Visa has significantly expanded its stablecoin settlement pilot program, adding five new blockchain networks — including Polygon, Base, Canton, Arc and Tempo — bringing the total to nine supported chains, as the program's annualised settlement run rate reached $7 billion and quarterly growth hit 50%, the company announced on Tuesday.
Visa, the world's largest payments network, has broadened its blockchain-based settlement infrastructure to nine blockchains, signalling growing confidence in stablecoin technology as a viable rail for institutional financial transactions.
The expansion adds Base — Coinbase's Ethereum Layer 2 network — alongside Polygon, Canton, Arc and Tempo to the program. The move reflects a deliberate strategy to test stablecoin settlement across a variety of blockchain architectures, from public networks to more permissioned enterprise chains.
Scale and Growth
The program's annualised settlement run rate has now reached $7 billion, with Decrypt reporting 50% quarter-on-quarter growth in pilot volumes. While these figures remain a fraction of Visa's overall transaction volume — the company processed over $12 trillion in payments in its most recent fiscal year — the trajectory suggests meaningful momentum for onchain settlement in traditional finance.
Visa has been operating its stablecoin settlement program since at least 2021, initially focusing on USD Coin (USDC) on the Ethereum network, before gradually extending to Solana and other chains. The latest expansion represents the most aggressive broadening of the program to date.
Why Stablecoins for Settlement?
Stablecoin settlement offers several theoretical advantages over conventional correspondent banking infrastructure, including near-instant finality, reduced counterparty risk, and the potential for 24/7 settlement windows that bypass traditional banking hours. For Visa, which settles transactions through a global network of issuing and acquiring banks, onchain settlement could reduce friction and cost at the margins of its network.
The inclusion of Canton Network — a privacy-focused blockchain developed by Digital Asset, used by major financial institutions — alongside public chains like Polygon and Base illustrates Visa's interest in testing both permissioned and permissionless environments.
Industry Context
Visa's expansion comes amid broader institutional momentum around stablecoins. Mastercard has similarly been piloting stablecoin-linked card products, and several major banks have begun exploring tokenised deposit infrastructure. US legislative efforts to establish a federal stablecoin regulatory framework have also advanced in recent months, potentially clearing a path for wider institutional adoption.
Neither Visa nor the networks involved disclosed specific settlement volumes per chain, and the program remains described as a pilot, meaning Visa has not committed to full production deployment across all nine networks.
Analysis
Why This Matters
- A $7 billion annualised run rate from a single corporate pilot signals that stablecoin settlement is moving beyond proof-of-concept into operationally significant territory for mainstream finance.
- Visa's multi-chain approach — spanning public, enterprise, and Layer 2 networks — could help establish which blockchain architectures are best suited to institutional payment settlement, influencing standards across the industry.
- Regulatory tailwinds in the US, where stablecoin legislation is advancing, may accelerate Visa's timeline for moving from pilot to production deployment.
Background
Visa first began experimenting with crypto-linked products through its card partnerships with exchanges like Coinbase and Crypto.com around 2020-2021. In 2021, the company made a more deliberate move into blockchain infrastructure by piloting USDC-based settlement on Ethereum, allowing merchant acquirers to settle transactions directly in stablecoin rather than converting to fiat first.
By 2023, Visa had expanded the pilot to Solana, citing faster transaction throughput and lower fees as practical advantages for high-frequency settlement use cases. The program has since grown incrementally, with the April 2026 announcement representing the largest single expansion to date, adding five networks in one announcement.
The broader context is a financial industry undergoing gradual but accelerating experimentation with tokenised assets. Major institutions including JPMorgan, Citi and BlackRock have all announced tokenisation or blockchain settlement initiatives in recent years, normalising the concept of onchain infrastructure within traditional finance.
Key Perspectives
Visa and Incumbent Payments Networks: Visa frames the expansion as infrastructure diversification — testing whether blockchain rails can complement or improve upon existing settlement mechanisms, particularly for cross-border and after-hours transactions. The company benefits from being seen as an innovator without yet committing to replacing its existing systems.
Blockchain Networks (Polygon, Base, Canton, Arc, Tempo): Each network gains credibility and potential transaction volume by being included in a Visa pilot. For newer or less-established chains, the association with a major payments institution can be significant for developer and enterprise adoption.
Critics and Skeptics: Some analysts caution that $7 billion annualised, while growing, remains immaterial relative to Visa's total processing volume. Questions also persist about whether blockchain settlement offers sufficient cost or speed advantages over modernised fiat rails such as ISO 20022-based systems, and whether regulatory uncertainty around stablecoins could still derail broader adoption.
What to Watch
- Whether Visa discloses per-chain settlement volumes in future earnings calls, which would indicate which networks are gaining traction in production use.
- Progress of the US GENIUS Act or equivalent federal stablecoin legislation, which could provide the regulatory clarity needed for Visa to move the program from pilot to standard offering.
- Whether Mastercard, PayPal or major banks announce comparable multi-chain stablecoin settlement expansions, which would confirm this as an industry-wide shift rather than a single company's experiment.