Stripe

Stripe is a payments infrastructure company founded in 2010 by brothers Patrick and John Collison. It offers a developer-first API platform that lets businesses accept payments, issue cards, run financial accounts, and automate revenue operations. From its origins processing card payments, Stripe has expanded into a broad set of financial products used by companies from early-stage startups to large enterprises globally.

After a first experiment with Bitcoin payment processing between 2014 and 2018, Stripe dropped crypto support citing low transaction volumes and long confirmation times. It returned to crypto in 2024 with a different approach: stablecoins rather than volatile assets, and a focus on the programmer experience rather than end-user wallets.

Stripe's Return to Crypto and the Solana Connection

At Stripe Sessions in April 2024, co-founder John Collison demoed a new stablecoin payment flow using [[TOKEN:EPjFWdd5AufqSSqeM2qN1xzybapC8G4wEGGkZwyTDt1v]] on Solana in partnership with Phantom wallet. The demo showed a merchant accepting a USDC payment settled from a Solana wallet with near-instant finality and sub-cent fees. Solana's throughput and fee structure made it Stripe's leading chain example at launch; the company cited the network's practical cost profile for small transactions.

Stripe formally added Solana as a supported crypto network on October 29, 2025, when it released API version 2025-10-29.clover. From that version onward, the charge payment_method_details crypto network field accepts the solana enum value, and all server-side SDKs including Python, Node.js, PHP, Go, Ruby, Java, and .NET received matching updates.

Stablecoin Payments

Stripe's stablecoin payments product lets customers worldwide pay with stablecoins while merchants receive settlement in their local fiat currency to their Stripe balance. The accepted tokens and networks at general availability are:

• USDC on Tempo, Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, and Base
• USDP on Ethereum and Solana (US only)
• USDG on Ethereum (US only)

The checkout flow redirects the customer to crypto.stripe.com, where they connect a wallet, pick a network, and authorize the transfer. The per-transaction limit is $10,000 USD. Stripe charges a flat 1.5% fee, and disputes are not possible because customers authenticate every transaction from their own wallet. Refunds return stablecoins to the original wallet.

The product works across Stripe's hosted and embedded UI surfaces: Checkout, Elements, Payment Links, and Invoicing. Subscription support for recurring stablecoin withdrawals and Treasury accounts denominated in stablecoins were in various preview stages as of mid-2026. Merchants in the United States can use stablecoin payments at general availability; EU, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Mexico merchants have access in private preview.

The Bridge Acquisition

In October 2024, Stripe announced the acquisition of [[PROJECT:1397]] for $1.1 billion, its largest acquisition to that point. Bridge, founded by Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, built stablecoin orchestration infrastructure that abstracts multi-chain, multi-stablecoin operations behind a single integration. The acquisition closed in February 2025.

Bridge's technology handles the compliance, routing, and reserve management that Stripe's merchant-facing products require to operate across different networks and issuers. Stripe described Bridge as enabling businesses to move, store, and accept stablecoins with the same simplicity as credit card processing. Post-acquisition, Bridge's infrastructure became the routing layer underlying Stripe's stablecoin payment and payout products.

In late 2025, Stripe and Bridge launched Open Issuance, a platform that allows any business to launch its own stablecoin within days. Reserve management for issued stablecoins uses custody from BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, and Superstate.

Stablecoin Payouts and Card Issuing

Beyond inbound payments, Stripe offers stablecoin payouts via its Connect platform, which serves marketplace and multi-party payment scenarios. Platforms can send USDC-denominated payouts to connected accounts, giving creators, sellers, and contractors the option to receive funds on-chain.

Stablecoin-backed card issuing lets platforms create virtual or physical prepaid cards for connected accounts funded by stablecoin balances. This allows stablecoin holdings to spend anywhere Visa or Mastercard is accepted without requiring the cardholder to sell or bridge assets manually.

A practical example of these products appeared in April 2026 when Meta launched creator payouts in USDC on Solana and Polygon, processing them through Stripe's infrastructure. Eligible creators could link a crypto wallet and receive earnings in USDC directly on-chain, with Stripe handling the compliance and settlement backend.

Fiat-to-Crypto Onramp

Separate from merchant-facing stablecoin acceptance, Stripe offers a fiat-to-crypto onramp that developers can embed in web and mobile applications. Users can purchase crypto directly inside a third-party app without leaving it. The onramp supports a hosted redirect version and an embedded component version available in JavaScript, iOS, Android, and React Native. KYC and compliance are handled by Stripe.

Tempo Blockchain Partnership

In September 2025, Paradigm announced a new payments-focused Layer 1 blockchain called Tempo, with Stripe as a founding partner. Tempo targets stablecoin settlement with fixed predictable fees, higher throughput than general-purpose chains, and compliance hooks designed to satisfy payment regulators. Stripe has said it plans to route stablecoin charges to Tempo for new merchants in supported regions once the network launches on mainnet, while Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon remain available for customers who already hold USDC on those chains.

Ecosystem Partners

Beyond Bridge, Stripe's crypto product stack lists two external partners. Privy provides wallet infrastructure and custody services that Stripe integrates for embedded wallet use cases. Tempo supplies the Layer 1 settlement layer Stripe aims to use as a default for new payment flows.

Scale and Context

Stripe's crypto products are built on top of its existing global payments infrastructure, which processes hundreds of billions in annual volume across card, bank transfer, and other payment rails. The stablecoin push comes as on-chain stablecoin payment volume reached $429.4 billion with 35% year-over-year growth, according to figures Stripe cited on its crypto product pages.

The company is privately held. Its valuation at last fundraising was reported at approximately $70 billion.