This account does not add up using financial logic, as it is a struggle for the "Strait of Hormuz" of the next generation global payment system.

Written by: Farmer Frank

In March 2026, Mastercard announced its intention to acquire stablecoin payment company BVNK for up to $1.8 billion, with the transaction expected to be completed by the end of the year.

If we only look at the financial data, this deal is not cheap. BVNK processed $30 billion in stablecoin payments in 2025, but its annual revenue was only $40 million. From this perspective, the valuation is evidently hard to explain using traditional revenue multiples.

Mastercard is clearly not chasing after BVNK's current profits.

What it is buying is BVNK's position in the new generation payment network. As stablecoins begin to transition from trading tools within the cryptocurrency market to real-world cross-border transactions, corporate settlements, and global fund allocation systems, what becomes truly scarce is not just "who can issue a new stablecoin," but "who can truly connect fiat accounts, payment institutions, merchant needs, and on-chain settlement paths."

Whoever controls this connective bridge has a better chance of gaining advanced control of the global payment system's "Strait of Hormuz" during the migration from the old payment network to the new.

1. Why BVNK, and why now?

To understand the significance of this acquisition, one must first clarify what BVNK is actually doing.

Strictly speaking, BVNK is not a typical cryptocurrency company; its core asset lies not in issuing stablecoins or providing certain cryptocurrency products to retail investors, but in embedding on-chain settlement capabilities into real commercial payment networks.

In other words, it acts more like a bridge, one end connected to the fiat payment world and the other connected to the on-chain stablecoin system.

This also determines that its clients are financial technology companies, payment service providers (PSPs), and cross-border payment enterprises such as Worldpay, Deel, and Flywire, which already have substantial real global payment needs and require faster, lower-cost fund circulation but often lack the capability to directly interface with on-chain stablecoin infrastructure—be it wallet systems, on-chain routing, receiving and sending stablecoins, or the conversion processes, compliance risks, and system integration, all of which are not parts that most enterprises are willing to build and maintain themselves.

What BVNK does is encapsulate this layer of complexity, providing a comprehensive set of solutions revolving around stablecoin payments and embedding these capabilities into existing corporate payment processes, meaning it sells the ability for enterprises to use stablecoin infrastructure.

Source: BVNK

And this is precisely what Mastercard desires most.

Many people talk about stablecoin payments but tend to focus on superficial advantages such as "faster" and "cheaper," but for Mastercard, Visa, banks, and cross-border payment networks, the real challenge posed by stablecoins is not simply the emergence of "a faster, cheaper payment method" but the beginning of a potential migration of the payment network itself.

In the past, much of the global cross-border payment flow operated through agency banking networks, essentially formed by layers of bank account relationships, clearing channels, and local financial institutions, which had the advantage of being mature and widely covered. However, the issues were that the paths were long, there were many nodes, transfers were slow, and costs were high, especially since each layer in the cross-border link tended to extract its own profits.

For traditional banks and payment institutions, this "slow and expensive" nature was actually the source of profits, as long as the link was complex enough, cross-border payments would naturally generate fees, foreign exchange spreads, position occupancy costs, clearing service fees, and a series of additional revenues related to enterprise fund management.

In other words, what traditional cross-border payment systems earn is not just the "money for transfers," but the entire authority of fund organization surrounding the transfer, which is where this competition becomes truly sensitive. Once stablecoins start entering real commercial payment scenarios, the most core value segments of this old system will face a reshuffle:

Originally tightly held positions by banks, card organizations, and traditional payment networks need to reconsider who will connect merchants to funds, who will organize cross-border clearing, who will control the payment entrance and liquidity exit?

From this perspective, the impact of stablecoins on card organizations is actually fatal. After all, Mastercard's business model is indeed built on its control over the connections between global merchants and card issuing systems, and holds key nodes that cannot be easily bypassed in cross-regional, cross-currency, and cross-institution payment flows.

Therefore, by acquiring BVNK, Mastercard is effectively acquiring a "bridge" connecting the old world with the new tracks—not for immediate profits but to control that crucial "Strait of Hormuz" ahead of time before stablecoin payments become mainstream, thoroughly eliminating the possibility of "bypassing card organizations."

This is also why Mastercard admitted during its investor conference call that building similar blockchain financial capabilities in-house requires "a considerable amount of time."

