- Move underscores Wall Street’s mounting crypto push.
- It’s the latest in series of big acquisitions this year.
Mastercard is said to be in late-stage talks to acquire stablecoin startup Zerohash in a deal worth up to $2 billion, Fortune reported.
If completed, the transaction would mark one of Mastercard’s biggest crypto bets and signal a new phase in Wall Street’s rush into the stablecoin space.
The play highlights how the traditional titans of finance are racing to tap into the stablecoin economy, a market already exceeding $307 billion and projected by Citi to hit $4 trillion by 2030.
For Mastercard, acquiring Zerohash would deepen a strategy that’s been quietly building for years, Fortune reports. The payments giant bought blockchain analytics firm CipherTrace in 2021 and this past summer joined a stablecoin consortium alongside Robinhood and Kraken.
By acquiring Zerohash, Mastercard would gain direct access to the APIs and settlement tools that allow banks, fintechs, and exchanges to issue and move stablecoins at scale.
Seth Eisen, senior vice president for communications at Mastercard, told DL News that “we don’t comment on speculation” when asked about Fortune’s story.
Bid for the rails
Founded in 2017, Chicago-based Zerohash builds APIs that help financial institutions launch stablecoin products, enable crypto trading, and tokenise assets.
The company counts Interactive Brokers, Apollo, Point72 Ventures, and Nyca among its backers, and raised over $100 million at a $1 billion valuation last year.
The potential acquisition follows a string of big bets by payment and crypto heavyweights.
Fintech giant Stripe bought stablecoin startup Bridge for $1.1 billion, while Coinbase recently entered exclusivity to acquire BVNK for around $2 billion.
“Card firms are increasingly integrating stablecoins into their systems, viewing the technology as a faster, cheaper, and safer alternative to traditional payment methods,” Reuters reported.
Zerohash’s technology underpins many of the products that make such integration possible.
The startup works with bulge bracket investment bank Morgan Stanley, which plans to launch crypto trading via E*Trade in 2026 through a Zerohash partnership.
Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email at lance@dlnews.com.
