Stripe is pushing blockchain and stablecoins deeper into its core payments business. Speaking at the RWA Summit in Cannes, Adrien Duchâteau, the company’s head of crypto go-to-market, said Stripe is putting more of its stack onchain product by product, with a long-term goal of becoming an “AWS for money” that can route and orchestrate the movement of funds across different systems.
The shift builds on Stripe’s uneven but lengthy history with crypto. The company was among the earliest major technology firms to support bitcoin payments, launching that capability in 2014. It later pulled back in 2018 because volatility made bitcoin impractical for merchants. In 2021, Stripe returned with a dedicated crypto team after deciding the underlying technology had matured enough for real-world use cases.
Stablecoins move closer to the center of Stripe’s payment rails
Stripe’s pitch starts with a familiar problem: global payments are still slow and expensive. Duchâteau said cross-border transfers continue to depend heavily on systems such as SWIFT, where settlement can take days. For platforms that pay creators or contractors, that delay often shapes payout schedules. Stripe processes close to $2 trillion in annual payments, roughly 2% of global GDP, and serves more than 5 million businesses worldwide. At that scale, even small improvements in settlement speed could affect a wide range of users.
He described many networks as still operating on a T+3 basis, meaning a payment may take three days to fully settle. Cutting that delay to zero, he said, would amount to a major change in how money moves.
Stripe has backed that view with acquisitions and new infrastructure. In 2024, it bought stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge for $1.1 billion, then acquired crypto wallet provider Privy. It also worked with crypto investment firm Paradigm on Tempo, a blockchain built for payments. Tempo went live last month, with infrastructure partners including Mastercard, UBS, Klarna and Visa.
Checkout, payouts and issuance are already part of the rollout
Some of the stablecoin features are already in market. Merchants can accept stablecoins at checkout, including through Shopify integrations, while platforms such as Remote.com let users receive payouts in crypto. Through Bridge, Stripe is also helping fintech companies like Klarna and Slash issue stablecoins and integrate them into their own operations.
The company sees demand building where traditional financial rails are less effective. Duchâteau pointed to users in emerging markets who want dollar exposure, and to another practical use case: customers whose card payments are declined are in some cases switching to stablecoins to complete transactions.
Stripe wants users to stop caring which rail is underneath
Stripe is not presenting stablecoins as a replacement for fiat money. Its approach is to abstract the difference between payment rails so users no longer need to know whether a transaction is moving through traditional banking infrastructure or blockchain-based systems. The routing happens in the background.
That ambition stretches beyond payments alone. Duchâteau said the model could eventually support products tied to yield or access to capital, especially in markets where Stripe has had limited reach. He cited countries such as Argentina, where stablecoins and DeFi may open paths to services that are difficult to deliver through conventional banking channels. Stripe’s position, as he framed it, is that the technology has now reached a point where those ideas can be built and used at scale.