Fintech company Stripe has completed the largest acquisition to date for the crypto industry, buying stablecoin platform Bridge for $1,1 billion, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington reported.
Founded in 2022 by former Coibase executives Zack Abrams and Sean Yu, Bridge makes it easy to create, transfer, and store stablecoins. The deal between Stripe and Bridge follows a $40 million funding round in August.
At the time, Bridge had a market cap of $200 million. That makes the $1,1 billion price tag a significant jump from the platform’s previous valuation. It also marked Stripe’s largest acquisition ever, and the largest deal in the history of the crypto industry.
For Stripe, the acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge is another step in its strategy to expand its crypto services. The $70 billion fintech company began processing payments in the USDC stablecoin for U.S. businesses in early October. In June, Stripe partnered with Coinbase to include the second-layer Base network in its crypto payment products.
