The largest acquisition in Web3 history: What is Bridge, which Stripe spent $1.1 billion on?

Original title: "With $58 million in financing, how does Bridge build the Web3 version of Stripe?"

Original author: Karen, Foresight News

Updated on October 21: According to Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, "Payment giant Stripe acquired stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1 billion." The Block said, "Bridge is Stripe's largest acquisition to date and the largest acquisition in the history of Web3." In October, Stripe officially launched and supported USDC payments, accepting stablecoin payments from more than 150 countries. Buyers can pay USDC from Ethereum, Solana and Polygon chains. This article was originally published on August 30, 2024:

This week, Bridge announced the completion of $58 million in financing, supported by investment institutions including Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, Index Ventures, Haun Ventures and 1confirmation.

In fact, Bridge has been under construction for more than two years. The two co-founders of Bridge both have deep backgrounds in Coinbase and other well-known financial technology companies. Among them, CEO Zach Abrams served as Chief Product Officer at the financial technology company Brex, Consumer Director at Coinbase, and General Manager at Square. CTO Sean Yu has worked as a senior engineer or engineering manager at Airbnb, Coinbase, Doordash and Square.

It is worth mentioning that, according to Techcrunch, the two founders co-founded the P2P payment platform Evenly as early as 2012, which is committed to simplifying the payment process between friends to share bills and other expenses. The following year, Evenly was acquired by Square, further verifying their innovation and strength in the payment field.

Bridge-Web3 version of Stripe

Bridge can be regarded as the Web3 version of Stripe. Through a simple and easy-to-use API interface, it helps companies easily cross the threshold of stablecoin adoption, making stablecoin transfer and receipt more convenient and low-cost. Whether it is integrating stablecoin payments, helping companies issue their own stablecoins, or realizing efficient cross-border fund transfers, Bridge provides a full range of support and solutions.

Bridge's Orchestration API and Issuance API provide a more convenient experience for enterprises and developers. The former helps enterprises seamlessly integrate stablecoin payments, while Bridge handles all regulatory, compliance and technical complexities; the latter allows enterprises to quickly issue their own stablecoins in minutes, accepting US dollars, euros, USDC, USDT or any other stablecoins while settling funds in the company's own stablecoins, and reserves can be invested in US Treasuries to earn returns.

Bridge said that using its API, funds can be transferred globally within minutes, stablecoin payments can be sent seamlessly, local fiat currencies can be converted into stablecoins, and US dollar and euro accounts can be provided to global consumers and businesses, allowing customers to save and spend in US dollars and euros.

Bridge has processed more than $5 billion in annual payments

Bridge has attracted many customers including SpaceX. According to Fortune, SpaceX uses Bridge to collect payments in different currencies in different jurisdictions and transfer them to its global treasury through stablecoins. Bridge has also established partnerships with crypto companies such as blockchain network Stellar and Bitcoin payment app Strike to provide infrastructure for their own stablecoin payment functions. In addition, Coinbase has also adopted Bridge's services to support transfers between Tether on Tron and USDC on Base. According to statistics, Bridge has processed more than $5 billion in annual payments.

@TTx0x revealed that it has talked to 25 to 30 crypto payment companies in the past few weeks and found that these companies generally use or plan to use Bridge's services.

In terms of compliance, Bridge has obtained operating licenses in many places around the world. Fortune reported that Bridge currently has licenses in 48 states and a VASP license in Poland, and is applying for further licenses in New York, Europe and elsewhere. According to Conviction, in areas where Bridge is not yet compliant, they have established partnerships to cover a wider range of services, for example, they have cooperated with Bitso for B2B payments in Latin America.

Looking to the future, we will keep a close eye on whether Bridge can lead the transformation of the stablecoin payment field and inject new vitality and possibilities of stablecoin and legal currency funds flow into the world, including Africa.

Reference:

https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/08/29/bridge-stablecoins-sequoia-ribbit-index-haun-58-million/

https://conviction.finance/2024/bridge-xyz-the-unknown-giant/

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