Bridge

Stripe plans to extend its stablecoin card programs to more than 100 countries by the end of the year, widening access to digital dollar payments for businesses and consumers. The push comes as stablecoin card spending reached about $1.2 billion last month, roughly triple the level seen a year earlier.

The Solana Foundation has named former Binance executive Rachel Conlan as chief strategy officer and Polygon Labs veteran Jamal Raees as general manager of payments. The appointments underscore Solana’s push to attract institutions building with stablecoins, payments, tokenized funds and other real-world assets.

MoneyGram has extended MoneyGram Ramps to Solana, giving wallets, exchanges and developers access to its global cash network. The rollout supports cash deposits in more than 25 countries and withdrawals across more than 170 countries and territories.

Mastercard has completed its acquisition of BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure firm, in a deal valued at $1.8 billion. The transaction highlights how major payments companies and crypto platforms are competing for influence in a stablecoin market worth about $300 billion.

AFX Trade, a decentralized perpetuals exchange on Arbitrum, was drained of about 24.15 million USDC after attacker-controlled validator signatures authorized a bridge withdrawal. Arbitrum’s native bridge was not breached, with security findings pointing to a third-party protocol failure involving off-chain hot-validator keys.

A potential Stripe acquisition of PayPal is stirring debate across fintech and crypto over who controls the rails behind consumer payments. Market participants say the biggest prize may be PayPal’s wallet reach, merchant network and stablecoin distribution rather than any single token.