Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and Coinbase Are Reportedly Teaming Up on a Stablecoin
Payments giants Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and Coinbase are in talks to launch a joint stablecoin platform — a direct challenge to Tether and Circle in a market now worth over $300 billion.
TL;DR — Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and Coinbase are reportedly in early talks to launch a joint stablecoin platform, aiming the combined distribution of the card networks straight at Tether and Circle in a stablecoin market now worth more than $300 billion.
For years, stablecoins lived in a strange limbo: a few hundred billion dollars of dollar-pegged tokens, mostly used by crypto traders to park cash between bets, largely ignored by the companies that actually move the world's money. That era looks like it's ending. The companies that move the world's money have noticed — and according to reports out of early June, four of the biggest are circling a deal together.
The reported consortium
Per a Fortune report, Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and Coinbase are in talks to launch a stablecoin platform built to push adoption deep into the everyday retail payment system — and, not incidentally, to generate fresh revenue from the interest earned on the reserves backing the coins. CoinDesk first reported on June 3 that Coinbase was weighing whether to join the group.
Crucially, this is still talks, not a signed deal. Fortune notes there are no formal agreements or MOUs yet — just conversations. But the mere fact of the conversation is significant, because of who's in the room.
Why Tether and Circle should be nervous
The stablecoin market is a duopoly. Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC — which Fortune notes "accounts for the majority of regulated stablecoin activity in North America and Europe" — have run the space for the better part of a decade. The total market is now worth more than $300 billion.
What the incumbents don't have is distribution. Here's the asymmetry:
- Tether/Circle built the rails. Trusted by traders, integrated across exchanges.
- Visa/Mastercard reach tens of millions of merchants and billions of cards.
- Stripe is plumbing for a huge slice of internet commerce.
- Coinbase brings the crypto-native user base and exchange.
A consortium with that footprint could put a stablecoin in front of ordinary shoppers at checkout — something no crypto-first issuer has ever managed. That's the threat.
This isn't happening in a vacuum, either. In early June, Mastercard separately announced it was expanding settlement to support "on-chain card settlement using regulated stablecoins," per PYMNTS. The pipes are already being laid.
The catch: consortiums are where good ideas go to die
Before anyone declares the duopoly dead, Fortune drops the cold water — and it's the right call. As the report bluntly puts it, "history shows consortiums are harder than they seem." Two ghosts haunt this deal:
| Failed coalition | What happened |
|---|---|
| Facebook's Libra (2019) | Collapsed under regulatory pressure; partners fled |
| R3's bank blockchain group | Never delivered on its banking ambitions |
There's also Coinbase's own awkward position: it currently earns the lion's share of interest from USDC reserves under a 2023 deal with Circle that auto-renews. Helping launch a rival stablecoin means potentially torching a very lucrative existing arrangement. And antitrust regulators, Fortune notes, would almost certainly scrutinize a pact between the two dominant card networks.
Why it still matters
Even if this specific consortium never ships, the signal is unmistakable: stablecoins have graduated from crypto curiosity to payments infrastructure that Visa and Mastercard feel they have to defend. When the incumbents of money start building on the technology they spent years dismissing, the question stops being if dollar-backed tokens go mainstream and becomes who collects the interest when they do.
FAQ
Which companies are involved in the new stablecoin platform?
Reports from early June 2026 say Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and Coinbase are in talks to launch a joint stablecoin platform. As of those reports the discussions were early-stage, with no formal agreements signed.
How big is the stablecoin market in 2026?
The stablecoin market is worth more than $300 billion, long dominated by Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC. USDC accounts for the majority of regulated stablecoin activity in North America and Europe.
Why would a consortium threaten Tether and Circle?
Tether and Circle built trusted stablecoin rails but lack consumer distribution. Visa and Mastercard reach billions of cards and tens of millions of merchants, Stripe powers a large share of online commerce, and Coinbase brings crypto users — a combined footprint that could put a stablecoin at ordinary retail checkouts for the first time.
Sources: Fortune, CoinDesk, PYMNTS.
Image: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
← Back to all posts