Editor | Wu Blockchain

TL;DR

• Overall funding has cooled: In Q1 2026, crypto VC funding fell by approximately 50% quarter-on-quarter, with capital increasingly concentrated in mature companies that already have customers, revenue, and meaningful transaction volume.

• Stablecoin payments are bucking the trend: Rain, OpenFX, RedotPay, Mesh, Conduit, and other companies have continued to raise sizable rounds across card issuance, cross-border payments, foreign exchange liquidity, wallets, banking connectivity, and settlement.

• VCs are focusing on infrastructure: Stablecoins enable 24/7 cross-border settlement, while infrastructure providers can generate revenue through transaction fees, foreign exchange spreads, card services, and APIs.

• The momentum should not be overstated: Onchain stablecoin volume is not equivalent to real-world payment volume, and funding remains concentrated among a small number of leading companies. Compliance, fiat on-ramps and off-ramps, local banking relationships, and service commoditization remain key challenges.

• Where capital may go next: Cross-border B2B payments, stablecoin-linked cards, bank-to-stablecoin connectivity, multi-chain payment orchestration, and AI agent payments could continue to attract investment.

Crypto venture funding slowed sharply in the first quarter of 2026. According to Galaxy Research, crypto VCs invested approximately $4 billion across 355 deals, representing a 50% quarter-on-quarter decline in funding and a 16% decrease in deal count. Meanwhile, the number of newly launched crypto venture funds fell to its lowest level since Q3 2020.

However, the slowdown has not affected every company equally. Galaxy Research noted that the decline in overall funding was largely caused by fewer exceptionally large late-stage rounds, while seed and early-stage activity continued. At the same time, 57% of all capital went to later-stage companies, suggesting that investors have become more selective. Rather than backing companies that depend heavily on tokens and market sentiment, they are increasingly willing to fund businesses that already have customers, revenue, and meaningful payment volume.

Strictly speaking, stablecoin payments are not the largest category of crypto VC investment. In Q1 2026, companies in trading, exchanges, investing, and lending raised approximately $2.6 billion in total, maintaining a clear lead over other sectors.

A more accurate description is that stablecoin payments have become one of the few sectors still producing sizable and rapidly successive funding rounds amid a difficult overall fundraising environment.

Stablecoins Are Moving from Trading Tools to Payment Infrastructure

VC interest in stablecoin payments begins with the continued expansion of stablecoins themselves.

A Federal Reserve study published in April 2026 showed that the total stablecoin market capitalization had reached approximately $317 billion as of April 6, an increase of more than 50% from the beginning of 2025.

Adjusted data from Visa and Artemis indicated that stablecoins processed approximately $10.2 trillion in transaction volume over the preceding 12 months, up 63% year-on-year. However, about 36% of adjusted stablecoin volume in 2025 came from deposits to and withdrawals from centralized exchanges. This means the headline figure cannot be treated as equivalent to payments for goods and services.

Historically, stablecoins were mainly used to transfer funds between exchanges or as temporary safe-haven assets during periods of crypto market volatility. Companies are now attempting to connect this onchain liquidity with the traditional financial system through cross-border B2B payments, remittances, payroll, corporate treasury management, card payments, bank accounts, and foreign exchange settlement.

This transition has also changed the structure of stablecoin investment. Investors are no longer backing only stablecoin issuers. They are looking for opportunities across the entire payment stack, including purpose-built blockchains, stablecoin issuance and orchestration, wallets, fiat on-ramps and off-ramps, foreign exchange liquidity, card issuance, banking connectivity, clearing, and redemption.

Each of these layers has become a distinct startup category.

Recent Stablecoin Payment Funding

The following is not an exhaustive industry dataset. Instead, it highlights representative funding rounds announced since 2025. These companies operate at different layers of the stablecoin payment stack and should not be treated as having identical business models.

These companies illustrate that stablecoin payments encompass several very different business models.

