Stripe Confirms Bridge Acquisition to Build Stablecoin Infrastructure

Stripe plans to acquire stablecoin payments platform Bridge.

Stripe CEO Patrick Collison and Bridge CEO Zach Abrams announced the plan in separate Monday (Oct. 21) posts on social platform X.

Subject to closing conditions, the companies expect the transaction to close within months, Bridge said in an article posted on X.

https://t.co/Jtop2ZLNUp

— Bridge (@Stablecoin) October 21, 2024

Collison said in his post that the move is part of Stripe’s plan to “build the world’s best stablecoin infrastructure.”

Stablecoins are room-temperature superconductors for financial services. Thanks to stablecoins, businesses around the world will benefit from significant speed, coverage, and cost improvements in the coming years. Stripe is going to build the world’s best stablecoin… https://t.co/6yKi7OKXVT

— Patrick Collison (@patrickc) October 21, 2024

“Stablecoins are room-temperature superconductors for financial services,” Collison said in the post. “Thanks to stablecoins, businesses around the world will benefit from significant speed, coverage and cost improvements in the coming years.”

Abrams said in his post that the acquisition will enable Bridge and Stripe to “solve bigger problems, support more developers, and help more consumers and businesses all across the world.”

Bridge is joining forces with Stripe!

I’m incredibly excited

We started 2.5 years ago and we’ve done a lot since then :) We’re going to do a whole lot more in the years ahead. This is an important milestone, but we’re still at the very beginning of the Bridge journey.

We…

— Zach (@zcabrams) October 21, 2024

Bridge is moving “many billions” in payment volume, has grown tenfold this year, and is helping hundreds of developers build stablecoin-enabled financial products for a variety of use cases, Abrams said.

“We built Bridge to solve our most vexing global financial challenges; to pull a more connected world forward; to give everyone more economic choice,” Abrams said in the post. “We’re thrilled to be joining forces with Stripe to fully realize these ambitions.”

It was reported Friday (Oct. 18) that Stripe was in talks to acquire Bridge to move more deeply into stablecoins. The company has been actively investing in the crypto space.

On Oct. 10, Stripe said that in the first 24 hours of allowing its merchants to accept stablecoin payments for online transactions on its platform, customers from more than 70 countries made purchases with that form of payment.

As for Bridge, it was reported Aug. 30 that the company raised $40 million to support its efforts to build a stablecoin-based payment platform designed to simplify global money movement.

Sequoia said in an Aug. 29 blog post that it led Bridge’s Series A funding round, adding that the company will “usher in the next wave of payment innovation.”

“Because Bridge is built on blockchains, it works 24/7, in virtually every country — and for as little as 10% of the cost of traditional foreign exchange rails,” Sequoia said in the post.