A $2 billion gamble? Coinbase wants to create a fast lane for stablecoins through BVNK

Core Viewpoint

2025-11-10 23:20:32

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Following Stripe's acquisition of the stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1 billion, another bidding war has erupted between Coinbase and payment giant Mastercard.

Author: KarenZ, Foresight News

The competition for mergers and acquisitions in the stablecoin sector is intensifying. Following Stripe's acquisition of the stablecoin platform Bridge for $1.1 billion, a bidding war has erupted between Coinbase and payment giant Mastercard, targeting the rising star in stablecoin payment infrastructure—BVNK.

At the beginning of October, Fortune magazine reported that both Coinbase and Mastercard had begun negotiations to acquire BVNK, with the deal valued between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion. From various signs at the time, Coinbase appeared to have a slight advantage in this bidding race. Coinbase's venture capital arm, Coinbase Ventures, is already one of BVNK's existing investors, creating a "post-investment acquisition" foundation that seems to pave a green channel for this acquisition deal.

Entering November, Bloomberg's latest report further confirmed the progress of the deal: Coinbase plans to finalize the acquisition of BVNK for approximately $2 billion, with both parties now in the later stages of negotiations and due diligence processes underway. If all goes smoothly, the deal is expected to be finalized by the end of 2025 or early 2026, creating the largest merger case in the stablecoin sector.

It is worth mentioning that just as the BVNK acquisition negotiations reached a fever pitch, 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 to acquire the Chicago-based cryptocurrency infrastructure startup Zerohash for between $1.5 billion and $2 billion.

Who is BVNK?

BVNK Team Background

BVNK was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in London. The company was established by founders with experience in fintech, banking, and digital assets.

BVNK CEO Jesse Hemson-Struthers: A serial entrepreneur whose previous ventures in e-commerce and gaming were successfully acquired by media giants Naspers and Sportradar.
BVNK Co-founder and CTO Donald Jackson: Previously founded Cue (a self-funded customer interaction platform) and Verity (an anti-fraud service company).
BVNK U.S. CEO Amit Cheela: Former CFO of BlockFi.
Chief Compliance Officer Phil Doyle: Previously led anti-fraud and compliance efforts at companies such as Revolut, Visa, ClearBank, and Zepz.

BVNK's official website shows that its team has expanded to over 300 people, with an annual payment transaction volume exceeding $20 billion and total funding reaching $90 million.

Funding Progress and Valuation Trajectory

In terms of funding, BVNK completed a $40 million Series A round in May 2022, achieving a post-money valuation of $340 million. The lead investor in this round was Tiger Global Management, with other investors including The Raba Partnership, Avenir, Kingsway Capital, Nordstar, Concentric, and Base Capital. Notably, despite losing up to $17 billion in the first four months of that year, Tiger Global remained optimistic about BVNK, reflecting its confidence in the company's prospects.

In December 2024, BVNK completed a $50 million Series B round, led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Scribble Ventures, DRW Venture Capital, and existing investors Avenir and Tiger Global. According to informed sources cited by Fortune magazine, this round of funding valued BVNK at approximately $750 million.

Entering 2025, BVNK received further attention from global payment giants Visa and multinational bank Citi, securing strategic investments from Visa Ventures in May and Citi Ventures in December.

From a valuation of $340 million in May 2022, to $750 million in December 2024, and now to a negotiation acquisition price of around $2 billion, BVNK's accelerated appreciation reflects the investment enthusiasm in the stablecoin infrastructure sector and the market's recognition of BVNK.

Core Service System

BVNK provides a multi-layered stablecoin payment infrastructure that helps businesses operate seamlessly between traditional finance and the blockchain world. Its services are divided into two main models:

· Fully Managed Model: Businesses can utilize BVNK's licensing and custodial services to enable digital currency payments, with BVNK responsible for regulatory compliance and fund custody, reducing the cost of business integration.

· Self-Managed Model: BVNK offers an Infrastructure-as-a-Service product called "Layer1," designed for businesses seeking scalability and control. Companies can run stablecoin payments internally, independently connecting licenses, custodians, and liquidity partners.

