Stripe taps Privy CEO Henri Stern to lead its crypto and stablecoin push

Stripe has handed the keys to its crypto and stablecoin strategy to Henri Stern, the co-founder and CEO of Privy. He takes the role around October 5, 2026, and keeps running Privy, the wallet company Stripe acquired last year.

The appointment matters because Stripe has spent real money assembling a stablecoin toolkit. Now it has picked someone to make that toolkit work as one product.

What Stern is inheriting

Stern’s new remit covers Stripe’s crypto and stablecoin work across the board. That includes its stablecoin card programs and its developer offerings.

Stripe bought Privy in 2025, announcing the deal in mid-June and closing it around July. Privy builds embedded wallets, which let apps give users a crypto wallet without making them install a separate app or memorize a seed phrase.

Privy’s scale is the reason Stripe wanted it. The platform supports over 160 million accounts. It processes billions in monthly volume for more than 2,000 developers and businesses.

Before Privy, Stripe bought Bridge for $1.1 billion. Bridge is a stablecoin orchestration platform that handles the plumbing that moves stablecoins in and out of regular money and between systems.

Stack those together and the picture gets clearer. Stripe is building a global stablecoin developer infrastructure that combines wallets, orchestration, card issuing and asset issuance. Privy covers the wallet layer. Bridge covers orchestration. Stripe’s existing business covers the cards.

The card ambition

The most concrete goal on Stern’s desk is the stablecoin card rollout. Stripe plans to expand its stablecoin-linked card programs to over 100 countries by the end of 2026.

Recent monthly spending on these programs hit about $1.2 billion.

Current users of the stablecoin cards include Kraken, Ramp and Morse. Those partners plug into Bridge for the orchestration piece.

The open stack pitch

Stern has emphasized what he calls an ‘open stack’ approach. The idea is that developers should not get trapped inside Stripe’s ecosystem just because they use one of its products.

Why Stripe keeps buying its way in

Keeping Stern as Privy’s CEO while expanding his scope suggests Stripe wants continuity at the wallet layer. Giving the founder more authority instead of less is one way to avoid the usual post-deal drift.

It also concentrates decision-making. The person who runs the wallet product will now set direction for the cards and orchestration products it connects to.

What this means

For the stablecoin market, Stripe’s push is a distribution story. Card programs in over 100 countries would put stablecoin balances in front of merchants who never asked to accept crypto.

The roughly $1.2 billion in recent monthly card spending gives a baseline to measure against.

For competitors, few rivals can offer wallets, orchestration, card issuing and asset issuance under one roof, backed by a payments giant’s merchant network.

There are execution risks. Expanding to over 100 countries by the end of 2026 means navigating a patchwork of local rules on payments and digital assets.