Building blockchain is the latest fashion in fintech. Coinbase, a crypto exchange in the United States, has one. Robbery by online brokers Announce It plans to launch its own blockchain in June, and its competitor Etoro is consider It’s own. Now, the fintech giants Stripe and Stablecoin issuer circles are taking action.
Stripe is developing what is called Tempo, a payment-centric blockchain, according to Postings and sources familiar with the matter. and circles explain On Tuesday morning, it was building what it called ARC, a blockchain designed for stablecoins, or a cryptocurrency pegged to underlying assets like the US dollar.
Suddenly there are a large number of corporate chains, which begs the question: Why does it seem that every large financial company (particularly stripes and circles) occupy blockchain developers?
“Have a full stack”
According to two Stablecoin executives and an investor: Vertical integration, the answer to the stripes is simple.
Through a $1.1 billion acquisition of Stablecoin Startup Bridge, Stripe has purchased its own Stablecoin and Payments network. After acquiring crypto wallet company Privy in June, it could provide users with store stablecoins. Because, Stripe (which canceled its name in more traditional payment products like online checkout), adds blockchain to creation, a full-fledged Stablecoin ecosystem
“There is a motivation to have a full stack,” said Rob Hadick, general partner of cryptocurrency company Dragonfly, who often invests in Stablecoin startups. wealth.
The big bet for Stripe is that stablecoins may be the future of payments. If most $1.4 trillion With Stablecoins, it misses possible millions of revenue
Blockchain or decentralized network Ethereum or Solanasimilar to the encryption technology stack Google Cloud or AWS. A decentralized fleet of servers handles many transactions on encryption applications, and to borrow its computing power, owners of these servers receive fees.
For example, Coinbase’s own blockchain base has incurred more than $130 million in fees since its launch in early 2023. defill.
“You want to control economics,” Luca Prosperi, co-founder and CEO of Stablecoin infrastructure company M0, told wealth.
However, whether countless coins and chains will be generated and whether this will make it difficult for the average consumer to navigate is still to be seen.
Stripe did not respond to a request for comment.
National defense and offensive
For Circle, this is a similar set of motivations.
Stablecoin issuer, has one Red Hot IPO In June, there is its own token, USDC. The company also has its own emerging payment network. And it even has a service that allows corporate customers to spin their own crypto wallets. Still, cryptocurrency companies do not have their own blockchain that can process the amount of payments through their services and charge fees.
“They want to have the money movement, too,” Bam Azizi, co-founder and CEO of crypto payment startup Mesh, told crypto payments startup Bam Azizi, told crypto payments wealthreference circle.
But stripes and circles are not on the same basis. Stripe is one of the largest private companies in technology. This is a major payment processor whose revenue has diversified – including $500 million The annual revenue run rate ended in January, with its stripes vertical billing.
Circle, on the other hand, received more than 96% of its revenue in the second quarter of 2025, purely due to the interest it received on U.S. Treasury bonds. If interest rates drop, their entire business model could be threatened.
“We are building a complete stack from the infrastructure layer to the stability layer to the payment network layer,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire explain In the live interview information About his company’s second quarter earnings. (A spokesperson for Circle declined to comment further.)
That is, some people think the new public company is catching up.
“Circles are defensive and reactive,” said Hardick, general partner of Dragonfly. “Stripe is thinking about the future of payments and its business and is offensive and proactive.”