Visa Expands Stablecoin Settlement Pilot to Nine Blockchains as Volume Hits $7B Annualized Rate

TLDR:

• • Visa stablecoin settlement volume grew 50% quarter over quarter, reaching a $7 billion annualized run rate.
  • Five new chains including Base, Polygon, Arc, Tempo, and Canton now support Visa’s multi-chain settlement layer.
  • Visa operates over 130 stablecoin-linked card programs across more than 50 countries worldwide.
  • Visa serves as a design partner for Arc and a validator on both Tempo and Canton blockchain networks.

Visa has added five new blockchain networks to its global stablecoin settlement pilot, bringing the total supported chains to nine.

The payment giant’s onchain settlement volume now runs at a $7 billion annualized pace, up roughly 50% quarter over quarter. The expansion covers Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon, and Tempo, each meeting distinct settlement needs.

Visa also operates more than 130 stablecoin-linked card programs across over 50 countries, connecting digital assets to traditional payment rails worldwide.

A Growing Multi-Chain Settlement Infrastructure

Visa’s newly added networks serve clearly different institutional purposes. Polygon and Base, the latter incubated by Coinbase, are both Ethereum scaling solutions built to handle high transaction volumes efficiently.

Circle’s Arc and Stripe’s Tempo are layer-1 chains focused on stablecoins and payment applications specifically. Canton offers configurable privacy settings, making it a practical fit for enterprise-level financial institutions.

These five networks join Visa’s existing support for Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and Stellar. Together, they form a broad multi-chain settlement layer that spans both public and permissioned blockchain environments.

The selection reflects how financial institutions now operate across multiple ecosystems rather than committing to a single chain. Visa’s infrastructure is designed to serve that reality rather than force a consolidation.

Visa’s relationship with several of the new entrants runs deeper than mere technical integration. The company serves as a design partner for Arc.

More recently, it became a validator on both Tempo and Canton. These roles place Visa inside the governance and operational structures of emerging payment-focused chains, not just as a user of existing infrastructure.

Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s Global Head of Growth Products and Strategic Partnerships, addressed the rationale directly. “Our partners are building in a multi-chain world, and they expect their options to reflect that reality,” he said in a statement.

He added that expanding settlement support allows partners to select the networks that best fit their own requirements. Visa, he noted, provides a common settlement layer across all of them.

Settlement Volume Growth and Broader Ecosystem Reach

The pilot’s growth figures are notable by any measure. Visa’s annualized stablecoin settlement volume rose from roughly $4.7 billion to $7 billion in a single quarter, representing approximately 50% growth.

That pace of expansion points to accelerating institutional demand for blockchain-based payment infrastructure rather than speculative retail interest. The underlying use case of settling real payments across institutional partners is driving volume upward.

The broader stablecoin card ecosystem further supports this picture. Visa currently powers more than 130 stablecoin-linked card programs spanning more than 50 countries.

These programs allow digital-asset holders to spend stablecoin balances through standard card networks, bridging the gap between onchain holdings and everyday commerce. The scale of geographic coverage suggests this is not a regional test but a global infrastructure rollout.

Visa’s position in the stablecoin payments space is now multidimensional. It operates as a settlement layer, a card network, a validator, and in some cases a design partner for the chains it supports.

That combination gives it a different kind of foothold compared to institutions that simply accept crypto payments at the point of sale. The company is embedding itself into the underlying infrastructure of blockchain-based finance.

The expansion also arrives as stablecoin-related legislation continues to gain traction in multiple jurisdictions. Regulatory clarity, where it exists, tends to accelerate institutional adoption of stablecoin infrastructure.

Visa’s investment in a multi-chain settlement layer positions it to serve financial partners operating within emerging compliance frameworks without being tied to a single network’s regulatory fate.

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