Mastercard is set to acquire stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK for up to $1.8 billion, the payments giant said in a press release on Tuesday.
The acquisition will allow the company that processes around $9.5 trillion in annual payments volume to offer end-to-end support for digital assets, Mastercard said. The firm noted that the deal with BVNK involves $300 million in contingent payments.
Representing one of the largest acquisitions involving a crypto-native firm this year, BVNK operates a financial platform allowing people to transact in stablecoins. The company also specializes in converting between digital assets and various forms of cash.
BNVK enables businesses to transact with each other in 130 countries. That’s far less than the 210 countries that Mastercard’s payment processing network operates in, but the acquisition shows that incumbents are increasingly eyeing stablecoins as new settlement tools.
BVNK was valued at $750 million when it unveiled $50 million in Series B funding in 2024. Last year, Coinbase reportedly abandoned a deal to acquire BVNK for $2 billion. Around that time, the exchange was in competition with Mastercard to acquire the UK-based firm.
In a statement, Mastercard Chief Product Officer Jorn Lambert said Mastercard expects traditional financial firms and fintechs alike to adopt stablecoins and tokenized deposits. By purchasing BVNK, Mastercard aims to bolster that shift, he said.
“We want to support them and their customers with a best-in-class, highly compliant, interoperable offering,” he added. “Adding on-chain rails to our network will support speed and programmability for virtually every type of transaction.”
Mastercard said its acquisition of BVNK is expected to close before the end of this year. Although a lion’s share of stablecoins are issued on Ethereum, Mastercard noted that its push adopts BVNK’s chain-agnostic approach to stablecoin payments.
Although Coinbase has leaned into stablecoins for years through Circle’s USDC, companies like Mastercard are racing to offer products and services tied to the tokens following last year’s passage of the GENIUS Act, which enshrined a federal framework for stablecoins into law.
In 2024, payments giant Stripe purchased stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge for $1.1 billion, representing its largest acquisition to date. Similar to BVNK, Bridge enables businesses to accept digital assets as a form of payments in various regions.
Mastercard’s latest move comes as influential figures in finance express optimism on stablecoin adoption, including billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller. In an interview with Morgan Stanley, he projected that “our whole payment systems will be stablecoins in 10 or 15 years.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication with additional details.
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