In other words, buying is faster than building.

Source: BVNK Blog

Ultimately, if this deal is evaluated solely through the lens of revenue multiples, profit margins, maturity, and other traditional acquisition perspectives, BVNK is unlikely to justify such a price. However, if it is understood as a strategic move to gain an early foothold in the future payment landscape, everything becomes self-evident.

BVNK also clearly stated in its latest official blog that future collaboration directions include BVNK providing stablecoin capabilities for Mastercard's payment endpoints, enabling 24-hour stablecoin settlement for merchants and acquiring institutions, and integrating stablecoin checkout capabilities into Mastercard's payment gateway, explicitly stating that these synergies are expected to generate billions of dollars in new revenue.

2. The "Clearing and Network Control" Competition Among Payment Giants

Interestingly, Mastercard is not the first to participate in this land grab; in fact, it can be said to be the last to take action.

Before this acquisition was finalized, in early October 2025, Coinbase had first engaged in acquisition talks with BVNK, with the transaction range pegged between $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion. Based on multiple sources, Coinbase at one point held an advantage in this bidding war, even signing an exclusivity agreement with BVNK.

However, the two parties ultimately announced a breakdown in negotiations that month, leaving room for Mastercard's subsequent successful entry.

Source: Fortune

An interesting comparison is that in October 2024, global payment giant Stripe acquired stablecoin API service provider Bridge for $1.1 billion, then the largest acquisition in the cryptocurrency space; now, a year and a half later, Mastercard is paying $700 million more than Stripe, setting a new record.

At the same time, earlier this month, Visa expanded its cooperation with Bridge, planning to promote stablecoin-related cards to over 100 countries.

Both are card organizations giants, both are acquiring stablecoin payment service providers. When viewed on the same map, it becomes apparent that from Strip to Mastercard's acquisition, and Visa and PayPal's earlier launch of PYUSD years ago, this is no longer an isolated bet by a single company but a simultaneous strategic positioning effort across the entire payment industry:

The impact of stablecoins is not just on payment experience but on the deeper profit and power structures within the traditional financial system, hence global payment giants must actively attempt to connect on-chain accounts, stablecoin assets, and merchant payment endpoints, bypassing or avoiding others from circumventing traditional payment chains involving card issuers and card organizations.

This is also why companies like Bridge and BVNK have suddenly become scarce; their true value lies at a critical intersection, connecting on-chain accounts and stablecoin assets on one side and merchants, enterprises, payment service providers, and fiat settlement networks on the other.

In other words, the industry has already moved beyond the initial stage of "who issues stablecoins" and has entered the latter stage of "who can truly organize stablecoins into a functioning network."

At the same time, the value of this "stablecoin network" may further amplify in the AI era.

A long-underestimated trend is that the entities initiating payments in the future may not always be humans but increasingly could come from Agents, robots, and automated systems. Traditional card organizations are best at organizing payments around human consumption, acquiring, issuing cards, and managing credit card account systems. However, against the backdrop of the growing prevalence of AI Agents, the demand for small, high-frequency, automated settlements between machines may not inherently fit the card network structures designed for the consumer financial era.

In comparison, on-chain payments and stablecoin infrastructures align better with these new demands because stablecoins can naturally achieve 24/7 operations, are programmable, support high-frequency micropayments, have unified global settlements, and do not require complex intermediaries' authorization. In other words, the competition for stablecoins may not just be about the existing part of the cross-border payment pie but more likely about a larger incremental payment market in the future.

Traditional giants are also doubling down on this emerging field, for instance Visa Crypto Labs has launched its first experimental product, Visa CLI, allowing AI agents to safely pay for the necessary fees while writing code, without the need for API key-based programmatic card payments.

Source: 𝕏

In the end, stablecoin payments are not just a partial patch for the old system but an attempt to redraw the map of the next generation global payment network.

Following this logic, what is worth continuous observation in the future may not just be those single-point business roles that resemble "stablecoin issuers," but those standing at the intersection of transaction, compliance, institutional liquidity, and payment network extension, having a greater opportunity to grow into platform-type nodes in the era of stablecoins. They may not be the hottest in the short term, yet they often come closer to the core of long-term competition.

Behind this judgment, a larger reality is taking shape.

