Visa Adds Five Blockchains to Its Stablecoin Settlement Pilot as Run Rate Hits $7 Billion

Visa said on April 29 that it is adding five blockchains to its global stablecoin settlement pilot, bringing the total network count to nine. The five new chains are Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon, and Tempo. Visa already supported Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana, and Stellar.

The company put the program’s annualized run rate at $7 billion, up 50% from the prior quarter. Stablecoin-linked card programs now number more than 130 across more than 50 countries.

Those figures are still a rounding error against Visa’s total payment volume, but the trajectory is worth watching. A 50% quarter-over-quarter jump in a live pilot means real partners are moving real money through these rails.

As of today, @Visa is expanding its stablecoin settlement network, with volume reaching a $7 billion run rate.

Back in November, @wirexapp, a principal member of Visa, launched dual-stablecoin settlement using USDC and EURC on Stellar. https://t.co/tYZINm7vHg

— Stellar (@StellarOrg) April 30, 2026

The framing from Visa is deliberate. The company is positioning itself as a common settlement layer that sits above whichever blockchain an issuer or acquirer prefers. A card issuer in Southeast Asia might settle on Solana. An acquirer in Europe might choose Polygon. Visa handles the routing in between.

Visa laid out the expansion in its April 29 announcement:

Visa said it is adding Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon, and Tempo to its global stablecoin settlement pilot, expanding a program that already supported Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana, and Stellar. That brings the pilot to nine supported blockchains. Visa reported a $7 billion annualized settlement run rate, up 50% from the prior quarter, and said the expansion gives issuers and acquirers more choice over the networks they use while keeping Visa as a common settlement layer across them. The company also pointed to years of live pilots and regional rollouts, recent USDC settlement expansion to U.S. banks, and more than 130 stablecoin-linked card programs in over 50 countries. Visa framed the growth as evidence that stablecoin settlement is becoming a practical complement to traditional payment rails for financial institutions, fintechs, and payment providers. It also said the multi-chain setup reflects liquidity and activity spreading across a diverse crypto ecosystem rather than concentrating on one network.

The chain-by-chain response tells you something about how seriously these ecosystems take Visa as a distribution partner.

Base is now supported by Visa for stablecoin settlement

Our mission is to make onchain the standard, and this partnership is a major step towards it

It's time to make stablecoin payments a reality for billions pic.twitter.com/1gD0o6EIhU

— Base (@base) April 29, 2026

Stellar pointed to Wirex, a principal Visa member that launched dual-stablecoin settlement using USDC and EURC on its network last November. That is a concrete production use case, not a testnet demo. Polygon highlighted instant money movement for Visa partners choosing its rails.

The world's largest payment network settles stablecoins on Polygon.

Now supported on its global stablecoin settlement program, Visa's partners can choose Polygon rails to move money instantly. pic.twitter.com/WlZKAYyae0

— Polygon | POL (@0xPolygon) April 29, 2026

Nine chains, $7 billion in annualized volume, 130 card programs, 50 countries. This is the kind of institutional plumbing that makes stablecoins hard for regulators to dismiss and hard for competitors to ignore. Visa is treating blockchain settlement as production infrastructure, and the pilot keeps growing fast enough to prove the point.

Join the conversation!

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.