The payment war shifts to distribution as stablecoins reach mainstream status
abstrak:Stripe and PayPal process similar payment volumes, but Stripe generates about one-fifth the net revenue, making an acquisition financially accretive and connecting Stripe‘s commoditized merchant processing with PayPal’s 400 million accounts, though integration at that scale would be extremely difficult. Beyond merchant payments, the deal would give Stripe access to a massive consumer payments ecosystem and control over blockchain-based payment infrastructure, complementing its stablecoin capabilities. Executives note the competitive focus has shifted from proving blockchain technology to owning distribution, with stablecoins now functioning as core payments infrastructure rather than experiments. Citi analysts agree that stablecoin competition has become a default-setting game where scale accrues to the default stablecoin across merchant, consumer, or autonomous transaction bases, not to the issuer with superior technology.
“Both Stripe and PayPal do approximately the same amount of payment volume, but Stripe has about one-fifth the net revenue,” Hadick said. “From a financial perspective, this is obviously accretive, and it helps them connect their merchant processing business, which is at risk of being commoditized, with a broad subset of PayPals more than 400 million accounts.”
Hadick also cautioned that executing a deal of that size would be difficult. “M&A integration in something of this size is incredibly hard,” he said.
Beyond merchant payments
Eric Queathem, CEO of Velocity, said the acquisition would also give Stripe access to one of the worlds largest consumer payments ecosystems, providing a platform to expand beyond merchant payments.
The proposed acquisition would also determine who controls the consumer side of blockchain-based payment infrastructure, complementing Stripes existing merchant network and stablecoin capabilities.
Several executives said the competitive focus has shifted from proving blockchain technology works to controlling distribution.
Pankaj Bengani, founder and CEO of Meld, agreed with Larbi that the race is on.
“The race has shifted from proving the technology works to owning distribution,” said Bengani, adding that “stablecoins have graduated from experiment to core payments infrastructure.”
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