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Stripe plans to take its stablecoin card program to over 100 countries
The payments giant is aiming to scale Bridge-powered cards well beyond the 18 countries where the Visa partnership first launched
Stripe plans to expand its stablecoin card program to more than 100 countries by the end of the year. That is a big jump from where things stood just months ago.
The program launched with Visa in March 2026 across 18 countries, mostly in Latin America. Going from 18 to over 100 in under a year is less a gradual rollout and more a sprint.
What Stripe is actually building
Stripe announced the expansion on October 5, 2026. The goal is to make stablecoin-backed cards available in more than 100 countries before 2026 wraps up.
The heavy lifting comes from Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure company Stripe bought for $1.1 billion in 2024. Bridge enables on-chain settlement options, meaning money can be moved and finalized on a blockchain rather than only through traditional banking rails.
Stripe also acquired Privy in 2025 as part of the same push. Together, Bridge and Privy form the technical backbone for the cards Stripe now wants to export globally.
Cardholders can spend at Visa’s merchant network, which covers more than 175 million locations.
The numbers behind the push
Stripe has processed more than 400 million cards since 2018.
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The stablecoin card market itself is growing fast. Spending on stablecoin cards hit approximately $1.2 billion in September 2026, roughly three times what the sector did a year earlier.
All of this sits inside a broader digital dollar market that now exceeds $300 billion.
Existing users of Stripe’s stablecoin card programs include crypto exchange Kraken and corporate spend platform Ramp.
How we got here
Stripe’s stablecoin strategy has been taking shape for a couple of years. The Bridge deal in 2024 was the opening move, followed by Privy in 2025.
The March 2026 Visa partnership was the first real test in the market. It started with 18 countries and a heavy focus on Latin America.
Stripe’s broader stablecoin plans include enabling financial services in more than 100 countries and issuing stablecoins in over 30 markets.
What this means for payments and crypto
Expanding from 18 to over 100 countries means navigating many different regulatory regimes, licensing requirements and local banking partners. Doing that in a few months is ambitious, and the year-end target remains a plan rather than a finished rollout.
The key metrics to track are straightforward. Watch how many countries actually go live by year-end, whether monthly stablecoin card spending keeps climbing past the September figure, and which new platforms join Kraken and Ramp as program users.