinued support in 2018 due to high price volatility. In 2019, Stripe joined Facebook's Libra project (which later evolved into Sui and Aptos) but ultimately chose to exit.
The reasons for each withdrawal were consistent: price instability, immature infrastructure, and unclear regulations. However, the recent shift in the U.S. government's attitude towards crypto assets (especially stablecoins) has changed this landscape. Stablecoins, which are dollar-pegged, programmable, and highly liquid, possess the stability of fiat currency while offering the flexibility of cryptocurrencies, and are increasingly gaining support from the U.S. regulatory framework.
Stripe's recent product expansion reflects its confidence in this trend. In 2024, Stripe reopened crypto payments after a six-year hiatus, supporting USDC transactions through the Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon networks. Its partnership with Coinbase also enables support for crypto payments on the Base network, allowing direct conversion between fiat and crypto assets within the Coinbase Wallet.
Now, with Privy handling wallet infrastructure and Bridge providing stablecoin back-end services, Stripe has achieved comprehensive control over the "programmable money" technology stack. In the past, the proliferation of stablecoins was often limited by infrastructure gaps—businesses struggled to onboard users for crypto payments, while users hesitated due to complex wallet experiences.
Now, these barriers are being systematically eliminated by Stripe. For stablecoins, this may represent the true "tipping point."
Stripe's influence extends far beyond the crypto sphere; it deeply serves mainstream businesses, e-commerce platforms, and enterprise software ecosystems. By simplifying the integration of stablecoins to "add a new payment method," Stripe has the potential to significantly accelerate their adoption in a market where crypto remains niche.
Ultimately, Stripe is not just "buying infrastructure"; it is actively building a "programmable money underlying network" that can accommodate fiat, cryptocurrencies, and AI applications. After years of cautious experimentation, Stripe's genuine full-stack investment is expected to accelerate the transition of stablecoins from crypto-native to the global mainstream financial system.
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