- Fintechs will push further into crypto in 2026.
- Here's how Stripe, PayPal and others are positioning themselves.
Fintech firms are betting big on crypto in 2026.
Having muscled into digital assets like never before in 2025, tech companies operating at the intersection of crypto and old-school finance now plan to strengthen their hold on the $3 trillion market.
“2026 is going to be massive,” Leonid Bashlykov, crypto head of product at Revolut, said on LinkedIn when talking about the neobank’s plans.
From hiring to launching bespoke blockchains, here’s how five of the most influential fintech firms are seizing the day in 2026.
PayPal
PayPal CEO Alex Chriss is busy integrating blockchain solutions across the $56 billion payment giant.
Chriss told Fortune in December that the push comes as the 30-year-old venture must reinvent itself to stay relevant in an ever-changing world.
“If you were to build the payments ecosystem from scratch today, it wouldn’t look like the way it does today,” said Chriss. “You would start to use some sort of blockchain, or some sort of thing that probably looks a lot like stablecoin.”
PayPal is aiming to beef up its crypto team. The company is looking for a senior manager of crypto business development to help it “write the next chapter of money,” according to a recent job posting.
That being said, PayPal is no stranger to digital assets.
It launched its own stablecoin, PYUSD, in 2023. In 2025, the total amount of PYUSD in circulation skyrocketed by 600% to $3.6 billion, according to DefiLlama. It now makes up for 1.6% of the stablecoin market.
Stripe
Stripe is expected to roll out Tempo, its highly anticipated layer 1 blockchain, in 2026, following its December launch on a public testnet.
It’s a bold move for the $106 billion fintech firm, which revealed its crypto ambitions in 2024 through a $1.1 billion acquisition of the stablecoin startup Bridge.
Even so, its collaboration with venture capital firm Paradigm to launch Tempo stands out as it actively puts it in competition with other layer 1s like Ethereum and Solana.
Tempo’s mainnet launch is expected sometime this year, but Stripe hasn’t confirmed the exact date. Neither Stripe nor Paradigm provided any updates on the timeline when asked.
That being said, over the coming months, Stripe plans to team up with new partners in order to bolster Tempo.
The company is already counting Anthropic, Coupang, Deutsche Bank, DoorDash, Lead Bank, Mercury, Nubank, OpenAI, Revolut, Shopify, Standard Chartered, Visa, and Klarna as partners.
Klarna
Klarna plans to launch a stablecoin this year, too.
The buy-now-pay-later company announced the news in November. The announcement marked a dramatic departure from 2022, when the $11 billion venture rejected the idea of tapping into cryptocurrencies.
“We were wrong on crypto and on Bitcoin, must rethink!” Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna’s CEO, said as the $11 billion company announced plans to launch a stablecoin.
KlarnaUSD is in testing and scheduled for a mainnet launch in 2026, according to Klarna. It will be rolled out on Tempo, Stripe’s blockchain.
Revolut
Revolut is expanding its crypto team. The UK-headquartered neobank has 11 open positions related to crypto. Those roles include a crypto investigator and a product marketing manager.
The recruitment drive comes after what Revolut’s Bashlykov described as a defining year that saw it recruit “record numbers of top talent,” and score a MiCA licence. It also secured a $75 billion valuation.
“We’re no longer just a buy [and] sell product,” Bashlykov said on LinkedIn. “We are evolving to a financial infrastructure for how trillions of dollars will be traded, earned and moved.”
Robinhood
Robinhood had a blockbuster 2025. The trading platform launched a smattering of blockchain-based products, including rolling out tokenised shares across Europe
“We’re taking that momentum into 2026 by building a faster, smarter, and more connected future for every investor,” said Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood’s crypto lead, in a blog post.
First item on the list? To unlock fee-tier support for its crypto trading API in the US.
Robinhood is also expected to start up its own prediction market after acquiring LedgerX in November. It had already had a similar product online in February with Kalshi, but the acquisition may cut Kalshi out of the new product.
The $109 billion company has nine open crypto roles listed on its website.
Eric Johansson is DL News’ managing editor. Got a tip? Email him at eric@dlnews.com.
