Skip to content
Wiki
Home / Institutions / Stripe

Stripe

Institution · Payments processor / stablecoin infrastructure

Stripe is the payments processor running the most complete vertical integration into stablecoin infrastructure of any Western payments company, having bought the issuance layer (Bridge, roughly USD 1.1 billion, closed February 2025), bought the wallet layer (Privy, June 2025), and incubated the settlement layer (Tempo, the payments-first Layer 1 built with Paradigm, mainnet March 2026). The contrast with the card networks is the cleanest strategic read in the category: Visa recreates its orchestration role for stablecoins without issuing money, while Stripe assembles the full stack from coin to wallet to chain (Ledger Insights). Stripe processed USD 1.9 trillion in total payment volume in 2025, up 34% year on year, with Bridge's stablecoin transaction volume growing more than 4x over the same period per the 2025 annual letter published in February 2026.

The stablecoin stack

  • Acceptance. Stablecoin payments relaunched for US merchants on 9 October 2024 (USDC on Ethereum, Solana and Polygon, a flat 1.5% fee, automatic USD settlement), with buyers from more than 70 countries paying in the first 24 hours. The June 2025 Shopify partnership extended USDC acceptance on Base to merchants in 34 countries, and Sessions 2026 (29 April 2026) added 32 further markets, with USDT in preview and BTC, SOL and ETH acceptance planned for Q4 private preview.
  • Stablecoin Financial Accounts. Launched 7 May 2025 in 101 countries on Bridge rails: businesses hold USD-stablecoin balances (USDC and Bridge's USDB), receive via ACH, wire and SEPA, and send across 8 networks. As of Sessions 2026, businesses in more than 150 markets can hold and move stablecoin balances when paired with Privy noncustodial wallets.
  • Issuance. Open Issuance from Bridge (30 September 2025) lets businesses launch their own stablecoins with reserves managed through BlackRock, Fidelity and Superstate. Phantom's CASH, MetaMask's mUSD, Native Markets' USDH and Klarna's KlarnaUSD run on the stack.
  • Cards. The Bridge and Visa stablecoin-linked card programme launched in Latin America in April 2025, reached 18 countries by March 2026, and targets more than 100 countries by end-2026, including APAC (Visa). Stablecoin-backed cards were live in 30 countries as of April 2026.
  • The consortium coin. Stripe is a member of Open Standard, the 140-plus-organisation consortium behind Open USD (OUSD) announced 30 June 2026, and a Stripe executive described OUSD as intended to become the default stablecoin for businesses using Stripe (The Block).

Agentic commerce

Stripe sits at the centre of the agentic payments build-out, the editorial wedge this knowledge base tracks in the agentic commerce chapter. The Agentic Commerce Protocol, co-developed with OpenAI and released open source on 29 September 2025, powers Instant Checkout in ChatGPT using Shared Payment Tokens scoped to a merchant and cart. Stripe added support for Coinbase's x402 standard in its Machine Payments preview on 10 February 2026 (USDC on Base), and co-authored the Machine Payments Protocol with Tempo and Visa, released with Tempo's mainnet on 18 March 2026. Privy's wallet infrastructure also powers agent payments in AWS's AgentCore alongside Coinbase.

APAC footprint

The Asia position is a mix of real distribution and a visible licensing white space. Stripe Payments Singapore holds an MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore) Major Payment Institution licence covering account issuance, domestic and cross-border transfers, merchant acquisition and e-money issuance, but the register entry lists no digital payment token services as of August 2026, so the stablecoin products do not yet sit inside the Singapore licence perimeter (MAS FID register). At Stripe Tour Singapore in August 2025 the company pitched Stablecoin Financial Accounts to the region with Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Brunei as named examples, citing a survey in which 46% of Asian businesses planned stablecoin adoption within 2 years. Sessions 2026 brought Terminal to 15 additional markets including Hong Kong, previewed Tap to Pay on Android in Japan, and previewed Link UPI in India. The region's flagship proof point runs through Tempo rather than Stripe directly, with Coupang and Woori Bank completing Korea's first end-to-end KRW stablecoin payment on the chain in July 2026. DBS and Standard Chartered sit alongside Stripe in the OUSD consortium.

Recent activity

  • 27 Jul 2026Coupang and Woori Bank completed Korea's first end-to-end KRW stablecoin payment and settlement proof of concept on Tempo (Tempo); see Tempo for detail.
  • 30 Jun 2026Open Standard unveiled OUSD with Stripe among more than 140 members (Fortune).
  • 29 Apr 2026Sessions 2026: stablecoin acceptance in 32 additional markets, balances in more than 150 markets with Privy wallets, cards in 30 countries, agentic commerce suite expansion, and Tempo money movement on the roadmap for Q4 2026 GA (Stripe).
  • 18 Mar 2026Tempo mainnet went live alongside the Machine Payments Protocol co-authored by Stripe, Tempo and Visa (Stripe).
  • 3 Mar 2026Visa and Bridge announced expansion of stablecoin-linked cards from 18 countries toward more than 100 by end-2026 (Visa).
  • 10 Feb 2026Machine Payments preview shipped with x402 support (The Block).
  • Feb 2026The 2025 annual letter reported USD 1.9 trillion total volume and Bridge stablecoin volume up more than 4x year on year (Stripe).

Open questions

  • Whether Stablecoin Financial Accounts are available in Singapore, Hong Kong or Japan; no primary country list has been published, and secondary accounts conflict.
  • Whether Stripe will seek digital payment token licensing in Singapore, or route APAC stablecoin services through other entities.
  • Which chains OUSD launches on day one; coverage emphasises Solana while Tempo's CEO has claimed day-one native issuance on Tempo.