Stablecoins, cryptocurrencies pegged 1:1 to the value of fiat-currency like the dollar, have emerged as one of the most effective ways to settle international payments using blockchain, prompting large companies like Visa and PayPal to integrate them into their services. The latest payment giant to advance stablecoin adoption is Stripe, which announced the acquisition of start-up Bridge on Monday.
The $1.1 billion acquisition was originally announced on Sunday by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington on X and later confirmed by both Stripe and Bridge. The deal is the largest crypto acquisition by a major payments company.
In his post confirming the acquisition, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison called stablecoins “room-temperature superconductors” — a hypothetical material that, if discovered, could revolutionize the way we generate energy— for financial services.
“Stablecoins represent an entirely new payments platform. Realizing the potential of this platform will be a decades-long journey,” Bridge said in a blog post. “And as we’ve gotten to know the Stripe team, it’s become clear that we both share a vision for what’s possible with stablecoins and an excitement around the opportunity to create and build this future.”
Owing to their ability to offer low fees and instant settlement, stablecoins have taken off over the past two years, reaching a market cap of $173 billion. Especially outside of the U.S, stablecoins like Tether and USDC which are backed by the U.S. dollar, have become widely popular. This growth tracks the demand for dollar-dominated stablecoins in areas of the world with currency volatility where people seek to preserve the value of their assets.
Despite their surging popularity, it is still a challenge to find efficient on and off ramps for companies who want to use stablecoins to move fiat currencies into the crypto ecosystem. Bridge seeks to solve this problem.
Co-founders Zach Abrams and Sean Yu are veterans of the fintech industry with experience from Square and Coinbase. Their company seeks to advance stablecoin infrastructure by aggregating a set of APIs— a set of rules or protocols that enable different software to communicate— to allow developers to incorporate stablecoin technology into their daily operations.
The company announced they had raised a total of $58 million from prominent venture capital firms including Sequoia, Ribbit, Index and Haun Ventures, in August. At the time, Bridge had processed over $5 billion in annualized payment volume.
Now, the startup will have the resources, reach and expertise of the $70 billion payments company Stripe.
“We built Bridge to solve our most vexing global financial challenges; to pull a more connected world forward; to give everyone more economic choice,” Abrams said on X. “We’re thrilled to be joining forces with Stripe to fully realize these ambitions.”
