Points of Focus

• Visa is positioning itself as the bridge across chains, not betting on a single winner. 
• Stablecoin settlement hit a $7B annual run rate, growing 50% quarter-over-quarter, but still small vs Visa’s total volume. 
• Real-world usage is live with 130+ stablecoin-linked card programs across 50+ countries, enabling everyday spending. 

Visa added five blockchains to its stablecoin settlement pilot on Wednesday, expanding to nine total networks as annualized volume reached $7 billion, a 50% jump from the prior quarter, and its stablecoin-linked card programs now span more than 130 products across 50 countries. 

The world's largest payment network settles stablecoins on Polygon.

Now supported on its global stablecoin settlement program, Visa's partners can choose Polygon rails to move money instantly. pic.twitter.com/WlZKAYyae0

— Polygon | POL (@0xPolygon) April 29, 2026

Five new chains, one settlement layer

Visa announced on April 29, 2026 the addition of Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon, and Tempo to its global stablecoin settlement pilot, a program that allows card issuers and merchant acquirers to settle transactions in stablecoins rather than routing funds through the correspondent banking system. 

The five additions bring the total number of supported networks to nine, adding to the original four of Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana, and Stellar. Each new chain serves a distinct segment of the payments and financial infrastructure market. 

• Arc is Circle’s purpose-built layer-1 blockchain, designed to serve as a base layer for programmable money and real-world economic activity. 
• Base is Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network, optimized for fast and low-cost stablecoin transfers and onchain commerce. 
• Canton is a privacy-configurable network built for institutional capital markets and compliant settlement flows. 
• Polygon is a high-throughput payments network targeting global commerce. 
• Tempo, operated by Stripe, focuses on the efficient movement of stablecoin liquidity and settlement flows between financial counterparties.

Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s Global Head of Growth Products and Strategic Partnerships, framed the expansion in direct terms: ‘Our partners are building in a multi-chain world, and they expect their options to reflect that reality. Expanding our stablecoin settlement pilot program to more blockchains means our partners can choose the networks that best fit their needs, while relying on Visa to provide a common settlement layer across all of them.’

From pilot to payment infrastructure

The $7 billion run rate represents a jump from approximately $4.7 billion in the prior quarter, with Visa describing the pace as a record for the program. The settlement pilot works by letting Visa’s network partners, both card issuers on one side and merchant acquirers on the other, post and receive settlement in stablecoins rather than in fiat through a bank. 

Visa acts as the common layer across whichever blockchain each counterparty chooses to use, converting and netting positions so that a partner on Solana and a partner on Base can still settle a transaction against each other without either knowing or caring what the other is running. 

The program has been live in Latin America and the Caribbean since 2023, where Rain, a Bahrain-based fintech, was the first acquirer to settle in USDC via Visa. Europe and Asia deployments followed over 2024 and 2025.

The stablecoin card footprint and what the numbers mean for Visa

Beyond the settlement infrastructure, Visa now runs more than 130 stablecoin-linked card programs across more than 50 countries. Those programs let end users spend from stablecoin wallets at any merchant that accepts Visa, with the conversion from stablecoin to local currency happening at the point of sale. 

The $7 billion settlement run rate is annualised from current quarterly volume and does not reflect Visa’s total stablecoin-related card spending, which the company has not disclosed separately. To put the figure in context, Visa processed roughly $13.2 trillion in total payment volume in fiscal year 2025. 

The stablecoin settlement pilot remains a small fraction of that base, but the 50% quarterly growth rate is significantly faster than Visa’s overall network growth, and the addition of Base and Arc, both owned by the two largest US crypto firms, signals that the program is now drawing in the institutional stablecoin infrastructure that has been building rapidly since the passage of the GENIUS Act framework in late 2025.