Users can choose between the fully managed model or the self-managed model. The platform supports fast cross-border transfers and settlements via stablecoins, while also accommodating traditional fiat payment channels.

In terms of product offerings, BVNK provides features such as virtual account naming, payment receiving, payment sending, real-time transfers, and embedded wallets. Businesses can integrate these features with just a few lines of code, enabling users to manage, hold, and exchange stablecoins and fiat currencies within their applications.

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

Why is BVNK Worth $2 Billion?

Strong Business Growth

As a provider of stablecoin payment infrastructure, BVNK is experiencing strong growth in 2025, with an annualized processing transaction volume exceeding $20 billion, primarily serving global payment processing companies like Worldpay, payment support and software companies like Flywire, and cross-border payment platforms like dLocal.

From an annualized processing volume of $2 billion in May 2022 to the current $20 billion, this tenfold growth rate is extremely rare in the fintech sector, clearly indicating that the demand for stablecoin payments on the enterprise side has exploded.

Profit Model

BVNK's revenue primarily comes from service fees charged to merchants, with its pricing model based on different tiers according to payment transaction volume, employing a fair and transparent marginal pricing strategy.

As the global scale of stablecoin payments continues to grow, BVNK's revenue scale will also expand, likely forming a stable cash flow and profit growth curve.

Core Logic Behind High Valuation

BVNK's rapid valuation increase in a short period is fundamentally due to its establishment of a "technology + compliance + ecosystem" triple barrier.

On the technology front, its Layer1 infrastructure supports multi-chain and multi-payment tracks, enabling seamless integration of stablecoins with fiat currencies to meet diverse needs such as cross-border payments, global payroll, and market transaction settlements; on the compliance front, its custodial model significantly reduces the compliance costs for businesses accessing stablecoin services; on the ecosystem front, BVNK has established partnerships with industry players like Worldpay, dLocal, Deel, and Xapo Bank, covering application scenarios across fintech, e-commerce platforms, global payroll, gaming, and digital asset trading.

Additionally, the explosive growth of the stablecoin industry is an important external factor for BVNK's valuation increase. With the signing and implementation of the GENIUS Act, the U.S. has established a dedicated regulatory framework for stablecoins, leading to more standardized industry development. Coupled with the demonstration effect brought by Circle's IPO, the institutionalization process of stablecoins is accelerating, and the market's demand for quality infrastructure service providers remains strong, providing robust support for BVNK's valuation.

Coinbase's Strategic Intent

Coinbase has long been overly reliant on trading fees, a model that is highly cyclical. If the market enters a bear phase, trading fee revenues plummet.

Acquiring BVNK represents Coinbase's strategic awakening—from being a passive participant subject to market cycle fluctuations to becoming an active platform operator building infrastructure. The revenue generated by stablecoin infrastructure has a natural anti-cyclical nature. Even during downturns in the crypto market, the demand for cross-border payments, payroll disbursements, and treasury management from businesses remains. This predictable revenue model, based on transaction volume rather than price fluctuations, will significantly improve Coinbase's financial stability.

We can observe that nearly 19% of Coinbase's revenue in the third quarter came from stablecoins. At the same time, Coinbase is continuously expanding payment scenarios, such as launching payment APIs and B2B payment UI/APIs, supporting businesses in embedding stablecoin checkout and 24-hour payment functionalities via the Base chain using USDC.

It is conceivable that after acquiring BVNK, Coinbase will possess a more robust payment infrastructure. Through BVNK's payment network, USDC can flow more rapidly to global businesses and consumers, forming a true payment currency rather than merely a trading object.

Conclusion

The traditional payment system built around credit cards and bank accounts may be disrupted by a new model of "infrastructure + applications."

Participants like Coinbase and Stripe are likely to demonstrate that when payment infrastructure is sufficiently open and modular, third-party applications can quickly build various payment services like stacking blocks.

The future payment market may no longer be dominated by the "channel monopoly" of Visa and Mastercard, but rather by multiple open stablecoin payment infrastructure platforms competing 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 profound changes in the entire financial ecosystem. Stablecoins have transitioned from a marginal topic in the crypto circle to a mainstream force that the global financial system must address. At this historical juncture, whoever masters the best payment infrastructure will control the gateway to future finance.