Visa has reportedly entered late-stage negotiations to acquire Fireblocks, a digital asset custody and stablecoin infrastructure provider, for approximately $2.5 billion, according to an Axios report published on October 22, 2026 and citing multiple sources. Neither Visa nor Fireblocks has announced a definitive agreement, and both companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The reported acquisition price would represent a roughly 69% decline from Fireblocks’ last public valuation of $8 billion in January 2022, when it raised $550 million in a Series E round backed by D1 Capital Partners, Spark Capital, General Atlantic, Index Ventures and Alphabet’s CapitalG. Fireblocks was founded in 2018 and initially focused on helping financial institutions secure and transfer cryptocurrencies before expanding into stablecoin payments, digital asset settlement and tokenization.
If completed at $2.5 billion, the deal would rank among the largest acquisitions in crypto industry history, behind Coinbase’s $2.9 billion purchase of Deribit in 2025 and Naver Financial’s pending all-stock acquisition of Upbit parent Dunamu for around $10.3 billion.
Fireblocks operates infrastructure used by banks, fintech companies, crypto exchanges and payment processors to manage digital assets across supported blockchains. The company says its payment network processes more than $200 billion in stablecoin transactions each month, and stablecoins accounted for 69% of digital asset transaction volume on its platform during the second quarter of 2026. In September 2025, Fireblocks launched a stablecoin payments network with more than 40 participants, including Circle, Bridge, Zerohash and Yellow Card.
Visa has been expanding its own stablecoin business. In August, it partnered with Zerohash to support stablecoin funding and payouts through Visa Direct, and the company subsequently reported that its stablecoin settlement volume had surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, more than 15 times the level a year earlier. Visa introduced its Stablecoin Platform in July, beginning with Open USD, and has worked with Mesh to enable crypto and stablecoin spending at more than 175 million merchant locations. On October 15, Visa introduced commercial USDC funding through Visa Direct, naming Inyo Global as the first participating payment processor.
The two companies already participate in Open Standard, an industry initiative developing infrastructure for stablecoin payments. Fireblocks also integrated Circle’s USDC Gateway and Payments Network into its institutional platform, enabling businesses to manage USDC across supported blockchains. In August, Fireblocks appointed former acting SEC Chairman Elad Roisman to lead policy work in custody, stablecoin payments and tokenized assets.
The reported negotiations follow rival Mastercard’s completion of its acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK in August for up to $1.8 billion, signaling intensifying competition among global payment networks to integrate stablecoin and digital asset infrastructure.
