Key Takeaways
- Coinbase and Mastercard are reportedly in talks to acquire BVNK.
- The stablecoin startup previously received investments from Citi and Visa.
- BVNK’s infrastructure bridges fiat and blockchain payment rails.
Stablecoin startup BVNK has become one of the hottest properties in financial technology.
Existing investors include Visa and Citi. Meanwhile, reports suggest Coinbase and Mastercard are both bidding to acquire the company outright.
Major Firms Circle BVNK
A few years ago, BVNK was a relatively unknown startup—one of many building infrastructure to facilitate stablecoin payments.
In 2022, the company’s $40 million Series A round attracted the usual venture capital investors, but there was no sign of interest from major players in crypto or payments.
By the time BVNK’s Series B came around two years later, the startup was $10 billion in annualized volumes. Participants included Coinbase Ventures, which has gone all in on stablecoin infrastructure, investing in companies like Bastion, Stablecore, and ZAR.
Since then, BVNK has received strategic investments from Visa, and most recently, Citi.
Those deals reflect broader maneuvers by powerhouse financial institutions. With stablecoin adoption rising, incumbent banks and payment processors face a threat to their hold on global money flows. At the risk of being left behind, they are scrambling to secure a position in the rapidly evolving stablecoin sector.
Moreover, in a still-young market that remains in flux, BVNK’s token-agnostic rails could help investors hedge their bets against different potential outcomes.
Coinbase and Mastercard in Takeover Talks
Just as news of Citi’s investment broke, Fortune reported that Coinbase and Mastercard were in “advanced acquisition talks” with BVNK. Any deal could value the company between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion, sources said.
Acquiring the stablecoin platform would create different strategic advantages for each firm.
For example, Coinbase could potentially influence which stablecoins BVNK customers use.
The crypto exchange has an equity stake in Circle and receives income from its Treasury reserves via a revenue sharing agreement, providing a strong incentive to nudge BVNK users toward USDC.
Meanwhile, Mastercard is racing to integrate stablecoins into its global payment network, where BVNK’s ability to coordinate on- and off-chain transactions could give the card giant a crucial edge over Visa.
BVNK’s infrastructure, which facilitates payment flows spanning stablecoin transfers and e-money fiat transactions, is in line with a view held by senior Mastercard executives.
“I think most flows will begin and end in fiat,” Raj Seshadri, Chief Commercial Payments Officer Raj Seshadri told investors in July.
In a similar vein, Mastercard’s head of crypto in Europe, Christian Rau, has acknowledged that stablecoins can be an important settlement tool, “but they do not replace the services we provide.”
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James Morales is CCN’s blockchain and crypto policy reporter. He has been working in the news media since 2020, writing about topics such as payments, banking and financial technology. These days, he likes to explore the latest blockchain innovations and the evolving landscape of global crypto regulation.
With an educational background in social anthropology and media studies, James uses his platform as a journalist to explore how new technologies work, why they matter and how they might shape our future.
