Analysis: Why Stripe bought stablecoin start-up Bridge for $1.1B
Stripe’s $1.1B acquisition of Bridge targets the $200B opportunity in corporate stablecoin banking.
Gm Fintech Architects —
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Summary: In this article, we analyze Stripe's acquisition of Bridge, a young company focused on stablecoin payments, for $1.1 billion. Stripe, previously skeptical of crypto, now sees stablecoins as a superior financial infrastructure compared to legacy systems. Bridge, which moved $5 billion annually at its last raise, was acquired not for its revenue but for its strong team, product maturity, and the massive opportunity in stablecoin-based infrastructure for business banking. Stripe's move aligns with the growing relevance of stablecoins, which processed $7 trillion in volume in 2022, as it targets the untapped potential of integrating stablecoins into the corporate financial world. This acquisition mirrors prior tech successes like Facebook's Instagram buy, and positions Stripe to leverage stablecoins for future growth.
Topics: Stripe, Bridge, Instagram, YouTube, Visa, Plaid, Tron, USDT, Base USDC, Coinbase, Bitso, SpaceX, Brex, Uber, Square, Tidal
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Long Take
Stripe Makes the Crypto Moves
You would not be mistaken to think that Stripe wanted nothing to do with crypto.
After being a leader in accepting Bitcoin payments, the company shut down the service in 2018. The Luddites have won!
Oh wait.
By 2024, the Bitcoin volatility problem had been solved by replacing Bitcoin with digital dollars, also known as stablecoins. But Stripe wasn’t done — not only did they want to support online commerce for merchants that wanted to receive stablecoins as a payment mechanism. They also came to the conclusion that stablecoins are — or perhaps will be — a better financial infrastructure compared to the financial rails of the past, and should be integrated into the company’s core.
Here’s the evidence.