{"id":3171,"date":"2026-03-17T15:13:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T15:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/mastercard-says-its-acquiring-stablecoin-startup-bvnk-in-1-8b-crypto-bet\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T15:13:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T15:13:05","slug":"mastercard-says-its-acquiring-stablecoin-startup-bvnk-in-1-8b-crypto-bet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/mastercard-says-its-acquiring-stablecoin-startup-bvnk-in-1-8b-crypto-bet\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastercard says it&#8217;s acquiring stablecoin startup BVNK in $1.8B crypto bet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div id=\"RegularArticle-ArticleBody-5\" data-module=\"ArticleBody\" data-test=\"articleBody-2\" data-analytics=\"RegularArticle-articleBody-5-2\"><span class=\"HighlightShare-hidden\" style=\"top:0;left:0\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"InlineImage-imageEmbed\" id=\"ArticleBody-InlineImage-107335423\" data-test=\"InlineImage\">\n<div class=\"InlineImage-wrapper\">\n<div>\n<p>A view of the Mastercard company logo on its stand during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on March 1, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Joan Cros Garcia &#8211; Corbis | Corbis News | Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<p><span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-1\">Mastercard<span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\" aria-label=\"Add To Watchlist\" data-testid=\"dropdown-btn\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"\/><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span> on Tuesday said it agreed to acquire BVNK, a London-based stablecoin infrastructure firm, for up to $1.8 billion. It&#8217;s the payment network&#8217;s biggest bet yet on the mainstreaming of digital currencies.<\/p>\n<p>The deal includes $300 million in payments that are contingent on BVNK hitting certain performance metrics and is expected to close this year, Mastercard said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The acquisition gives Mastercard, the world&#8217;s second-largest payment network after <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-5\">Visa<span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\" aria-label=\"Add To Watchlist\" data-testid=\"dropdown-btn\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"\/><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span>, the ability to connect traditional payment rails with emerging blockchain-based systems. That will allow Mastercard to enmesh itself in payments systems involving stablecoins and tokenized deposits as they gain adoption in coming years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We expect that most financial institutions and fintechs will in time provide digital currency services,&#8221; Mastercard Chief Product Officer Jorn Lambert said in his firm&#8217;s release. <\/p>\n<p>BVNK, which was founded in 2021 and told CNBC last year that its valuation was above $750 million, says its platform currently supports transactions on all major blockchain networks in more than 130 countries.<\/p>\n<p>Stablecoin startups have been a hot commodity since the reelection of President Donald Trump in late 2024 ushered in a new era of crypto-friendly regulation.<\/p>\n<p>BVNK reportedly entertained takeover interest from <span class=\"QuoteInBody-quoteNameContainer\" data-test=\"QuoteInBody\" id=\"RegularArticle-QuoteInBody-8\">Coinbase<span class=\"QuoteInBody-inlineButton\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistContainer\" id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\" data-analytics-id=\"-WatchlistDropdown\"><button class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-watchlistButton\" aria-label=\"Add To Watchlist\" data-testid=\"dropdown-btn\"><span class=\"AddToWatchlistButton-addWatchListFromTag\"\/><\/button><\/span><\/span><\/span> as well as Mastercard, and Mastercard had been interested in acquiring a different crypto company, Zerohash, earlier this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ArticleBody-googlePreferredSourceContainer\" data-module=\"GooglePreferredSource\" data-id=\"RegularArticle-GooglePreferredSource-5\">Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A view of the Mastercard company logo on its stand during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on March 1, 2017. Joan Cros Garcia &#8211; Corbis | Corbis News | Getty Images Mastercard on Tuesday said it agreed to acquire BVNK, a London-based stablecoin infrastructure firm, for up to $1.8 billion. It&#8217;s the payment network&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3011,3009,960,3010,325,598,1845,1127],"class_list":["post-3171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-loan","tag-1-8b","tag-acquiring","tag-bet","tag-bvnk","tag-crypto","tag-mastercard","tag-stablecoin","tag-startup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finzexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}