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.
