Visa added Base, Polygon, Canton, Arc, and Tempo to its global stablecoin settlement pilot on April 29, bringing the total to nine supported blockchains and reaching a $7 billion annualized settlement run rate, up 50% from last quarter.
Summary
- The five new additions join Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana, and Stellar, giving Visa’s issuers and acquirers nine blockchain options for settling transactions outside traditional banking rails.
- Visa is operating as a validator node on Tempo alongside Stripe and Standard Chartered’s Zodia Custody, making it one of the first major payment companies to run blockchain validation infrastructure directly.
- Visa now operates more than 130 stablecoin-linked card programs across more than 50 countries, bridging digital assets with traditional merchant acceptance at global scale.
Visa stablecoin settlement reached a $7 billion annualized run rate as the company announced the addition of five blockchains to its global pilot on April 29. “Our partners are building in a multi-chain world, and they expect their options to reflect that reality,” said Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s Global Head of Growth Products and Strategic Partnerships.
Visa stablecoin network now covers nine blockchains with distinct institutional roles
Each new chain targets a different part of the payments market. Arc is Circle’s Layer-1 blockchain built for programmable money and real-world economic activity. Base is Coinbase’s high-performance chain for low-cost stablecoin settlement. Canton is built with configurable privacy for regulated capital markets and institutional compliance. Polygon handles high-volume stablecoin transfers at sub-cent fees, and already processes approximately 35% of all USD stablecoin transfers globally. Tempo, backed by Stripe, focuses on real-time stablecoin liquidity and settlement flows. As crypto.news reported, Visa and Stripe’s Bridge were already expanding stablecoin card coverage toward 100 countries earlier in 2026, with this nine-chain expansion deepening the infrastructure behind those cards. As crypto.news documented, Polygon processed approximately $650 billion in stablecoin transactions in February 2026 alone, the highest monthly volume on any blockchain, making it one of the most consequential new additions to Visa’s pilot.
What the $7 billion run rate signals for traditional settlement rails
As crypto.news tracked, stablecoin settlement is accelerating across every major payments network simultaneously. The jump from approximately $4.7 billion to $7 billion in one quarter means Visa’s pilot added roughly $2.3 billion in annualized volume in 90 days, a pace that suggests institutional partners are treating stablecoin rails as a primary settlement option rather than a test. Visa’s decision to run validator nodes on Tempo is structurally significant: it means Visa is not simply using blockchain infrastructure but actively participating in its governance and operation, a posture no major payment network has previously taken.
