Stripe
Private: PrivateStripe didn't just add stablecoins to its checkout button. It bought the issuer, the wallet, and eventually built the blockchain underneath all of it.
Last verified: Jul 3, 2026
Who they are
Stripe is one of the largest private payments companies in the world, processing trillions of dollars a year for millions of online businesses. It’s also, arguably, the payments incumbent that has gone furthest into stablecoins — not through a single product, but through a deliberate, multi-year acquisition spree that assembled an entire vertically integrated stack, from issuing stablecoins to moving them to settling them on a blockchain Stripe itself built.
Co-founder and CEO Patrick Collison has framed the strategy plainly: existing blockchains weren’t designed for the transaction volume and reliability Stripe’s merchant base requires, so Stripe built one that was.
What they actually do
Own the stablecoin issuance layer, via Bridge. Stripe acquired Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure company, for roughly $1.1 billion — giving it the ability to issue and orchestrate stablecoins (including Bridge’s own USDB token) across multiple blockchains, plus stablecoin-linked card programs through a Visa partnership.
Own the wallet layer, via Privy. A separate acquisition brought in Privy, crypto wallet infrastructure already powering tens of millions of accounts — letting Stripe’s merchant customers onboard users into crypto without exposing them to seed phrases or other crypto-native friction.
Run its own settlement blockchain, Tempo. Built with venture firm Paradigm, Tempo is a payments-focused Layer-1 blockchain designed for extremely high throughput and near-instant finality, purpose-built for stablecoin transaction volume rather than adapted from a general-purpose chain. Design partners at launch included Visa, Shopify, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Let any merchant issue its own branded stablecoin. Through Bridge’s “Open Issuance” product, Stripe’s business customers — not just crypto-native ones — can launch their own stablecoins and capture the reserve yield themselves, a capability Klarna was among the first to use.
How they make money
Core payment-processing fees remain the overwhelming majority of Stripe’s business; the stablecoin stack is a strategic extension aimed at capturing lower-cost cross-border payment volume, plus new fee opportunities across issuance, wallets, and settlement infrastructure.
Where it sits in the value chain
The bigger trend it’s riding
Stripe is betting on two converging trends at once: stablecoins becoming default financial infrastructure for cross-border commerce, and AI agents becoming a genuine category of payer — machines that need a way to transact autonomously, at high frequency, with predictable low fees. Tempo’s design explicitly targets that second use case, and Stripe already counts OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity among its payments customers. The company is also a founding backer of Open USD, the industry-wide consortium stablecoin launched in mid-2026 alongside Visa, Mastercard, and dozens of other companies.
What to watch (not what to do)
What to watch (not what to do)
- Tempo adoption beyond design partners. A blockchain is only as valuable as the transaction volume actually settling on it. Watch whether Tempo attracts real usage beyond its initial partner list.
- Regulatory treatment of "Open Issuance." Letting any business issue its own stablecoin and capture reserve yield is a powerful feature — and also the kind of activity regulators tend to scrutinize closely as it scales.
- Competing consortium and single-issuer coins. Stripe's USDB, Circle's USDC, Tether's stablecoins, and now the multi-company Open USD are all vying for the same settlement volume. Watch how Stripe's own infrastructure choices (which coins, which chains) shift as that competition plays out.
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This page presents market data and educational analysis only. It does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation, or a solicitation to buy or sell any asset. Company figures, contracts, and plans are described as of mid-2026 and change frequently — verify current details before relying on them. Past performance does not guarantee future results.