Rain, RedotPay, and Félix Pago sit closer to the application and distribution layer, addressing how users remit, hold, and spend stablecoins. OpenFX, Conduit, and Noah focus on cross-border payments, foreign exchange liquidity, and international settlement. Mesh and Crossmint provide wallets and payment orchestration tools. Stablecore and Ubyx connect banks, issuers, and stablecoin clearing systems, while projects such as Plasma seek to redesign the underlying blockchain infrastructure for stablecoin payments.

This wave of investment is therefore not simply a bet on one particular stablecoin. It is a broader bet on the infrastructure required if stablecoins become widely used as payment and settlement instruments.

Capital Is Favoring Companies with Actual Business Metrics

Unlike earlier crypto companies that relied primarily on future narratives, recently funded stablecoin payment companies increasingly disclose transaction volume, customer numbers, and revenue.

Rain completed a $250 million Series C in January 2026, approximately four months after its Series B and ten months after its Series A. The company said its active card base had increased 30-fold within one year, while its annualized payment volume had grown 38-fold. Rain currently processes approximately $3 billion in annualized transaction volume for more than 200 partners.

OpenFX completed a $23 million seed round in 2025 and raised another $94 million approximately ten months later. The company told Reuters that its annualized payment volume had increased from $4 billion a year earlier to more than $45 billion. It also said that more than 98% of transactions were completed within 60 minutes, compared with the two to five business days often required for traditional foreign exchange settlement.

RedotPay said that, as of November 2025, it had more than six million registered users across over 100 markets. The company reported annualized payment volume exceeding $10 billion, annualized revenue of more than $150 million, and profitability.

Most of these figures are self-reported and may not have been independently audited. Definitions of payment volume, transaction volume, and annualized revenue may also differ between companies, making direct comparisons difficult.

Nevertheless, the disclosures reflect a broader shift. Stablecoin payment companies are attempting to demonstrate value using conventional fintech metrics rather than relying solely on wallet addresses, token prices, and community size.

Why Are Stablecoin Payments Attracting VC Attention?

1. Cross-Border Payments Have Longstanding Efficiency Problems

Traditional cross-border payments often involve a sending bank, correspondent banks, clearing networks, receiving banks, and local payment institutions. Each participant operates according to its own business hours, ledger, and compliance procedures, meaning settlement can take several days.

Payment companies seeking to provide instant transfers across multiple countries may also need to prefund bank accounts in each market. Although the money has not yet been used, it must remain in different jurisdictions to ensure that customers can withdraw funds promptly. This creates a substantial working capital burden.

Stablecoins cannot automatically solve every part of this process, but they can provide a unified settlement asset that operates around the clock. A payment company can transfer stablecoins onchain and then rely on a local partner to convert them into local currency.

For cross-border B2B payments, remittances, global payroll, and internal corporate treasury transfers, faster settlement and reduced prefunding requirements can create direct commercial value.

2. Payment Infrastructure Has a Relatively Clear Revenue Model

Stablecoin payment companies generally do not depend on token appreciation for revenue. Instead, they can charge transaction fees, foreign exchange spreads, card issuance fees, account management fees, API subscription fees, and fiat on-ramp and off-ramp fees.

These revenue models are not new. They are fundamentally similar to those of traditional payment processors and fintech companies. The difference is that stablecoins are used as a back-end settlement tool to reduce friction between countries, currencies, and financial institutions.

For VCs, this means companies can be evaluated using familiar metrics such as payment volume, net revenue, gross margin, customer retention, and cost per transaction. Compared with projects that rely heavily on market cycles and token prices, these businesses are easier to evaluate and explain to traditional technology and fintech investors.

3. Stablecoins Are Becoming an Invisible Back-End Tool

An early stablecoin payment journey typically required users to purchase stablecoins, transfer them to a wallet, and then find a merchant willing to accept crypto. This required users to understand blockchains, wallet addresses, networks, and gas fees, creating a significant barrier to adoption.

Recently funded companies are attempting to hide these steps.