3. The Same Map, Two Solutions and New Ideas Beyond the Solutions

Objectively speaking, Mastercard's acquisition of BVNK also fills a layer of understanding for the entire market: the value of stablecoins lies not only at the issuance end but also at the connection end; not only in compliance identity but also in liquidity and payment network organizational ability.

This is also the fundamental reason why giants like Stripe and Mastercard continue to carry out acquisitions; what they genuinely want to buy is not just a certain stablecoin technology capability but the potential to further build networks around this capability. After all, only when on-chain accounts, stablecoin liquidity, merchant scenarios, fiat settlement, and regulatory adaptations truly come together will stablecoin payments transform from a "new tool" into a "new network."

However, one thing worth noting is that the path of giants like Mastercard and Stripe, essentially starts from traditional finance to switch tracks, acquiring on-chain capabilities and then leveraging existing distribution networks to drive the scale of stablecoins. Although this path is clear, it requires breaking out from a heavy historical burden and redefining their relationship with the on-chain.

This also means that, in addition to migrating from the old world actively towards stablecoins, there exists another solution, with the same direction but different starting points.

Yes, that includes those compliance platforms that have grown in the native soil of on-chain from the very beginning, spreading "from stablecoins to TradFi." They do not need to "switch tracks" because they are already on the track.

Taking Hong Kong, one of the regions with the fastest advancement in global cryptocurrency regulation, as an example, several licensed compliance platforms like OSL and HashKey have emerged over the past few years. Compared with traditional payment platforms that treat stablecoins as a new service to integrate, these native compliance platforms emerging from digital assets and on-chain liquidity systems are inherently closer to several truly important links in the stablecoin era: transaction, custody, liquidity, compliance access, and the ability to extend into payment scenarios.

As the regulatory rhythm for stablecoins in Hong Kong continues to advance, licensed platforms have also begun to put these potential capabilities into practice. For instance, OSL has explicitly transformed towards stablecoin payment and settlement infrastructure; in January of this year, it completed the acquisition of global Web3 payment service provider Banxa, and in February launched a corporate-grade US dollar stablecoin USDGO that complies with US federal regulations and can be compliantly distributed in Hong Kong, focusing on cross-border e-commerce, bulk trade, and interactive entertainment scenarios.

This represents a typical route combining "TradFi + Digital Finance," where enterprises use USDGO for cross-border settlement, and when complemented by OSL BizPay's one-stop stablecoin payment and settlement capabilities, it can facilitate free exchange and circulation between fiat and stablecoins, along with its licensing and compliance network for multi-market deployment. The entire chain could accomplish fiat entry, on-chain stablecoin settlement, account management and fund aggregation, treasury optimizations, and fiat exit without relying on the traditional SWIFT system while also meeting compliance, regulatory, and auditing traceability requirements.

This presents an interesting contrast to Stripe's acquisition of Bridge and Mastercard's acquisition of BVNK: both aim towards the destination of "on-chain accounts + stablecoins + global payment networks," yet one path starts from an existing ecosystem and actively shifts tracks, while the other path already has the track that naturally amplifies as more traffic, scenarios, and regulatory conditions mature.

Both approaches have their own logic and time windows.

Source: OSL

Therefore, it is particularly intriguing that with Mastercard's acquisition of BVNK nearly simultaneously, the results for the first round of stablecoin issuer license approvals in Hong Kong are about to be unveiled.

Because the long-term value of stablecoins to the global financial system ultimately depends on how many real operating networks can make funds flow faster, cheaper, and more reliably, allowing enterprises and individuals to truly use it.

Thus, the next phase that is truly worth observing may be which players can further convert "entry" into "traffic," turn "traffic" into "networks," and then transform "networks" into the new global payment infrastructure.

In Conclusion

Ultimately, what Mastercard spent $1.8 billion on is not a business, but a position.

Placing this judgment within a larger coordinate system sheds light on the fact that the global payment network is irreversibly moving towards stablecoins. Although the pace may vary, and the paths may differ, the final competition is ultimately centered around the same issue:

Who can truly connect on-chain accounts, liquidity, payment scenarios, and compliance frameworks into a cohesive network?

And this is precisely the question worth continuously pursuing in the next phase, especially as stablecoins transition from being mere dollar substitutes on-chain to beginning to infiltrate the traditional financial system in reverse.

The real change may just be beginning.

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