CoinDesk
Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard are close to launching a joint stablecoin platform, according to three people familiar with the plans, with Coinbase also exploring participation. The move brings together the biggest names in global payments on a single stablecoin infrastructure play — a signal that the $325 billion stablecoin market is graduating from crypto-native rails to mainstream financial plumbing.
Why it matters
This isn't a speculative bet — each company has already committed capital to the space. Stripe paid $1.1 billion for stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge in late 2024. Mastercard acquired BVNK earlier this year and announced this week it plans to expand always-on stablecoin settlement. Visa has been quietly building stablecoin settlement capabilities for years. A shared platform would let all three leverage common infrastructure rather than build competing silos, dramatically accelerating merchant and bank adoption.
Coinbase's potential involvement adds another layer: the exchange already runs a white-label stablecoin service and holds a revenue-sharing agreement with Circle on USDC — a $76 billion market-cap token — that comes up for renewal in August 2025. Joining the platform could reshape how that deal is structured.
Market impact
The stablecoin market is currently dominated by Tether's USDT at $115 billion, but a Stripe-Visa-Mastercard-backed platform with Coinbase distribution would be the most credible institutional challenger to that dominance yet assembled. Watch USDC closely: if Coinbase joins and the platform defaults to Circle's infrastructure, USDC's post-August revenue split could look very different.
TheBlock