Payments giant Stripe has completed its acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge following a deal valued at more than $1 billion.
Without revealing any details, TechCrunch co-founder Michael Arrington confirmed the acquisition via an October 20 X post, noting that the acquisition cost Stripe $1.1 billion.
As of press time, the companies have yet to make an official statement regarding the purchase.
Last week, crypto.news reported that the companies were in the final stages of negotiation, but no decision had been made. Neither Stripe nor Bridge had confirmed the development at the time.
Founded in 2022 by former Coibase executives Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, Bridge makes it easy to create, transfer, and store stablecoins. The acquisition follows a $40 million financing round in August led by Sequoia, Ribbit and Index.
Meanwhile, for Stripe, the investment aligns with its plans to expand its services in the crypto sector. The multinational payment processor initially introduced Bitcoin payments in 2014, but disrupted the offer four years later citing underutilization.
Fast forward to 2024, company president John Collison announced its re-entry into the cryptocurrency sector with stablecoin payments, highlighting an increase in demand for blockchain-based alternatives due to better transaction speeds and cheaper costs.
Stablecoins are digital currencies pegged to stable assets, often the US dollar or other fiat currencies, to avoid the volatility seen in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Their value remains stable, making them suitable for day-to-day transactions.
On October 15, Stripe began to accept Circle’s USDC stablecoin in partnership with Paxos, under its Pay with Crypto option.” Following the partnership, merchants in 70 countries were able to initiate payments with fiat-settled stablecoins.
Previously, Stripe had committed to the cryptocurrency sector through several initiatives, such as the introduction of payments for creators in X through USDC, and the launch from fiat to crypto access service in 2022.
Demand for stablecoins is increasing
The recent acquisition coincides with a increase in the use of stablecoinswhich reached an all-time high market capitalization of almost $170 billion in the third quarter of 2024. This market has the potential to reach 3 trillion dollars by 2030according to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse.
Recently, many traditional financial platforms have ventured into the competitive stablecoin market. For example, in early October, global payments network Visa launched a platform that allows banks to issue fiat-backed stablecoins after it observed that stablecoin transaction volumes were approaching levels close to those seen in traditional payment networks.
Last year, PayPal ventured into the stablecoin market with the launch of PayPal USD (PYUSD) on Ethereum to enable lower-cost transfers without a central intermediary. Since then, the stablecoin has expanded to Solana and has a market capitalization of more than $627 million by Coingecko data.
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