Editors note: As the regulatory wind turns warmer and the infrastructure gradually matures, stablecoins are quietly becoming the core component of the next-generation payment network. 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 of stablecoins covering front-end wallets and back-end clearing. This is not just a technological iteration, but Stripes collective bet on the future of programmable currency. It sends an important signal: the popularity of stablecoins may not come from crypto-native, but will be driven by traditional technology giants such as Stripe.
The following is the original content:
Stripe is steadily building an unrivaled stablecoin infrastructure.
The payments giant has just announced the acquisition of hot wallet infrastructure provider Privy, another major move back into the crypto space - driven by the potential for explosive growth in stablecoins.
If you don’t know Stripe, it’s a payment platform that serves half of the Fortune 100 and 78% of the projects on the Forbes AI 50 list. Last year, Stripe processed a total of $1.4 trillion in payments, a year-on-year increase of 38%. In contrast, Stripe’s revenue growth rate is seven times that of the SP 500, which means that its coverage in the mainstream business field is very strong. In other words, it is exactly the “ideal player” we hope to promote the use of stablecoins.
The acquisition of Privy follows the much-anticipated acquisition of Bridge, Stripe’s largest acquisition ever. These two transactions clearly signal that Stripe is seeking to control the full 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 the wallet experience.
Developers can embed crypto wallets directly into their own applications through Privys software development kit (SDK), and users can quickly create wallets using familiar methods such as email or social accounts, greatly reducing the threshold for using crypto products.
According to the acquisition announcement, Privy has provided services to more than 1,000 teams and 75 million accounts, and has processed billions of dollars in transactions. Its customer list includes core players in the crypto space such as Hyperliquid and Farcaster.
For Stripe, Privy is a natural complement to its previous acquisition Bridge. Privy packages the originally complex wallet infrastructure into a plug-and-play Stripe-style component, and together with the stablecoin solution provided by Bridge, it builds a complete stablecoin payment tool chain.
In other words, Stripe can now provide services across the entire crypto stack - the front end provides wallet tools through Privy, and the back end supports stablecoin clearing and transfers through Bridge.
Bridge: The backend engine for stablecoins
Bridge is a project acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion in February this year. It provides three core services that developers can access with just a few lines of code:
Transaction orchestration: Helps enterprises realize the transfer, custody and collection of stablecoins, with Bridge responsible for compliance and regulatory requirements.
Stablecoin issuance: Companies can issue their own stablecoins through Bridge, with their reserves invested in U.S. Treasuries and interest income shared with the issuer.
Cross-border transfers: Supports opening of USD and EUR accounts and global fund transfers.
Bridge has demonstrated strong application value in the real world: Starlink (through its parent company SpaceX) uses Bridge to steadily remit its revenue in Argentina back to the United States in US dollars; Nigerian users pay YouTube Premium and ChatGPT subscription fees through Bridge; and small and medium-sized enterprises in the United States also use Bridge to accept global stablecoin payments without having to deal with the complexity of the traditional international banking system.
Since being acquired by Stripe, Bridge has expanded rapidly. Currently, its stablecoin financial accounts have covered 101 countries. Enterprises can hold USDC and USDB (Bridges own stablecoin) balances in their accounts and support payment through traditional banks and encrypted networks.
In addition, Bridge recently partnered with Visa to launch the world’s first stablecoin credit card issuance product. With this solution, fintech and crypto companies such as Ramp, Squads, and Airtm have begun issuing Visa cards that are directly connected to stablecoin wallets, allowing users to directly spend stablecoin balances at more than 150 million Visa-supported merchants worldwide.
Full stack bet: Stripes road to stablecoins
Stripes relationship with cryptocurrencies spans a decade, and it has gone through multiple trials and withdrawals. As early as 2014, Stripe launched the Bitcoin payment function, but due to high price volatility, it terminated support in 2018. In 2019, Stripe joined Facebooks Libra project (later derived Sui and Aptos), but eventually chose to withdraw.
The reasons for each withdrawal are the same: unstable prices, immature infrastructure, and unclear regulation. However, the current change in the US governments attitude towards crypto assets (especially stablecoins) has changed this situation. Stablecoins that are anchored to the US dollar, programmable, and highly liquid have both the stability of legal currency and the flexibility of cryptocurrency, and are increasingly supported by the US regulatory system.
Stripes recent product expansion reflects its confidence in this trend. In 2024, Stripe reopened crypto payments after a six-year pause, supporting the receipt of USDC through Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon networks. Its cooperation with Coinbase also enables it to support crypto payments on the Base network and can directly complete the exchange channel between fiat currency and crypto assets in Coinbase Wallet.
Today, with Privy responsible for wallet infrastructure and Bridge providing stablecoin backend services, Stripe has achieved full control over the front-end and back-end of the programmable currency technology stack. In the past, the popularity of stablecoins was often limited by infrastructure gaps - companies wanted to access encrypted payments but found it difficult to guide users to get started, and users wanted to use them but were discouraged by the complicated wallet experience.
Now, these obstacles are being eliminated one by one by Stripe. For stablecoins, this may be the real tipping point.
Stripes influence goes far beyond the crypto world. It deeply serves mainstream businesses, e-commerce platforms, and enterprise software ecosystems. By simplifying the integration of stablecoins to adding a new payment method, Stripe has the potential to significantly accelerate its adoption in a market where crypto is still a niche.
Ultimately, Stripe is not just buying infrastructure, it is building a programmable currency underlying network that is compatible with fiat currency, cryptocurrency and AI applications. After years of conservative testing, Stripes true full-stack investment is expected to accelerate the transformation of stablecoins from crypto-native to the global mainstream financial system.
