With the acquisition of Privy, Stripe wants to be a Jupiter in the stablecoin space

Compiler: Ismay, Rhythm BlockBeats

Editor's note: As regulatory winds warm and infrastructure matures, stablecoins are quietly becoming a core component of next-generation payment networks. This article focuses on the latest strategic layout of payments giant Stripe, from restarting crypto payments, acquiring Bridge and Privy, to building a stablecoin "full stack" that covers front-end wallets and back-end liquidation. This isn't just a technology iteration, it's Stripe's collective bet on the future of programmable money. It sends an important signal: the popularity of stablecoins may not come from crypto-native, but from traditional tech giants like Stripe.

Here's what it reads:

Stripe is steadily building an unrivaled stablecoin infrastructure.

The payments giant has just announced the acquisition of popular wallet infrastructure provider Privy, another major move in its return to crypto – driven by the explosive growth potential of stablecoins.

If you don't already know Stripe, it's a payments platform that serves half of the Fortune 100 and 78% of the projects on the Forbes AI 50 list. Last year, Stripe processed $1.4 trillion in payments, up 38% year-over-year. In contrast, Stripe's revenue is growing seven times faster than that of S&P 500 companies, meaning it has a strong presence in mainstream commerce. In other words, it's the "ideal player" we want to be able to drive stablecoin adoption.

The acquisition of Privy comes on the heels of its aggressive Bridge acquisition, Stripe's largest acquisition ever. These two transactions send a clear signal that Stripe is seeking to master the full technology stack of "stablecoin native payments" and "programmable money".

Let's take a look at what exactly Stripe has in its hands.

What does Privy bring to Stripe?

Privy provides a set of tools for polishing the "rough edges" of the crypto world, especially when it comes to the wallet experience.

Developers can embed crypto wallets directly into their applications through Privy's software development kit (SDK), and users can quickly create wallets in familiar ways such as email or social accounts, greatly reducing the barrier to entry for crypto products.

According to the acquisition announcement, Privy has now served more than 1,000 teams with a total of 75 million accounts, and has processed billions of dollars in transaction volume. Its client list includes core players in the crypto space such as Hyperliquid, Farcaster, and others.

For Stripe, Privy is a natural complement to its previous acquisition of Bridge. Privy packages the complex wallet infrastructure into a "plug-and-play" Stripe-style component, which, together with Bridge's stablecoin solution, builds a complete stablecoin payment toolchain.

In other words, Stripe can now offer services across the entire crypto stack – with wallet tools via Privy on the frontend and stablecoin clearing and transfers on the backend supported by Bridge.

Bridge: The back-end engine for stablecoinsBridge

is a $1.1 billion acquisition by Stripe in February this year, and offers three core services that developers can access with just a few lines of code:

Transaction Orchestration: Helping businesses transfer, escrow, and receive stablecoins, with Bridge taking care of compliance and regulatory requirements.

Stablecoin issuance: Businesses can issue their own stablecoins through Bridge, and their reserves are invested in U.S. Treasury bonds, and the interest income can be shared with the issuer.

Cross-border transfers: Support account opening and global fund flow in USD and EUR.

Bridge has already shown great value in the real world: Starlink (through its parent company SpaceX) uses Bridge to steadily repatriate its revenue in Argentina to the U.S. in dollars; Nigerian users pay for YouTube Premium and ChatGPT subscriptions through Bridge; Small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. also use Bridge to accept global stablecoin payments without the complexity of the traditional international banking system.

Since being acquired by Stripe, Bridge has expanded rapidly. At present, its "stablecoin financial account" has covered 101 countries, and enterprises can hold USDC and USDB (Bridge's own stablecoin) balances in the account, and support receiving money through traditional banks and crypto networks.

In addition, Bridge recently partnered with Visa to launch the world's first stablecoin credit card issuance. With this solution, fintech and crypto companies such as Ramp, Squads, Airtm, and others have begun issuing Visa cards that connect directly to stablecoin wallets, allowing users to spend their stablecoin balances directly at more than 150 million Visa-enabled merchants worldwide.

Full-stack betting: Stripe's path to

stablecoinsStripe's relationship with crypto has spanned a decade and has gone through many trials and retreats. Back in 2014, Stripe launched Bitcoin payments, but ended support in 2018 due to high price volatility. In 2019, Stripe joined Facebook's Libra project (which later spun off Sui and Aptos, respectively), but eventually opted out.

The reasons for each retreat are the same: unstable prices, immature infrastructure, and unclear regulation. However, the current change in the US government's attitude towards cryptoassets, especially stablecoins, has changed the situation. Dollar-pegged, programmable, and liquid stablecoins offer the stability of fiat currencies with the flexibility of cryptocurrencies, and are increasingly supported by the U.S. regulatory system.

Stripe's recent product expansion reflects its belief in this trend. In 2024, Stripe reopened crypto payments after a six-year pause, allowing USDC to be received through the Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon networks. Its partnership with Coinbase also enables it to support crypto payments on the Base network and to exchange fiat and crypto assets directly within the Coinbase Wallet.

Now, with Privy in charge of the wallet infrastructure and Bridge in the stablecoin backend, Stripe has full control over the front-end and back-end of the programmable money technology stack. In the past, the adoption of stablecoins was often limited by infrastructure gaps – businesses that wanted to access crypto payments struggled to guide users to get started, and users who wanted to use them were discouraged by the complexity of the wallet experience.

Now, those hurdles are being removed by Stripe. For stablecoins, this may be the real "tipping point".

Stripe's influence extends far beyond the crypto world, it deeply serves the mainstream business, e-commerce platforms, and enterprise software ecosystems. By simplifying stablecoin integration into a "new payment method," Stripe has the potential to dramatically accelerate adoption in a market where crypto is still a niche market.

At the end of the day, Stripe isn't just about "buying infrastructure", it's building a "programmable money underlay" that is compatible with fiat, crypto, and AI applications. After years of conservative testing, Stripe's truly full-stack investment is expected to accelerate the transformation of stablecoins from crypto-native to the world's mainstream financial system.