Mastercard is said to be in late-stage talks to acquire stablecoin startup Zerohash in a deal worth up to $2 billion, Fortune reported.
If completed, the transaction would mark one of Mastercard’s biggest crypto bets and signal a new phase in Wall Street’s rush into the stablecoin space.
The play highlights how the traditional titans of finance are racing to tap into the stablecoin economy, a market already exceeding $307 billion and projected by Citi to hit $4 trillion by 2030.
For Mastercard, acquiring Zerohash would deepen a strategy that’s been quietly building for years, Fortune reports. The payments giant bought blockchain analytics firm CipherTrace in 2021 and this past summer joined a stablecoin consortium alongside Robinhood and Kraken.
By acquiring Zerohash, Mastercard would gain direct access to the APIs and settlement tools that allow banks, fintechs, and exchanges to issue and move stablecoins at scale.
Seth Eisen, senior vice president for communications at Mastercard, told DL News that “we don’t comment on speculation” when asked about Fortune’s story.