Félix Pago users can initiate remittances through WhatsApp. Rain and RedotPay connect stablecoins with payment cards. Mesh allows a user to pay with one crypto asset while the merchant receives another stablecoin. OpenFX primarily serves fintech and remittance companies, meaning the end user may not even know that stablecoins are involved in settlement.

VCs are therefore not necessarily betting that consumers will actively choose to pay with stablecoins. Instead, they are betting that stablecoins can replace parts of the traditional payment and clearing process in the background. Users may still interact with cards, bank accounts, local currencies, or messaging applications.

4. Regulatory Changes Have Expanded the Potential Customer Base

Regulatory uncertainty previously limited the ability of banks and large payment institutions to adopt stablecoins.

In 2025, the United States passed the GENIUS Act, establishing a federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also confirmed that national banks and federal savings associations could engage in certain stablecoin, digital asset custody, and distributed ledger activities, while removing some previous supervisory non-objection requirements.

Regulation increases the costs associated with reserves, audits, anti-money laundering controls, and licensing. At the same time, greater clarity makes it easier for banks, enterprises, and payment companies to determine which activities they are permitted to pursue.

For institution-focused companies such as Stablecore, Ubyx, and Rain, regulatory clarity expands the potential customer base from crypto companies to banks, fintech platforms, and traditional enterprises.

This also helps explain why recent investor lists include not only crypto-native firms such as Dragonfly, Galaxy Ventures, and Paradigm, but also traditional technology and fintech investors including ICONIQ, Accel, Lightspeed, QED Investors, and Norwest.

5. Payment Company Acquisitions Have Improved Exit Visibility

In February 2025, Stripe completed its acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge. Media reports valued the transaction at approximately $1.1 billion. Bridge helps businesses issue, manage, and transfer stablecoins, and Stripe subsequently integrated these capabilities into its payment products.

In March 2026, Mastercard announced an agreement to acquire stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK for up to $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent consideration. BVNK connects stablecoins, fiat currencies, banks, and multiple blockchains to provide cross-border payment and settlement services for enterprises.

These acquisitions are important for VCs because the potential exit routes for stablecoin payment companies are no longer limited to token launches or IPOs. They may also be acquired by card networks, payment companies, banks, or major fintech platforms.

The transactions also demonstrate the value of licenses, local banking relationships, and established customer networks. Traditional payment companies can develop blockchain technology internally, but building compliant operations and liquidity networks across multiple countries may take years. Acquiring a company that has already built this infrastructure can be faster.

Why Might the Stablecoin Payment Boom Be Overstated?

Stablecoin payments present a clear opportunity, but parts of the funding narrative may also be exaggerated.

1. Stablecoin Transaction Volume Is Not the Same as Payment Volume

Onchain stablecoin activity includes exchange transfers, market making, arbitrage, DeFi, smart contract interactions, institutional fund movements, and ordinary payments. Even after filtering out some bot activity and duplicate transactions, the remaining volume cannot all be classified as payments for goods and services.

Visa previously noted that, as of March 2025, retail-sized transactions accounted for less than 1% of adjusted stablecoin transaction volume during the preceding 12 months.

Stablecoin transaction volume exceeding that of card networks does not prove that stablecoin payment activity has surpassed Visa or Mastercard. The datasets measure different types of activity and cannot be compared directly.

2. Funding Is Concentrated Among a Small Number of Companies

Rain raised $250 million in a single round, RedotPay raised a total of $194 million in 2025, and OpenFX raised $94 million in one round. A small number of large transactions can significantly increase the sector’s total funding without indicating that every stablecoin payment startup has easy access to capital.

Rain, RedotPay, and OpenFX have all reported rapid business growth. Investors are backing companies that have already achieved meaningful scale. Early-stage projects without licenses, local payment channels, or actual customers continue to face a difficult fundraising environment.

In other words, this looks more like capital concentrating around market leaders than a broad boom across the entire stablecoin payment sector.

3. Core Services Could Become Commoditized Quickly

The technical barriers to wallets, stablecoin on-ramps and off-ramps, cross-border transfers, and payment APIs are declining. A growing number of companies can provide similar functionality, while banks, exchanges, stablecoin issuers, and traditional payment companies are also building their own products.

