Stripe Acquires Stablecoin Platform Bridge for $1.1 Billion

Stripe announced the acquisition of Bridge, a stablecoin payments platform, for approximately $1.1 billion, marking the largest crypto-related acquisition at the time. Bridge enables businesses to accept and send stablecoin payments without directly handling stablecoins, functioning as embedded crypto infrastructure for payments. The company was founded by alumni of Coinbase and Square and had previously raised $40 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital.

The acquisition bolsters Stripe's global payments infrastructure by adding native support for stablecoin transactions across multiple blockchains including Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon. For Stripe's existing merchant base, the deal promises faster, lower-cost cross-border payments leveraging stablecoin rails. The move signals Stripe's strategic bet that stablecoins will become a significant layer in global payments infrastructure, embedding crypto capabilities directly into its BaaS-adjacent platform.