- Stripe just closed the $1.1B Bridge purchase, marking the biggest crypto acquisition in history.
- Traditional finance companies like Stripe and Visa have recently shown increased interest in crypto. Visa launched the Tokenized Asset Platform, while Stripe started collaborating with Paxos.
- This acquisition will almost assuredly increase the stablecoin market and become a bullish signal for the industry.
Stripe just finalized the biggest crypto acquisition in history – $1.1B for stablecoin platform Bridge.
In our previous coverage, we only had rumors to go by, but it’s beyond certain now. Techcrunch founder Michael Arrington confirmed the news on X.
This gives Stripe a $172B stablecoin market, positioning it as one of the biggest players in the industry.
Stripe isn’t the only TradFi payment company to get into crypto. Visa also played a good hand when launching the Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP).
What does Stripe’s acquisition mean for the crypto industry? Let’s discuss it.
Stripe Is Going All In on Crypto – Is TradFi Shifting to Crypto?
The $1B acquisition shows Stripe’s determination to engage with the crypto industry at a high level, and it’s easy to see why.
The total crypto market cap is $2.32T, with $USDT accounting for 5.17%.
Crypto even became a hot topic during the current US presidential election, with Trump and Harris racing to become the most pro-crypto candidate.
Stripe also started collaborating with Paxos, a regulated blockchain infrastructure that offers asset tokenization services.
Ronak Dayas, Head of Product at Paxos, said, ‘ stablecoins are the future of payments and money movement.’ John Eagan, Head of Crypto at Stripe, also commented on the partnership.
We’re always looking for ways to make it easier and cheaper for businesses to accept payments from their customers worldwide. Partnering with Paxos, we’re excited to enable stablecoin payments for our users with our Pay with Crypto product.John Eagan, Head of Crypto at Stripe
Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge, or at least a similar move, was long in the making by the payment giant. Bridge, formerly valued at $200M, offers business-to-business software tools for accepting stablecoin payments.
Will Stablecoins Benefit from Stripe’s Acquisition?
It’s almost certain that the stablecoin market will grow after Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge. Despite the authorities’ constant hounding after the Terraform incident, stablecoins kept growing.
$USDT recorded a $5.2B profit in the first half of 2024.
Circle, the second-largest stablecoin issuer, also reported the number of $USDC wallets rose by 59% year-over-year.
And that was in the context of a massive regulatory scandal. This begs the question, ‘How will stablecoins react to the largest crypto acquisition in history?’
Our Opinion – Stablecoins Will Become Bullish
We think it’s only a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ the stablecoin market will go bullish following Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge.
It remains to be seen how Stripe will use this opportunity to increase its market dominance and engage on a deeper level with crypto.
References
- Michael Arrington X Post About Stripe’s Acquisition of Bridge (X)
- Paxos Launches New Stablecoin Payments Platform (Paxos)
- State of the USDC Economy (Circle)
