Visa has announced an expansion of its stablecoin initiative, incorporating five new blockchains into its settlement pilot program, which now operates across nine networks with an annualized transaction volume of $7 billion, marking a 50% increase from the previous quarter. This development enables issuers and acquirers to utilize stablecoins for transaction settlements, bypassing traditional banking systems.
The newly integrated blockchains - including Coinbase's Base, Polygon, Canton Network, Circle's Arc, and Stripe-backed Tempo - join existing partnerships with Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and Stellar. As stablecoins gain traction in global money transfers, Visa's strategic move supports a multichain approach to international payments.
The company has been exploring this model through various pilots and regional launches, such as the USDC settlement program linked to card initiatives in over 50 countries. By leveraging blockchain-based currencies, partners can settle transactions in near real-time, eliminating the need for lengthy waiting periods associated with traditional 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 operate in a multichain environment and 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."