Hey, friends.
Today, October 30, 2025, let's talk about a topic that has Wall Street and Silicon Valley both watching closely. You may have seen headlines like 'Visa Stablecoin Spending Soars' and felt a bit confused. What is really happening behind this?
The truth of 'small steps, quick runs': What exactly did Visa do?
In the recent earnings season, Visa delivered an impressive report card, with global payment volume steadily increasing by 8%.
Earlier this year, in the second quarter of fiscal year 2025, Visa first disclosed that the total amount of stablecoin settlements on its network reached $200 million. To be honest, $200 million is just a drop in the bucket for a giant that processes trillions of dollars in transactions each quarter. Visa's CEO also admitted that stablecoin payments are still in a 'very, very early stage'.
But if you only see this number as small, then you are very mistaken. This $200 million is not consumers' everyday coffee purchases, but a milestone that Visa allows its partners to use stablecoins for cross-border settlements. This signifies that stablecoins are no longer a 'toy' for insiders, but have officially stepped onto the grand stage of global mainstream payment clearing.
More aggressive moves are still to come. Visa's ambitions are far from over.
They are wildly expanding their 'stablecoin circle'. Initially, Visa mainly collaborated with Circle to support its issuance of USDC running on Solana and Ethereum. Now, this list has become increasingly longer, with the addition of Global Dollar (USDG) issued by the well-established fintech company Paxos, as well as PayPal USD (PYUSD), which is a collaboration between payment giant PayPal and Paxos, and even includes the euro stablecoin EURC issued by Circle.
This is not the end. Visa has clearly stated plans to add support for four new stablecoins on four brand new blockchains. From Ethereum and Solana to Stellar and Avalanche, what Visa wants to do is connect all valuable blockchain networks.
Beneath the iceberg: the 'anxiety' and ambition of the giants.
Why does Visa want to do this? Are they not afraid that stablecoins will take away their meal?
Good question. This is precisely the key to understanding the whole matter. Visa's strategy can be summarized as 'turning enemies into friends, integrating and consolidating'.
First, there is a deep sense of 'anxiety'.
In recent years, an astonishing piece of data has circulated within the industry: the annual trading volume of stablecoins has quietly surpassed the total of Visa and Mastercard. Although these figures are controversial due to the large amount of inorganic transactions generated by bots, even after filtering out the noise, the adjusted trading volume of stablecoins has reached a level that cannot be ignored.
What does this mean? It means that a brand new 'payment highway' that does not rely on traditional banks and card organizations is being built. This road may be faster and cheaper, especially in the field of cross-border payments. If Visa continues to cling to its own small territory, it will be no different from guarding an old map in the digital age, ultimately only to be bypassed and completely marginalized.
Secondly, it's the enormous ambition to become the 'network of all networks'.
Their strategic goal is to upgrade themselves from a single 'card network' to a 'network of networks' that connects all value networks.
You can understand it this way: in the future, whether you're using dollars, euros, or USDC, PYUSD, regardless of whether the money is running on Ethereum or being transmitted on Solana, Visa hopes to become the ultimate center for clearing, settlement, and connection. It does not produce stablecoins, but it aims to become the 'pipeline' and 'bridge' for all stablecoin circulation. By investing in stablecoin infrastructure companies and expanding the supported currencies and public chains, Visa is building a brand new, wider moat for its payment empire.
Market signal: what does this mean for us?
For the crypto world: compliance and integration are the ultimate destinations. Traditional financial giants like Visa entering the scene has brought unprecedented legitimacy and credibility to stablecoins. This accelerates the process of crypto assets moving from the margins to the mainstream and also means that regulation will become clearer, marking the end of the era of wild growth.
For traditional finance: a race of 'if you don't follow, you will be eliminated'. Visa's actions have sounded the alarm for all banks and payment companies. Digital assets are no longer an option to observe but a battlefield that must be participated in. Those who can integrate new technologies faster will seize the initiative in the next decade.
For ordinary people and businesses: more efficient and cheaper global payments are on the way. Imagine a designer in Southeast Asia completing a project for a client in Europe. In the past, receiving payment required multiple bank intermediaries, taking days and incurring high fees. In the future, through the Visa network supporting stablecoins, this payment could be settled within minutes at a very low cost. This is a disruptive benefit for small and micro enterprises, freelancers, and cross-border e-commerce in a globalized world.
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