Stripe To Circle’s financial companies build their own blockchains – here’s why

Stripe develops what he calls tempo, a blockchain focused on payments, according to a publication and sources of employment that have been deleted since the question. And Circle said on Tuesday morning that it built what he calls arc, a blockchain designed for stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies set for underlying assets such as the US dollar.

There is suddenly a flood of corporate channels, which raises the question: why apparently all large financial companies – in particular the band and the circle – presenting yourself a blockchain developer?

‘Have the full battery’

The answer for Stripe is simple, according to two leaders of Stablecoin and an investor: vertical integration.

Thanks to its $ 1.1 billion acquisition of the Stablecoin Startup Bridge, Stripe bought its own payment and payment network. And after its acquisition in June of the Crypto Wallet portfolio company, it can give user accounts to store stablescoins. For, Stripe – which made its name on more traditional payments of payments such as the online cash register – the addition of a blockchain would be equivalent to the creation of a Stablecoin ecosystem in its own right

“There is an incentive for these large companies to have the full battery,” said Rob Hadick, general partner of the Campto Capital Company, who regularly invests in Stablecoin startups, said Fortune.

Stripe makes a big bet that stablecoins could be the future of payments. If a large part of its volume of 1.4 billion of dollars goes through stablecoins, it is potentially lacking millions of income

Blockchains, or decentralized networks like Ethereum or Solana, are similar to the Google clouds or the AWS of the Crypto Tech battery. A fleet of decentralized servers deals with many transactions on cryptographic application, and in exchange for loans to their calculation power, the owners of these servers receive fees.

The base of Coinbase Blockchain, for example, has generated more than $ 130 million in fees since its launch at the beginning of 2023, according to Defillama data.

“You want to control the economy,” said Luca Prosperi, co -founder and CEO of stablecoin infrastructure Company M0 Fortune.

It remains to be seen, however, if the multiplication of stablecoins and associated blockchains would lead to countless parts and chains that normal consumers would have trouble navigating.

Stripe did not respond to a request for comments.

Defense vs offense

For Circle, it is a similar set of motivations.

The Stablecoin transmitter, who had a heated stock market in June, has his own token, USDC. The company also has its own full -booming network of payments. And he even has a service to allow business customers to shoot their own cryptographic portfolios. However, the Crypto Company does not have its own blockchain where it can treat – and receive costs – for the volume of payments that cross its services.

“They also want to have this movement of money,” said Bam Azizi, co -founder and CEO of the Startup Crypto Payments Mesh Fortunein reference to Circle.

But the band and the circle are not on the same foot. Stripe is one of the largest private companies in technology. It is a dominant payment processor whose revenues are already diversified, in particular $ 500 million at the annual income rate rate in January from its vertical invoicing.

Circle, on the other hand, derived more than 96% of its revenues in the second quarter of 2025 only from the interest it gains in the American treasury bills supporting its stablecoin. If interest rates drop, its entire business model could be threatened.

“We build a complete battery, from the infrastructure layer to the stablecoin layer to the payment network layer,” CEO of Circle Jeremy Allaire said in a live interview with Information On income from the second quarter of his business. (A spokesperson for Circle refused to comment more.)

That said, some people think that the new public company plays catching up.

“Circle is defensive and responsive,” said Hadick, general partner of Dragonfly. “And Stripe thinks of the future of payments and the future of their business, and of being offensive and proactive.”