Stripe, Mastercard and Circle Buy Stablecoin Firms Bridge, BVNK and Tazapay

Stripe, Mastercard and Circle have each bought a stablecoin payments company since early 2025. Stripe took Bridge, Mastercard took BVNK, and Circle agreed to take Tazapay. Using the roughly $1.1 billion figure that has been cited for Bridge, the three deals total up to about $3.3 billion.

That total is a ceiling, not cash out the door.

The three deals

Stripe and Bridge. Stripe completed its acquisition of Bridge on Feb. 4, 2025. Stripe did not disclose the price. The figure commonly cited is about $1.1 billion. Bridge provides stablecoin orchestration, the software that converts between stablecoins and regular currency.

Mastercard and BVNK. Mastercard agreed to pay up to $1.8 billion for the U.K.-based firm. That is a $1.5 billion base payment plus up to $300 million in contingent payments. The deal closed Aug. 3, 2026. BVNK moves money between fiat currencies and stablecoins in more than 130 countries, and Crypto Briefing describes the purchase as Mastercard's largest digital-asset acquisition.

Circle and Tazapay. Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, agreed on Sept. 8, 2026 to buy Singapore-based Tazapay in an all-stock deal worth $400 million. It is expected to close in 2027, subject to regulatory approvals, including from Singapore's Monetary Authority.

Tazapay handles more than $25 billion in annualized payment volume across more than 100 markets and works with more than 60 banking and fintech partners. About 60% of its volume involves stablecoins.

Buying instead of building

Venture capitalist Alex Lazarow has noted that the three targets were founded between 2020 and 2022 and together raised about $200 million. Lazarow also cited a 91% jump in adjusted stablecoin transaction volume in 2025, to $10.9 trillion, against Visa's $14.2 trillion. Those figures come from his commentary, not an audited tally.

The deals fit a wider pattern in crypto investment. Tiger Research, a Korea-based research firm, counted 39 crypto M&A deals in Q1 2026, 36 in Q2 and 37 in Q3. Deal sizes shrank, and buyers favored smaller acquisitions that add a specific capability such as a license or payments rail. The firm also reported that capital is concentrating in payments, stablecoins and tokenized securities, while seed-stage rounds contracted.

The U.S. GENIUS Act, which sets a legal framework for issuing dollar-backed tokens, gives the buyers firmer ground than they had a few years ago.

The rival stablecoin these companies also back

The buyers are also partners. Open USD (OUSD), governed by the Open Standard consortium, went live for business payments on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. Stripe, Visa, Mastercard-owned BVNK and Coinbase are among those providing access.

The consortium and Shopify committed to minting roughly $1 billion of OUSD to seed liquidity. Open Standard CEO Zach Abrams previously ran Bridge before Stripe bought it. Stripe has said OUSD will become the default stablecoin for businesses on its infrastructure, though it will not force existing users to convert balances.

That sits awkwardly beside Circle's strategy. When the OUSD project was first announced in June, Circle shares fell on concerns that stronger competition from payments companies could challenge USDC's position. Circle is now spending $400 million in stock to expand its cross-border business while Stripe and Mastercard back a rival token.

The size gap is large. Tether's USDT has roughly $183 billion to $184 billion in circulation and USDC about $74 billion, in a stablecoin market above $300 billion. OUSD is days old, and stablecoins issued by established payments companies, including PayPal's, remain considerably smaller than the leaders.

What comes next

The Mastercard and Stripe deals are done. The BVNK price depends partly on contingent payments of up to $300 million, so the final number may come in under $1.8 billion. Stripe has said it plans to extend stablecoin-backed cards to more than 100 countries by the end of 2026.

The open item is Circle's Tazapay purchase. It cannot close until regulators sign off, and nothing in the deal terms suggests that happens before 2027.