Stripe is acquiring stablecoin platform Bridge in a $1.1B deal

Update (Oct. 21 at 3:13 am UTC): Sources at Stripe say the deal hasn’t gone through but would not go on record.

Update (Oct. 21 at 10:45 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include new information from Zach Abrams Patrick Collison, including changing the headline to reflect that the deal has been finalized, but the acquisition is not yet completed.

Payment processing giant Stripe is acquiring stablecoin platform Bridge in a $1.1 billion deal, making good on its earlier promise to support stablecoin payments by “this summer.”

“We’re thrilled to be joining forces with Stripe,” said Bridge CEO and co-founder Zach Abrams in an Oct. 21 post on X.

“Stripe is going to build the world’s best stablecoin infrastructure, and, to that end, we are delighted to welcome @stablecoin to @stripe,” added Stripe CEO Patrick Collison on X.

News the deal was finalized was first shared by TechCrunch’s co-founder Michael Arrington on Oct. 20.

The acquisition would be the largest for Stripe, which is based in San Francisco and Dublin and was valued at $70 billion in July. It would also be one of the biggest acquisitions in crypto history.

Stripe is a payment processing platform that allows businesses to accept credit and debit cards or other payments online.

In March, it reported passing the $1 trillion milestone for total payment volume in 2023, with the output of businesses using Stripe amounting to about 1% of global gross domestic product (GDP).

The deal comes just six months after its co-founder John Collison announced the company would begin supporting global stablecoin payments “this summer.”

It also comes less than two weeks after Stripe introduced stablecoin payments on its main payments user interface by integrating Circle USD (USDC) stablecoin.

Bridge is a stablecoin-based payments network founded in 2022 by two former Coinbase executives — Zach Abrams and Sean Yu — to compete with the SWIFT network and credit cards.

Abrams was the head of consumer at Coinbase and founded Evenly, a P2P payments company that Square eventually acquired.

Yu held engineering roles at Coinbase, Square, Doordash and Airbnb.

Bridge allows businesses to create, store, send and accept stablecoins, which some have referred to as the Web3 answer to Stripe. This year, the firm received $58 million in funding from Sequoia, Ribbit, Index and other investors.

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