Stripe and Swift race to control the next generation of global payments infrastructure

Finance Stripe and Swift race to control the next generation of global payments infrastructure Crypto and blockchain experts say this week's moves show the two established finance companies are increasingly competing for control of the infrastructure behind digital payments. By Olivier Acuna | Edited by Cheyenne Ligon Jul 17, 2026, 5:23 p.m. 4 min read Make preferred on Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Make preferred on The race is one, say experts, as traditional financial institutions seek to dominate blockchain payment rails. (RWA Summit) Summary Show Swift is expanding a blockchain-based settlement network with more than 40 financial institutions, underscoring how incumbents are racing to build the rails for tokenized payments. Stripe’s unsolicited $53 billion bid for PayPal would marry a vast merchant network with one of the world’s largest consumer wallets, aiming to reduce reliance on intermediaries like Visa and Mastercard. Executives and analysts say the contest has shifted from proving blockchain technology to controlling distribution, as stablecoins evolve into core payments infrastructure and firms seek to own wallets, merchant acceptance and settlement layers. Two of the world's biggest payment networks made major blockchain moves this week, highlighting what some have described as a growing competition between the two to control the infrastructure behind tokenized payments. Swift said Tuesday it would expand a blockchain-based settlement network after completing pilot work with 17 global banks, and is now working with more than 40 financial institutions . Stripe followed immediately after with an unsolicited $53 billion bid for PayPal, a deal that would combine one of the world's largest merchant payment networks with one of the biggest consumer wallet businesses. PayPal’s board, according to a Reuters report , sees the takeover bid as undervaluing the company and facing regulatory and financing challenges. Swift, Stripe and Paypal each sit at different ends of the global payments system. Swift connects more than 11,500 financial institutions and handles messaging for trillions of dollars in cross-border payments. Stripe processes hundreds of billions of dollars a year for millions of businesses. PayPal has more than 439 million active accounts and processed $1.79 trillion in 2025. Taken together, the Swift announcement one end and the Stripe PayPal bid on the other, are part of a greater trend that who that banks, fintechs and payment companies are increasingly competing to build the infrastructure for the next generation of digital payments, whether through blockchain settlement networks, stablecoins or consumer payment platforms. "It’s a race to control the next generation of global payment infrastructure," said Ilies Larbi, founder and CEO of Ouinex. A Stripe-PayPal combination would allow more transactions to move across its own network, reducing dependency on intermediaries like Visa or Mastercard, apart from access to the latter’s consumer base. PayPal also has a Paxos-based USD stablecoin which serves as a reliable bridget between traditional finance and digital assets. Jason Li, co-founder of Solayer and CEO of MPCVault, said Stripe’s proposed PayPal acquisition shows the value now lies in reaching consumers, not issuing another stablecoin. "Getting 400 million people to actually use a stablecoin is what costs $53 billion," Li said. "Stripe already has the issuer, the chain and the merchant side. What it's buying is the consumer wallet." Stripe’s proposed acquisition of PayPal also makes financial sense beyond stablecoins, Rob Hadick, general partner at Dragonfly, told CoinDesk via Telegram. "Both Stripe and PayPal do approximately the same amount of payment volume, but Stripe has about one-fifth the net revenue," Hadick said. "From a financial perspective, this is obviously accretive, and it helps them connect their merchant processing business, which is at risk of being commoditized, with a broad subset of PayPal's more than 400 million accounts." Hadick also cautioned that executing a deal of that size would be difficult. "M&A integration in something of this size is incredibly hard," he said. Beyond merchant payments Eric Queathem, CEO of Velocity, said the acquisition would also give Stripe access to one of the world’s largest consumer payments ecosystems, providing a platform to expand beyond merchant payments. The proposed acquisition would also determine who controls the consumer side of blockchain-based payment infrastructure, complementing Stripe's existing merchant network and stablecoin capabilities. Several executives said the competitive focus has shifted from proving blockchain technology works to controlling distribution. Pankaj Bengani, founder and CEO of Meld, agreed with Larbi that the race is on. "The race has shifted from proving the technology works to owning distribution," said Bengani, adding that "stablecoins have graduated from experiment to core payments infrastructure.” Citi analysts reached a similar conclusion in a research note, writing that stablecoin competition has become "a default-setting game," with scale accruing to whichever stablecoin becomes the default across the largest merchant, consumer wallet or autonomous transaction base, rather than to the issuer with the best technology. Steven Rossi, CEO of Nasdaq-listed Worksport (WKSP), said the proposal is less about acquiring a legacy payments company than completing Stripe's payments ecosystem. "The broader objective is control of the transaction lifecycle," Rossi said. "Stripe would gain more influence over how consumers pay, how merchants receive funds and which settlement rails operate in the background." Larbi said he believes the opportunity goes beyond just blockchain-based payments. “The real prize isn’t just payments, its controlling wallets, merchant acceptance, reserve economics and cross-border settlement,” he said. Benjamin Sarquis Peillard, founder and CEO of Cap, said the same trend is prompting more fintech companies to build their own stablecoins. "We will continue to see more companies issue their own stablecoins and more fintech players migrate their backends to the blockchain due to lower costs and greater efficiency," Sarquis Peillard said. "So far, the precedent is clear: these companies are not adopting legacy stablecoins like USDC. Instead, they're launching their own." Stablecoin evolution Chris Maurice, CEO of Yellow Card, said the moves show established financial companies are increasingly treating blockchain infrastructure as a strategic priority rather than a niche crypto market. “Incumbents with this much capital don't sit on the sidelines and watch a threat like that play out without buying in and capitalizing on the opportunity that the technology brings,” Maurice said. Although many in the industry increasingly believe stablecoins are the future of payments, most of them still take place on legacy banking systems. Stablecoin adoption outside of trading and some cross-border payments remains relatively limited, and regulators worldwide are still drafting rules for digital asset payments. "Stablecoins are evolving from a crypto product into the settlement layer of mainstream finance, and distribution is now the key battleground," Larbi said. 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