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Stablecoins pegged to the United States dollar have outpaced Bitcoin as a store of value in developing countries with runaway inflation.
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Stripe, a payments processing company, is reportedly in talks to acquire stablecoin platform Bridge, according to unnamed sources familiar with the deal.
According to Bloomberg, the deal has not yet been finalized, and either party could still walk away without inking an agreement.
The potential acquisition by Stripe comes amid the payment company’s planned re-entry into the digital asset sector after a six-year break from providing crypto payment services.
Related: Thailand’s oldest bank announces stablecoin remittance services
Stripe makes crypto moves
Earlier this year, Stripe co-founder John Collison announced that the company would provide stablecoin services for the first time in six years. At the time, Collison explained that stablecoin transactions via Stripe “Instantly settle on-chain and automatically convert to fiat.”
Collison announcing Stripe’s return to crypto during Stripe’s Sessions 2024 event. Source John Collison
In June 2024, Stripe and Coinbase partnered to create fiat-to-crypto onramps and offramps for customers of both platforms. The partnership brought nearly instant settlement times and significantly lower transaction costs via stablecoins to clients in over 150 countries.
On Oct. 9, Stripe introduced stablecoin payments on its main payments user interface by integrating Circle’s US Dollar (USDC) stablecoin. Following the USDC integration, users from more than 70 countries engaged in stablecoin transactions on the first day — highlighting the increased worldwide demand for the tokenized fiat equivalents.
This is significant for individuals engaging in cross-border transactions, which typically carry considerable transaction fees and multi-day settlement times. More specifically, those sending and receiving remittances can sidestep the high fees, which eat into the funds sent to loved ones and make smaller remittances prohibitive.
Several days after the USDC integration went live, Paxos — the firm responsible for the Pax Dollar (USDP) stablecoin — debuted a new stablecoin payment platform.
The new platform will focus on providing stablecoin services to payment service providers — who seek to embed the Paxos application programming interface (API) into their systems — rather than individuals or small businesses.
As part of the announcement, Paxos revealed that Stripe had become the first payment processor to integrate the Paxos API into its operations.
Magazine: The real risks to Ethena’s stablecoin model (are not the ones you think)
This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News
