BVNK, a provider of Layer 1 software that regulated financial institutions use to manage custody of stablecoins as well as to send and receive payments that can be tied to digital currencies, has been purchased by Mastercard for up to $1.80 billion—$300 million is contingent on performance results.

Layer 1 software operates on blockchains and provides an alternative to the Swift interbank messaging system and correspondent bank networks.

Mastercard is buying software that handles stablecoin and fiat currency conversions in real time and manages compliance, trading and liquidity.

BVNK processed more than $30 billion in stablecoin payments last year. It doesn’t mint stablecoins, it moves them.

The company facilitates payouts through partnerships with banks including Barclays, Deutsche Bank and BBVA outside the US and Cross River Bank, Customers Bank and Lead Bank in the US, where BVNK also makes payouts via the RTP network, FedNow and ACH using FBO (For Benefit Of) accounts.

Among more than 370 enterprise clients of BVNK are LianLian, Ontop and Deel. They use BVNK software as a payment orchestration layer to facilitate cross-border payouts in stablecoins to contractors, global merchants and remittance companies. Highnote uses BVNK to fund card accounts.

Acquirers in any domestic market could use BVNK Layer 1 software to support faster settlement with merchants.

BVNK provides infrastructure that is like a core banking system. It also offers an embedded wallet product that fintechs, payment service providers and nonbank merchant acquirers can use to accept stablecoins for payment, convert them to fiat currency and then make payouts to recipients in a fiat currency.

Use cases for the wallet include B2B payments, remittances, corporate treasury and global settlements. Worldpay is a BVNK wallet customer.

Last year, Mastercard was close to buying ZeroHash, a BVNK competitor. Ultimately, that company wasn’t ready to sell and opted for a $104-million Series D-2 funding round in September.

Coinbase held discussions to buy BVNK last year, but the parties couldn’t close the deal.

BVNK was valued at $750 million in December 2024 after a Series A funding round.

The BVNK deal, which is valued at up to $1.80 billion, is the largest stablecoin acquisition so far, topping the $1.10 billion that Stripe paid for Bridge in the first quarter of 2025.

Visa Ventures made an investment in BVNK in May 2025 and announced in January of this year plans to use the company in pilot tests of stablecoin payments within Visa Direct.

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