In short
- The deal would surpass Stripe’s massive $1.1 billion purchase of stablecoin startup Bridge last year.
- Stablecoin activity has exploded, with the total market capitalization of tokens increasing by around $100 billion this year.
- Last month, Morgan Stanley partnered with Zerohash to enable E*Trade customers to trade Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana.
Credit card giant Mastercard is reportedly in advanced talks is acquiring stablecoin infrastructure company Zerohash for between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, according to the report Fortune, which cited five unnamed sources with knowledge of the deal.
The potential acquisition is the second this month that New York-based Mastercard is reportedly pursuing as it looks to expand its presence in the stablecoin space, along with other high-profile financial services companies.
This is what a Mastercard spokesperson said Declutter that the company does not comment on speculation. Declutter also contacted Zerohash.
Mastercard and Coinbase each held late-stage talks with BVNK about acquiring the stablecoin startup for around $2 billion. Fortune also reported in early October.
Both deals would surpass the $1.1 billion that payment processor Stripe paid a year ago to acquire another stablecoin startup, Bridge.
Stablecoin activity has only increased this year amid a friendlier political and regulatory environment, including the passage of the GENIUS Act, which created a framework for issuing and trading stablecoins, and as traditional financial firms and retailers have become increasingly interested in them as a way to execute transactions faster and cheaper.
The market capitalization for stablecoins has reached more than $312 billion, up from roughly $100 billion this year, according to data analytics platform CoinGlass, and British bank Standard Chartered has predicted the market value would reach $750 billion by the end of 2026.
In a Myriad prediction market, more than 50% of respondents believe the stablecoin market value will exceed $360 billion before February. Myriad is part of Dastan, the parent company of an editorially independent company Declutter.
“[In] In the same way that DATs infiltrated Wall Street, stables will replace money transfer,” Chris Miglino, co-founder and president of crypto venture capital firm DNA Fund, told me. Declutter earlier this month.
Zerohash closed a $104 million Series D-2 funding round in September at a $1 billion valuation and has raised a total of $275 million since 2017. Global brokerage Interactive Brokers led the latest funding round, which also included Morgan Stanley and Jump Crypto.
It has provided products and services for Interactive Brokers, Franklin Templeton, Stripe and BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund, among others.
Last month, Zerohash announced a partnership with Morgan Stanley that will allow customers of TradFi Goliath’s online platform E*Trade to trade Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana.
In a statement shared with Declutter at the time. Following that announcement, Zerohash CEO Edward Woodford said that “Morgan Stanley’s strategic stake in Zerohash underscores the critical role that infrastructure plays… in digital finance.”
Daily debriefing Newsletter
Start every day with today’s top news stories, plus original articles, a podcast, videos and more.
