The cards, which currently live in 18 countries, allow customers to take stablecoin balances they have in crypto wallets and use them to pay for purchases at businesses such as delis, clothing stores, or any merchant that accepts Visa. Companies, including wallet startup Phantom, are coming to Bridge to create their own branded, stablecoin-backed debit cards, and Visa is acting as the card’s payment network.

“Whoever builds a stablecoin wallet needs to have a card connected to it if they want consumers and businesses with that amount stored in the wallet to spend in the real world,” Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto, said. luck.

Friends or enemies?

Some proponents of stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to real-world assets like the US dollar, say they threaten dominant companies like Visa and MasterCard. Instead of relying on decades-old networks, consumers can send and receive dollars instantly on blockchains. That view has hurt some investors in credit card companies. The day after the Senate PAST the Genius Act, a bill that regulates stablecoins, the stocks of the two dominant card giants fell.

But Visa’s Bridge expansion highlights how the disruption narrative can be overstated, and how fintechs are becoming increasingly integrated with legacy payments companies. Another stablecoin startup Rain, which is relatively new raised $250 million at a nearly $2 billion valuation, also issuing stablecoin-connected cards with Visa.

“For consumers who buy things in person, online, and in stores, over the last 40 years, we’ve built this very strong network of merchants and receivers,” Zach Abrams, cofounder and CEO of Bridge, said. luck. “That network will be really valuable in a world with stablecoins and in a world without stablecoins.”

One area where Abrams sees stablecoins potentially replacing card networks is through agent commerce, a term that describes a yet-to-be-realized arena where AI agents make purchases for humans. “There’s a whole new world that can be created when agents want to transact and get things at a speed that’s unique from the way card networks are built,” he said.

In addition to expanding his work with Visa, Bridge will join an ongoing pilot from the giant payment network that explores the possibility of settling charges in stablecoins on blockchains, instead of traditional bank transfers. Pilot participants already include fintech Worldpay and Nuvei. “We think that if we can move billions of dollars in the chain, we can move trillions of dollars in the chain,” said Sheffield, the Visa executive.