BVNK, the London stablecoin infrastructure startup, has quickly become a magnet for heavyweight buyers.
BVNK founded in 2021 by Chris Harmse, Jesse Hemson-Struthers, and Donald Jackson. The cypto startup builds technology that lets businesses use stablecoins for real-world financial operations: customer payments, cross-border transactions, treasury management, and on/off ramps between crypto and traditional money.
The company raised $50mn last December at a $750mn valuation, backed by Haun Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Tiger Global, and more recent stakes from Visa and Citi’s venture arms.
Now the startup finds itself in the middle of high-stakes negotiations.
BVNK offers enterprise-grade infrastructure for stablecoin payments, helping businesses embed stablecoin capabilities into their payment stack.
Its core product lines split across managed payments and self-managed payments: the former lets clients lean on BVNK’s custody, liquidity, and licensing; the latter offers clients the option to plug in their own custodian or liquidity provider.
Coinbase and Mastercard have both pursued advanced talks to buy BVNK, according to six people familiar with the process.
The potential price tag ranges from $1.5 bn to $2.5 bn. Some sources say Coinbase has the advantage over Mastercard, although nothing has been signed.
For context: Stripe’s $1.1bn purchase of Bridge in early 2024 set the bar for stablecoin acquisitions. Bridge, founded a year after BVNK by former Coinbase and Square execs, has already rolled out mainstream products with Stripe like Open Issuance, which lets companies launch custom stablecoins. BVNK’s sale, if it happens, could dwarf that earlier landmark deal.
BVNK claims to have built its technology over five years to support high-scale operations, routing cash and crypto flows, automating conversions, and orchestrating cross-border rails.
They also publish a product called Layer1: a self-hosted infrastructure stack that gives clients full control and privacy over stablecoin payments.
Stablecoins, pegged to assets like the US dollar, have existed for over a decade, but their role has shifted. Rather than just crypto traders’ safe havens, they’ve become the sector Silicon Valley won’t stop buzzing about.
Wire transfers crawl; stablecoins move in seconds and cost cents. Infrastructure firms like BVNK sit in the middle, greasing the conversion from state-backed money to tokens and back.
Since January, startups in the space have banked hundreds of millions from venture rounds. Circle’s IPO in June, red-hot by any measure, and the Genius Act signed in July by President Donald Trump, which gives stablecoins a dedicated regulatory framework, accelerated the hype.
That political and market momentum has spooked incumbents. Banks, payments processors, and card networks have scrambled.
Mastercard’s stock took a hit in June, when Amazon and Walmart’s interest in stablecoins leaked, and again after the Senate passed the Genius Act.
Even so, Mastercard executives have tried to downplay the threat. On a July call with analysts, chief commercial payments officer Raj Seshadri said most flows will still “begin and end in fiat” with stablecoins used only for narrow cases. Public reassurances aside, a BVNK deal would tell a different story.
More recently BVNK has rolled out an embedded wallet that merges fiat, stablecoins, and crypto in a single interface, offering unified access to blockchains and traditional payment systems (e.g. SWIFT, ACH).
Their pull into partnerships is notable. They teamed with LianLian Global to support cross-border merchant payments in 100+ countries, where BVNK handles auto-conversion and infrastructure while LianLian routes local fiat payouts.
They also struck deals with Worldpay to enable stablecoin payouts via BVNK’s rails.
Visa made a strategic investment via its Visa Ventures arm, signalling institutional backing for BVNK’s vision.
The company says it processes ~$12 bn in annual stablecoin volume.
BVNK maintains multiple regulatory licenses across jurisdictions and is expanding into the U.S., opening offices in San Francisco and New York.
They also claim to support “hundreds” of enterprise clients in use cases like treasury, payouts, merchant payments, and liquidity routing.
