Fintech giant Stripe has made its biggest acquisition to date, buying stablecoin company Bridge for $1.1 billion. The move signals the payment provider's deeper involvement in the world of cryptocurrency.
Bridge was created by two Coinbase alumni to help businesses accept stablecoin payments. Forbes reports that the duo raised $58 million from investors including Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital, giving the company a valuation of $200 million. The Stripe acquisition raises Bridge's valuation to $1.1 billion, as confirmed by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington on X (formerly Twitter). This is the largest acquisition in the crypto industry to date.
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Stripe returns to the crypto sector again
Back in 2014, Stripe was already experimenting with crypto payments. A few years later, however, the startup concluded that bitcoin wasn't ready for mainstream adoption. In 2019, Stripe became one of the founding members of Facebook's stablecoin Libra (later Diem). Stripe has always been open to new payment methods aimed at facilitating global e-commerce. However, due to regulatory pressure and other controversies, Stripe and several of its key partners withdrew from the project. Five years later, Stripe is returning to the crypto space.
At a conference in April, Stripe announced that it would be integrating crypto payment options directly into its interface. This would give customers of major companies such as Walmart, Amazon, Apple, Samsung, Google and others access to new payment options. Last year alone, Stripe processed over $1 trillion in transactions. This integration will play a key role in driving the adoption of cryptocurrency as a payment method. The acquisition of Bridge could further accelerate Stripe's entry into this market.
Infrastructure expansion
As of August, Bridge was processing an annualised payment volume of five billion USD, according to a letter to investors from Sequoia Capital. Bridge's customers include government agencies such as the US State Department and the US Treasury, as well as companies such as SpaceX and Coinbase. Before founding Bridge, the two entrepreneurs founded Venmo rival Evenly, which they sold to Block in 2013. Their expertise will now benefit Stripe.
Crypto is back. @Stripe will start supporting global stablecoin payments this summer. Transactions instantly settle on-chain and automatically convert to fiat. Join the waitlist https://t.co/hws2OsU3Id and watch the demo (h/t @Solana) from Sessions. pic.twitter.com/zGKYW2FM6i
— John Collison (@collision) April 25, 2024
