BVNK is described in the headline as a stablecoin firm.

Who is acquiring BVNK?

Mastercard is identified in the headline as the company acquiring BVNK.

How much is Mastercard’s acquisition of BVNK worth?

The headline values the acquisition at $1.8 billion.

Inside stablecoin firm BVNK’s journey to a $1.8B acquisition by Mastercard

The article examines stablecoin firm BVNK’s path to a reported $1.8 billion acquisition by Mastercard. It focuses on the company’s journey from the stablecoin sector to becoming an acquisition target for the payments giant.

Ian Allison

Publisher CoinDesk

Aug 10, 2026 at 7:52 AM UTC · 1 min de leitura

But it wasn’t just Coinbase who muscled in, Rist said. Visa also took a shine to BVNK.

“All the usual suspects were involved, and Visa had an advantage because they were an investor. They made some money out of BVNK…and they actually had an observer position on the board,” Rist said.

In the end, however, Rist said Visa decided not to pursue a potential acquisition. “I think they are adopting a slightly different strategy when it comes to to stablecoins. Rather than owning an operator, they will partner with multiple operators and partner also with Stripe, etcetera,” he said.

CoinDesk recently broke the news that all four firms — Stripe, Visa, Mastercard and Coinbase — were involved in backing a new stablecoin platform, which has since gone live. This only underlines the fact that stablecoins continue to be an area of importance for TradFi institutions despite an ongoing bear market in the crypto industry more broadly.

Looking at specific use cases keeping BVNK busy, Rist pointed to various treasury functions that are streamlined by the use of stablecoins.

“One large payments company working with BVNK rolls its treasury every 24 hours, and now they're using stablecoins to roll it,” he said.