Mastercard’s company logo on a stand during Mobile World Congress on March 1, 2017 in Barcelona.
Joan Cross Garcia – Corbis | Corbis News | Getty Images
master card announced Tuesday that it has agreed to acquire London-based stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK for up to $1.8 billion. This is the payments network’s biggest bet yet on mainstreaming digital currencies.
The deal includes a $300 million payment contingent on BVNK achieving certain performance metrics and is expected to close by the end of the year, Mastercard said in a statement.
With this acquisition, Mastercard will become the world’s second largest payment network. visathe ability to connect traditional payment rails with emerging blockchain-based systems. This will allow Mastercard to enter payment systems that include stablecoins and tokenized deposits as they become adopted in the coming years.
“We anticipate that most financial institutions and fintech companies will eventually offer digital currency services,” Joan Lambert, Mastercard’s chief product officer, said in a company release.
BVNK, which was founded in 2021 and told CNBC last year that its valuation exceeded $750 million, said its platform currently supports transactions on all major blockchain networks in more than 130 countries.
Stablecoin startups have become a hot commodity since President Donald Trump’s re-election at the end of 2024 ushered in a new era of crypto-friendly regulations.
BVNK is coinbase Similar to Mastercard, Mastercard was interested in acquiring another cryptocurrency company, ZeroHash, earlier this year.
