Stripe targets over 100 countries for stablecoin card expansion by year-end

Stripe is pushing deeper into stablecoin payments, with plans to bring its digital-dollar card programs to more than 100 countries by year-end. The expansion, detailed by Henri Stern, the Privy co-founder who now also oversees stablecoins and crypto across Stripe, comes as stablecoin card spending has tripled over the past year.

• Stripe expects stablecoin card programs in over 100 countries by year-end, Stern told CoinDesk.
• Stablecoin card spending reached about $1.2 billion last month, roughly triple the volume a year earlier, according to PaymentScan.
• Current stablecoin card customers include Kraken, Ramp and payments app Morse.

• 100+ countries targeted for Stripe stablecoin cards by year-end
• $1.2B monthly stablecoin card spending, triple last year’s volume
• 400M+ cards issued by Stripe since 2018
• $1.1B price Stripe paid to acquire Bridge in 2024

Stripe, the global payments company, is betting that stablecoins can sit alongside traditional currencies as a routine way for consumers and businesses to pay. Henri Stern, chief executive and co-founder of crypto wallet infrastructure firm Privy, which Stripe acquired in 2025, has taken on an expanded role overseeing stablecoins and crypto across the company, Stripe told CoinDesk. Stern said Stripe expects its stablecoin card programs to reach more than 100 countries by year-end.

Stablecoin card spending triples to $1.2 billion a month

About $1.2 billion in stablecoins were spent through cards last month, triple the amount recorded a year earlier, according to data from PaymentScan. That is still a small slice of the broader card payments industry tracked by the Nilson Report, but the growth suggests stablecoins are moving beyond crypto trading and cross-border transfers into everyday retail spending.

Stripe’s customers for the product span different use cases. Ramp, a corporate card fintech, could use stablecoins to extend its card into new markets without rebuilding local banking relationships country by country. Kraken, the crypto exchange, has explored letting customers spend directly from accounts where they already hold digital assets, while payments app Morse is also live on the rails.

Stern’s dual role ties Privy, Bridge and the card business together

Stripe’s stablecoin card push rests on infrastructure it already owns. The company has issued more than 400 million cards and processed hundreds of billions of dollars in card volume since 2018, Stern said, and is now pairing that issuing network with Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure firm Stripe bought for $1.1 billion in 2024.

If you’re using Stripe, Bridge, Privy, Tempo, Open USD, it should be absolutely amazing, and it should feel like these systems were built to exist together.

Henri Stern, head of stablecoins and crypto at Stripe

Most current card programs run on Circle’s USDC. Stern said Stripe intends to stay “completely stablecoin agnostic, completely blockchain agnostic” rather than lock customers into a single token or chain.

Open USD and Tempo widen Stripe’s stablecoin ambitions

Stripe has been assembling a broader blockchain payments stack beyond cards. After buying Bridge and Privy, it partnered with crypto investment firm Paradigm to build Tempo, a blockchain designed specifically for payments, and became a founding investor in Open Standard, the company building Open USD, a stablecoin positioned to compete with Circle’s USDC and Tether’s USDT.

Bridge co-founder Zach Abrams has moved to run Open Standard full time. Stern said Stripe is also exploring tokenized deposits, decentralized finance use cases and accepting more digital assets as payment, though he added that “by and far, the bulk of our work happens with stablecoins.”

The BlockWest read. Stripe is less interested in selling crypto than in making stablecoins invisible inside products merchants already run on its rails. For corporate treasuries and fintechs like Ramp, that lowers the cost of entering new markets without separate banking integrations in each one. The real test is whether Stripe can keep Circle’s USDC, Open USD and other tokens interchangeable on its rails without quietly favoring the stablecoin it has equity in.

Stripe has not given an exact date for the 100-country rollout beyond “by the end of the year,” leaving open which markets go live first and whether Kraken, Ramp and Morse remain the only named customers once the expansion is complete.

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