Visa is bolstering its commitment to stablecoins by expanding its settlement pilot to include five more blockchain networks, adopting a multichain strategy for global payments. The company announced on Wednesday that its stablecoin settlement pilot now covers nine networks and has achieved an annualized run rate of $7 billion, marking a 50% increase from the previous quarter. This program enables issuers and acquirers to settle transactions using stablecoins instead of traditional banking systems.
The newly added networks include Coinbase's Base, Polygon, Canton Network, Circle's Arc, and Stripe-backed Tempo, which join the existing integrations with Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and Stellar. As stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies pegged to the value of fiat currencies, continue to gain traction as a means of cross-border money transfer, Visa is leveraging this model through pilots and regional deployments, such as the USDC settlement tied to card programs in over 50 countries. By utilizing blockchain-based dollars, partners can settle transactions in near real-time, eliminating the need to wait days for funds to clear through banking systems. Visa's support for multiple networks aims to provide partners with access to diverse liquidity pools without added complexity.
According to Rubail Birwadker, Visa's global head of growth products and strategic partnerships, 'Our partners are developing solutions in a multi-chain environment, and they expect their options to reflect this reality. By expanding our stablecoin settlement pilot to more blockchains, our partners can select the networks that best suit their needs while relying on Visa to provide a unified settlement layer across all of them.'