Three of the most powerful names in global payments — Visa, Mastercard and Stripe — are reportedly in the final stages of building a joint stablecoin platform. Multiple people familiar with the plans told CoinDesk the launch is imminent, with preparations now in their closing phase. None of the companies have officially confirmed the details.
Coinbase is also in the picture. The largest U.S.-listed crypto exchange is looking at joining the platform as a partner — but its decision isn't straightforward. In August 2026, the exchange's revenue-sharing agreement with Circle, the issuer of USDC, comes up for renewal. Whatever terms they agree on will directly shape how Coinbase positions itself in the stablecoin market going forward.
Each of the three payment companies has been building toward exactly this kind of move. Stripe paid $1.1 billion for stablecoin infrastructure startup Bridge in late 2024. Mastercard acquired BVNK, a UK-based stablecoin settlement firm, earlier this year. Visa has been running stablecoin settlement pilots across multiple blockchains. The new platform appears designed to pool those separate bets into a single shared layer.
Right now, stablecoins function mostly within crypto-native rails — exchange settlements, DeFi protocols, cross-border transfers between wallets. A joint platform from these three networks would change that: stablecoin transactions could travel through the same infrastructure as a regular card payment, moving fast, cheaply, and without multiple currency conversion steps. The most immediate benefit for consumers would be cheaper international transfers and cross-border purchases.
The stablecoin market currently stands at roughly $325 billion — Tether's USDT accounts for $115 billion, Circle's USDC for $76 billion. The combined annual payment volume of Visa, Mastercard and Stripe runs to trillions of dollars. If this platform actually launches at that scale, stablecoins will have access to the broadest retail payment infrastructure on the planet — a different order of magnitude from anything the crypto market has seen before.
