There’s suddenly a flood of corporate chains, which prompts the question: Why is seemingly every big finance company—especially Stripe and Circle—becoming a blockchain developer?
The answer for Stripe is simple, according to two stablecoin executives and one investor: vertical integration.
Through its $1.1 billion acquisition of the stablecoin startup Bridge, Stripe bought its own stablecoin and payments network. And after its June acquisition of the crypto wallet company Privy, it can give users accounts to store stablecoins. For, Stripe—which has made its name off of more traditional payment offerings like online checkout—adding a blockchain would amount to the creation of a full-blown stablecoin ecosystem.
“There’s an incentive for these large companies to own the full stack,” Rob Hadick, general partner at the crypto venture firm Dragonfly who regularly invests in stablecoin startups, told Fortune.
“You want to control the economics,” Luca Prosperi, cofounder and CEO of stablecoin infrastructure company M0, told Fortune.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the multiplication of stablecoins and associated blockchains will result in countless coins and chains that normal consumers would have trouble navigating.
Stripe didn’t respond to a request for comment.
For Circle, it’s a similar set of motivations.
“They want to own that piece of money movement as well,” Bam Azizi, cofounder and CEO of crypto payments startup Mesh, told Fortune, in reference to Circle.
Circle, on the other hand, derived more than 96% of its revenue in the second quarter of 2025 purely from the interest it earns on the U.S. Treasuries backing its stablecoin. If interest rates go down, its entire business model could be threatened.
That said, some think the newly public company is playing catch-up.
“Circle is being defensive and reactive,” said Hadick, the general partner at Dragonfly. “And Stripe is thinking about the future of payments and the future of their business, and being offensive and proactive.”