If multiple platforms can all process USDC or USDT transfers, simply providing an onchain payment API may not create a lasting competitive advantage. Companies will ultimately need to compete on licenses, local banking connections, foreign exchange pricing, payment success rates, risk controls, customer service, and cost.

As competition increases, transaction fees and foreign exchange spreads may decline. Growing payment volume will not automatically translate into high profitability.

4. Global Expansion Still Requires Market-by-Market Execution

Blockchains can operate across borders, but bank accounts, licenses, and fiat currencies do not automatically become global.

Every time a stablecoin payment company enters a new market, it must still establish relationships with local banks, payment institutions, and liquidity providers. It must also comply with local KYC, AML, sanctions screening, data protection, and consumer protection requirements.

If a local bank ends its partnership or an on-ramp or off-ramp becomes unavailable, onchain funds may have already arrived but still cannot be converted into the fiat currency required by the customer.

Stablecoins primarily improve the intermediate settlement layer. They do not eliminate the traditional financial system altogether.

5. Traditional Financial Institutions Are Both Customers and Competitors

Banks and card networks are currently investing in or acquiring stablecoin infrastructure companies because they want to obtain these capabilities quickly. As the technology and regulatory framework mature, however, these institutions may also build their own systems and integrate stablecoin functionality into existing products.

Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and major banks already have merchants, accounts, trusted brands, and regulatory resources. Startups may become their suppliers or acquisition targets, but they could also be pushed into lower-margin back-end service roles.

Where Might Capital Go Next?

Recent funding activity suggests that investment is shifting away from issuing more stablecoins and toward bringing stablecoins into banks, enterprises, and user accounts.

Several areas could continue to attract attention.

The first is cross-border B2B payments. Compared with consumer payments, enterprise transactions are larger and more sensitive to settlement speed, working capital requirements, and foreign exchange costs. Businesses are also more willing to pay for measurable efficiency improvements.

The second is connectivity between banks and stablecoins. The opportunity represented by Stablecore and Ubyx is to enable banks to receive, send, clear, and redeem stablecoins issued by different entities and operating across different blockchains.

The third is stablecoin-linked cards and local payments. Users do not need to find merchants that directly accept stablecoins. Instead, they can spend through existing card and acquiring networks. The successive funding rounds completed by Rain and RedotPay suggest that cards remain one of the most direct ways for stablecoins to enter everyday payment scenarios.

The fourth is a multi-stablecoin and multi-chain orchestration layer. Enterprises generally do not want to integrate USDT, USDC, multiple blockchains, and country-specific on-ramp and off-ramp providers separately. Platforms that can manage asset selection, routing, fees, compliance, and conversion through a unified interface may attract more institutional customers.

The fifth is AI agent payments. Processes such as CAPTCHAs, card verification, and manual authorization in traditional payment systems were generally not designed for AI agents. Stablecoin wallets and programmable payments could provide an alternative settlement mechanism.

However, this area remains driven largely by infrastructure development and expectations. Actual payment demand and revenue still need to be demonstrated.

Conclusion

VC interest in stablecoin payments does not mean the crypto funding winter has ended, nor does it mean stablecoins have already replaced traditional payment systems at scale.

More precisely, as fundraising conditions have tightened, investors have begun searching for companies that can operate independently of token prices, solve real financial problems, and generate recurring revenue.

Stablecoins provide a global, programmable settlement asset that operates around the clock. The opportunity for startups lies in connecting stablecoins with bank accounts, foreign exchange markets, payment cards, local currencies, and compliance systems.

The next stage of valuation will depend not only on funding rounds or onchain transaction volume, but also on how much of that volume represents real customer payments, how much net revenue it generates, how many regulated markets a company can enter, and whether it remains profitable after liquidity, distribution, and compliance costs.

Crypto VCs are not necessarily betting that one particular stablecoin will win. They are betting that significant parts of the infrastructure required to integrate stablecoins into the real-world financial system have yet to be built and fully developed.

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