Stablecoin M&A Wave Incoming: Why is Coinbase Willing to Spend $2 Billion to Acquire Infrastructure BVNK?

Original Article Title: "A $20 Billion Gamble? Coinbase to Provide Liquidity to Stablecoin via BVNK"

Original Article Author: KarenZ, Foresight News

The merger and acquisition competition in the stablecoin space is heating up. Following Stripe's $11 billion acquisition of the stablecoin platform Bridge, a bidding war has erupted between Coinbase and payment giant Mastercard, with their target being the rising star in the stablecoin payment infrastructure space — BVNK.

In early October, according to Fortune magazine citing insider sources, Coinbase and payment giant Mastercard have both entered into negotiations to acquire BVNK, with the deal value ranging between $15 billion and $25 billion. From various signs at the time, Coinbase seemed to have a slight edge in this bidding race. Coinbase's venture capital arm, Coinbase Ventures, is already one of BVNK's existing investors, laying the groundwork for this acquisition transaction through this "investment-to-acquisition" collaboration basis.

Entering November, Bloomberg's latest report further confirmed the progress of the transaction: Coinbase plans to finalize the acquisition of BVNK for approximately $20 billion. At this point, both parties have entered the late-stage negotiation phase, and the due diligence process is progressing. If all goes well, this deal is expected to be concluded by the end of 2025 or early 2026, creating the largest M&A case in the stablecoin space.

It is worth noting that just as the BVNK acquisition negotiations heated up, Mastercard quietly shifted its strategic focus to another target. According to Fortune magazine citing five informed sources at the end of October, Mastercard is in late-stage negotiations with Chicago-based cryptocurrency infrastructure startup Zerohash, planning to acquire the company for $15 billion to $20 billion.

Who is BVNK?

BVNK Team Background

BVNK was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in London. The company was founded by founders who have worked in the fintech, banking, and digital asset fields.

· BVNK CEO Jesse Hemson-Struthers: A serial entrepreneur, whose previous entrepreneurial projects in the e-commerce and gaming fields were successfully acquired by media giant Naspers and Sportradar, respectively.

· BVNK Co-Founder and CTO: Donald Jackson: Previously founded Cue (a self-funded customer engagement platform) and Verity (an anti-fraud service company).

· BVNK US CEO Amit Cheela: Formerly served as Chief Financial Officer at BlockFi.

· Chief Compliance Officer Phil Doyle: Led anti-fraud and compliance efforts at companies including Revolut, Visa, ClearBank, and Zepz.

The BVNK website indicates that its team has expanded to over 300 people, with an annualized payment transaction volume exceeding $200 billion and a total funding of $90 million.

Funding Progress and Valuation Trajectory

In terms of funding, in May 2022, BVNK completed a $40 million Series A funding round, reaching a post-money valuation of $3.4 billion. Tiger Global Management led this round. Other investors included The Raba Partnership, Avenir, Kingsway Capital, Nordstar, Concentric, and Base Capital, among others. Notably, despite suffering losses of up to $17 billion in the first four months of that year, Tiger Global remained bullish on BVNK, underscoring its confidence in the company's prospects.

In December 2024, BVNK completed a $50 million Series B funding round led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Scribble Ventures, DRW Venture Capital, and existing investors Avenir and Tiger Global. According to Fortune magazine, this funding round valued BVNK at approximately $7.5 billion.

Entering 2025, BVNK continued to receive recognition from global payment giant Visa and multinational bank Citigroup (Citi), receiving strategic investments in May from Visa's Visa Ventures and in December from Citi Ventures.

From a $3.4 billion valuation in May 2022, to a $7.5 billion valuation in December 2024, and now a negotiated acquisition price of around $20 billion, BVNK's rapid value appreciation reflects the investment fervor in the stablecoin infrastructure space and the market's recognition of BVNK.

Core Service System

BVNK provides a multi-tiered stablecoin payment infrastructure to assist enterprises in seamless operation between the traditional financial and blockchain worlds. Its services are divided into two major modes:

· Full Custody Mode: Enterprises can utilize BVNK's licensing and custody services to enable digital currency payments, with BVNK responsible for regulatory compliance and fund custody, reducing the cost of enterprise access.

· Self-Custody Mode: BVNK offers Infrastructure as a Service product "Layer1," designed for enterprises seeking scalability and control. Enterprises can run stablecoin payments internally, autonomously connecting licensing, custody providers, and liquidity partners.

Users can choose between the full custody mode and self-custody mode. The platform supports fast cross-border transfers and settlement through stablecoins, as well as traditional fiat payment channels.

