Stripe acquires stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1 billion

Payments elephantine Stripe has acquired stablecoin level Bridge for a full magnitude of $1.1 billion, much than 5x its $200 cardinal valuation, according to an Oct. 21 annnouncement.

The acquisition is portion of Stripe’s program to participate the stablecoin market. The announcement said the firms volition absorption connected increasing the adoption of stablecoins to marque wealth easier to move, store, and walk globally.

Forbes archetypal reported rumors of the woody connected Oct. 17. Michael Arrington, laminitis of TechCrunch and task superior fund Arrington Capital, aboriginal corroborated the reports and revealed that the woody was closed connected October 20.

On Aug. 29, Bridge received $58 cardinal successful a backstage fundraising circular with the information of Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, Index Ventures, and Haun Ventures, according to data from DefiLlama.

Bridge offers infrastructure to contented and determination tokenized wealth connected antithetic blockchains. The level has besides supported authorities initiatives and counts SpaceX, Coinbase, and Stellar among its clients.

The stablecoin level noted successful its announcement that Stripe shares its presumption that stablecoins tin person a profound interaction globally and added:

“Stablecoins lick captious fiscal problems by making wealth easier to move, much economical to hold, and cheaper to send. This isn’t astir ‘crypto’—it’s astir solving real-world problems successful a globalized economy.”

Meanwhile, Stripe processed implicit $1 trillion successful full outgo measurement successful 2023, increasing by 25% successful 1 year. Additionally, Stripe is the 2nd largest outgo processing technology, with a 17% marketplace share, according to Statista’s data.

Nic Carter, spouse astatine Castle Island Ventures and co-founder of Coinmetrics, commented that the Bridge acquisition by Stripe volition “turbocharge” the stablecoin space. He added that generalist task superior funds that discontinue crypto volition pivot backmost to the market.

Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, agreed with Carter’s remarks:

“Let’s bash this!”

Stablecoins gaining the mainstream

The acquisition comes astatine a pivotal clip for stablecoins, which person gained steam successful caller months.

According to a16z’s report “State of Crypto 2024,” stablecoins amounted to $8.5 trillion successful transaction measurement successful the 2nd quarter, and they correspond 32% of each crypto usage activity.

Moreover, the study highlighted that this is much than treble Visa’s $3.9 trillion registered successful the aforesaid period.

Despite being fashionable successful crypto, stablecoins started penetrating mainstream finance. Revolut is rumored to motorboat its stablecoin and Visa announced a level to assistance banks contented their fiat-backed tokens.

Furthermore, Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank revealed it embraced the usage of stablecoins to process cross-border payments.

The station Stripe acquires stablecoin level Bridge for $1.1 billion appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.