Payment firm Stripe is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire stablecoin platform Bridge, as cited by Bloomberg sources.
After a six-year hiatus, Stripe re-entered the crypto space in April, enabling merchants to accept stablecoins for online payments. Within the first 24 hours of the launch, individuals from over 70 countries utilized stablecoins for transactions.
Bridge’s platform specializes in stablecoins, allowing businesses to create, store, send, and receive Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC. In August, Bridge raised $58 million from prominent investors, including Sequoia, Ribbit, and Index Ventures.
Stripe initially supported Bitcoin in 2014 but stepped away from crypto due to extreme price fluctuations and high fees that made it impractical as a payment method. However, in announcing its return to the market in April, co-founder and President John Collison stated, “Crypto is finding real utility. With transaction speeds increasing and costs coming down, we’re seeing crypto finally making sense as a means of exchange.”
Since then, Stripe has moved quickly, establishing a partnership with Coinbase in April for fiat-to-crypto transactions with USDC and integrating with the Paxos stablecoin platform earlier this month.