In terms of product offerings, BVNK provides features such as virtual account naming, payment receipt, payment initiation, real-time transfers, and embedded wallets. Enterprises can integrate these features with just a few lines of code to offer users the ability to send, receive, hold, and exchange stablecoins and fiat within their own applications.

BVNK also places importance on expanding in the U.S. In August, BVNK announced a partnership with Paxos to provide stablecoin payment services in all 50 states of the U.S. At that time, BVNK also stated that in just the past 60 days, its transaction volume had quadrupled, with the annualized transaction volume for U.S. operations alone expected to exceed $10 billion by the end of the year.

Why is BVNK Valued at $20 Billion?

Strong Business Growth

As a stablecoin payment infrastructure provider, BVNK achieved strong business growth in 2025, with an annualized processed transaction volume exceeding $200 billion, serving key clients such as global payment processor Worldpay, payment support and software company Flywire, and cross-border payment platform dLocal.

From a $20 billion annualized processing volume in May 2022 to $200 billion today, a tenfold growth rate is exceptionally rare in the fintech sector, underscoring the explosive demand for stablecoin payments on the enterprise side.

Revenue Model

BVNK's revenue mainly comes from service fees charged to merchants, with its pricing model based on tiered divisions of payment transaction volumes, employing a fair and transparent marginal pricing strategy.

With the continued growth of the global stablecoin payment volume, BVNK's revenue scale will also expand accordingly, poised to form a stable cash flow and profit growth curve.

Core Logic Behind the High Valuation

The reason why BVNK has been able to achieve a valuation surge in a short period of time lies in its construction of a triple barrier of "Technology + Compliance + Ecosystem."

On a technological level, its Layer1 infrastructure supports multiple chains and multiple payment rails, enabling seamless integration between stablecoins and fiat currencies to meet diverse needs such as enterprise cross-border payments, global payroll distribution, market transaction settlement, and more; on a compliance level, its custody model will significantly reduce the compliance costs for enterprises to access stablecoin services; on an ecosystem level, BVNK has partnered with industry players such as Worldpay, dLocal, Deel, Xapo Bank, covering application scenarios in fintech, e-commerce platforms, global payroll, gaming, digital asset trading, and many other fields.

Furthermore, the explosive growth of the stablecoin industry is a vital external factor driving BVNK's valuation increase. With the signing and implementation of the "GENIUS Act," the United States has established a dedicated regulatory framework for stablecoins, making the industry development more standardized. Coupled with the demonstrative effect brought by Circle's listing, the institutionalization of stablecoins has accelerated. The market's continued strong demand for high-quality infrastructure service providers has also provided robust support for BVNK's valuation.

Coinbase's Strategic Intent

For a long time, Coinbase has been overly reliant on trading fees, a model with strong cyclicality. If the market enters a bear market, trading fee revenue plummets.

The acquisition of BVNK represents Coinbase's strategic awakening—from a passive participant enduring market cycle fluctuations to an active platform operator building infrastructure. The revenue brought by stablecoin infrastructure inherently exhibits countercyclicality. Even in periods of crypto market downturn, the demand for enterprise cross-border payments, payroll distribution, treasury management, etc., still exists. This predictable revenue model, based on transaction volume rather than price volatility, will significantly enhance Coinbase's financial stability.

We can observe that nearly 19% of Coinbase's revenue in the third quarter comes from stablecoins. Additionally, Coinbase is continually expanding its payment scenarios, such as launching payment APIs and B2B payment UI/API, supporting enterprises to settle in stablecoins embedded with USDC via the Base chain, 24-hour payments, and other functions.

One can imagine that, following the acquisition of BVNK, Coinbase will possess a stronger payment infrastructure. Through BVNK's payment network, USDC can flow more rapidly to global businesses and consumers, forming a true payment currency rather than just a transactional object.

Summary

Traditional payment systems are being disrupted by a new model built around the "infrastructure + application" paradigm, as opposed to the "channel + platform" model centered on credit cards and bank accounts.

Participants like Coinbase and Stripe are expected to demonstrate that when the payment infrastructure is sufficiently open and modular, third-party applications can rapidly build various payment services like building blocks.

The future payment market may no longer be dominated by the "channel monopoly" of Visa and Mastercard but instead be characterized by competition among multiple open stablecoin payment infrastructure platforms, each seeking to attract as many applications and users as possible.

From a broader perspective, the stablecoin payment acquisitions by Coinbase and Stripe are not isolated events but reflect a profound transformation of the entire financial ecosystem. Stablecoins have evolved from a niche topic in the crypto community to a mainstream force that the global financial system must reckon with. At this historical juncture, whoever controls the best payment infrastructure holds the key to the future of finance.

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