Visa and Stripe's Bridge to Expand Stablecoin Cards to 100+ Countries

Visa and Stripe-owned Bridge intend to expand their stablecoin-linked card product from 18 countries to over 100 by year-end, spanning Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East, beyond their initial focus of Central and South America.

What's the Scoop?

• How It Works: The cards let users make everyday purchases by drawing from stablecoins in wallets, and are accepted across Visa's 175M merchant locations.
• Settlement Pilot: The companies also kicked off a stablecoin settlement pilot last year to test how Visa issuers and acquirers can use stablecoins for onchain payment settlement. 
• Bridge's Regulatory Status: In February, Bridge won conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national bank charter, enabling the firm to custody crypto, issue stablecoins, and manage reserves.

Bankless Take:

This will expand Stripe’s next level of the stack, cards. So far they have:

• Issuance via Bridge.
• Distribution via Tempo.

And now, 

• Point of Sale via their stablecoin-linked card.

It’s a pretty hefty stack that’s looking increasingly difficult to compete against. With Tempo's testnet closing in on three months live, announcements like these may be preparatory work before a mainnet launch. If so, it looks like Temp will have everything it needs to compete as a major payments player once that time comes.