Visa's stablecoin settlement run rate surpasses $25 billion, up 10x annually, as its network reaches 10 blockchains and over 225 crypto-linked card programs.

Allium confirms unauthorized access to its systems, revokes API keys and restores core services as the blockchain data provider investigates the breach.

Bitcoin Magazine

Fireblocks Denies Report of $2.5 Billion Visa Takeover Talks

Fireblocks has denied a report that Visa is in late-stage talks to buy the institutional crypto custody and stablecoin infrastructure firm for around $2.5 billion.

“We are aware of the rumors about a possible acquisition of Fireblocks by Visa. This is news to us, and not true at present time,” the company told The Block on Thursday. 

The denial came hours after Axios reported, citing multiple sources, that the two sides were close to a deal. It would have been Visa’s first acquisition in the stablecoin sector and one of the largest in crypto’s history, behind Coinbase’s $2.9 billion purchase of Deribit in 2025 and Naver Financial’s pending $10.3 billion deal for Upbit parent Dunamu.

The reported price would have been a steep markdown from the $8 billion valuation Fireblocks commanded in January 2022, when it raised $550 million in a Series E round at the peak of the venture cycle. Founded in 2018 by Michael Shaulov, Pavel Berengoltz and Idan Ofrat, three veterans of the Israeli cybersecurity scene, the company sells the plumbing that banks, exchanges and fintechs use to hold and move digital assets. 

Its customers include BNY Mellon, Worldpay, Revolut and Galaxy, and it says it has secured trillions of dollars in transfers across more than 150 blockchains.

Fireblocks powers FIS’s institutional bitcoin trading, underpins BNP Paribas’s digital asset custody, and sits among the founding members of the Botanix federation, a bitcoin sidechain project.

The crypto land grab

Whatever the status of the talks, the report landed on fertile ground. Payment incumbents spent 2026 buying or courting the companies that handle stablecoin and crypto rails rather than building them from scratch. 

Mastercard agreed in March to buy BVNK for up to $1.8 billion, after takeover talks with Zerohash fell through, closed that deal in August and secured a New York BitLicense along the way. 

Zerohash, for its part, is seeking a US national trust bank charter.

Visa partnered with Zerohash in August to add stablecoin funding and payouts to Visa Direct, and in September said its stablecoin settlement volume had passed a $20 billion annualized run rate, more than 15 times the prior year’s level. 

Both card networks joined a coalition of more than 140 companies behind Open USD, a dollar stablecoin designed to spread the economics of a $300 billion market beyond Tether and Circle.

Fireblocks launched its own stablecoin payments network in September 2025 with over 40 participants, including Circle, Bridge, Zerohash and Yellow Card, and this year rolled out acceptance tools for neobanks and a settlement suite aimed at AI agents. 

This post Fireblocks Denies Report of $2.5 Billion Visa Takeover Talks first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

TL;DR: Mesh and Visa have announced a partnership intended to let consumers spend cryptocurrency and stablecoins from participating wallet apps wherever Visa payments are accepted.

Holding stablecoins is one thing. Actually spending them in a shop usually involves moving funds to an exchange, selling them, or relying on a separate payment product. Visa and Mesh are pitching a way to make that process less visible to the customer.

Under their newly announced partnership, Mesh’s payment infrastructure will connect eligible crypto wallet balances with Visa’s acceptance network, spanning more than 175 million merchant locations. The ambition is to support both online and in-person spending without requiring customers to manually cash out their tokens first.

Visa supplies the acceptance infrastructure. Mesh provides the orchestration layer responsible for connecting wallet balances to a payment made in the currency a merchant expects to receive.

It’s a potentially significant distribution arrangement for digital asset payments, but the announcement is not the same as saying every crypto wallet already works in every shop. Participating apps, market availability and the precise rollout remain important variables.

For merchants, the appeal is continuity: they would interact with an established payments network rather than needing to accept a particular blockchain asset directly. For wallet providers, the attraction is a more everyday use for balances that often stay within crypto trading platforms.

The test will be whether the experience is genuinely as simple as a conventional card payment once the integration reaches customers.

Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

TL;DR: Mesh and Visa have announced a partnership intended to let consumers spend cryptocurrency and stablecoins from participating wallet apps wherever Visa payments are accepted.

Holding stablecoins is one thing. Actually spending them in a shop usually involves moving funds to an exchange, selling them, or relying on a separate payment product. Visa and Mesh are pitching a way to make that process less visible to the customer.

Under their newly announced partnership, Mesh’s payment infrastructure will connect eligible crypto wallet balances with Visa’s acceptance network, spanning more than 175 million merchant locations. The ambition is to support both online and in-person spending without requiring customers to manually cash out their tokens first.

Visa supplies the acceptance infrastructure. Mesh provides the orchestration layer responsible for connecting wallet balances to a payment made in the currency a merchant expects to receive.

It’s a potentially significant distribution arrangement for digital asset payments, but the announcement is not the same as saying every crypto wallet already works in every shop. Participating apps, market availability and the precise rollout remain important variables.

For merchants, the appeal is continuity: they would interact with an established payments network rather than needing to accept a particular blockchain asset directly. For wallet providers, the attraction is a more everyday use for balances that often stay within crypto trading platforms.

The test will be whether the experience is genuinely as simple as a conventional card payment once the integration reaches customers.

Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

TL;DR

• BIX says its crypto-enabled Visa card is currently available to eligible users in 29 U.S. states.
• The company is targeting expansion to 49 states within six to eight months, subject to approvals and partner readiness.
• The card links spending to USDC or USDT held through a self-custody wallet, while merchants receive fiat.

Crypto card provider BIX is planning a significant U.S. expansion, aiming to take its payment product from 29 supported states to 49.

The company says it wants to reach that coverage within six to eight months, although the timetable remains dependent on regulatory approvals and the financial institutions supporting the card program.

The Stablecoins Stay Behind The Payment Experience

BIX combines a self-custody crypto wallet with a Visa card.

Eligible users can hold supported USDC or USDT balances while using the card for ordinary purchases.

The merchant still receives fiat through the conventional Visa payment system.

That structure is becoming increasingly common across crypto cards.

The customer keeps value in a blockchain-based asset.

The merchant does not need to accept crypto or operate blockchain infrastructure.

BIX says supported stablecoin and network combinations include infrastructure across Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Base, Solana and Optimism.

The product is therefore less about convincing shops to accept USDT directly and more about using existing card rails as the final step between a stablecoin balance and a conventional purchase.

State Coverage Is A Regulatory Problem More Than A Technology Problem

The reason BIX is not already available nationwide has little to do with whether its app works in another state.

U.S. crypto-linked card programs rely on regulated banking, issuing and payments partners whose permissions and requirements vary across jurisdictions.

That makes geographic expansion partly a compliance exercise.

BIX says it expects to add another 20 states as its partners and approvals allow.

The company currently offers a free standard membership, with virtual cards available to eligible users.

Additional products under development include physical cards and account functionality intended to connect stablecoin balances with conventional systems such as ACH, SEPA and SWIFT.

Those plans remain future products rather than features every user can access today.

Crypto cards have been around for years, but stablecoins have made the proposition simpler.

Instead of spending a volatile token and triggering a conversion at checkout, a user can keep a dollar-denominated balance and treat the card as an interface into it.

For BIX, the product already exists.

The next challenge is getting permission to offer it across almost the entire United States.

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

Brazil's SISVISA health surveillance system left 102,215 files totaling 79GB open online, including tax IDs and identity documents, without password protection.