The expansion of credit cards towards blockchain technology is becoming stronger. Today Visa and Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure unit acquired by Stripe in 2025, announced an expansion of their stablecoin-linked card program that is now available in 18 countries and is scheduled to reach more than 100 countries by the end of this year. The launch combines Visa’s global acceptance network with Bridge’s API and was presented as a build on Bridge’s recent regulatory progress and volume growth.
The plan is supported by Bridge’s conditional approval by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank charter and a quadrupling of Bridge’s transaction volume by 2025, which Visa and Bridge cited as evidence of the growing utility of stablecoin payment avenues.
Recently, mastercard and Metamask expanded their collaboration to launch a debit card that allows users to make payments directly from the wallet.
Visa Expands Stablecoin Reach
According to the statement from Visa, the cards are currently operational in 18 countries and will spread throughout Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East to exceed 100 countries. Visa supplies its trading and settlement infrastructure (a network the companies say covers approximately 175 million merchants), while Bridge supplies stablecoin rails and a single API for fintech issuers.
Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge in 2025 supports the offering, providing the startup resources and distribution channels that Stripe typically offers fintech partners. This can represent a great benefit for crypto users, who will now be able to pay through stablecoins in any business that accepts Visa, which represents more than 175 million companies around the world.
The program leverages Visa’s stablecoin settlement pilot to enable on-chain settlement. Visa highlighted examples of settlement flows that use banks and public blockchains (the report references work with Lead Bank on Solana) to replace some traditional bank transfers and speed up processing.
“Bridge-enabled stablecoin-linked cards are now available in 18 countries,” Visa’s statement said, presenting that footprint as the launch pad for a broader rollout.
The next key date to evaluate the success of this collaboration will be the planned completion of the expansion by the end of 2026. The program will expand routes for consumer and business payments denominated in stablecoins and could shift some cross-border flows to tokenized rails.
