Stripe Just Bought the Most Important Wallet in Stablecoins

Yesterday, Stripe made a strategic move with big implications that will say a lot about where fintech is heading.

They acquired Privy — a startup that helps apps create secure, embedded wallets for their users with nothing more than an email or social login.

Why does that matter?

Because managing a blockchain wallet today still feels like using the internet in the dial-up era — complicated, risky, and full of jargon. Privy solves that by abstracting all the blockchaijn complexity: seed phrases, gas fees, and chain management.

For the user, it feels just like logging into any modern app.

Privy has already become the underlying wallet layer for some of the fastest-growing Web3 consumer products — many of which run on stablecoins, not volatile tokens. Here are the three apps they are already empowering:Stripe just made a strategic move that might fly under the radar — but it says a lot about where fintech is going.

They’ve acquired Privy, a company that lets developers create secure, embedded blockchain wallets that feel like normal logins — no seed phrases, no crypto jargon, just an email or social login. Behind the scenes, it handles everything: wallet creation, key management, and blockchain interaction.

Privy is already behind the scenes of some of the most forward-thinking consumer fintech experiences powered by stablecoins:

Abstract Global Wallet

Take Abstract Global Wallet, built by the team behind Pudgy Penguins. It’s a unified wallet system that powers prediction apps like Myriad Markets. It has processed over $50 million in stablecoin volume since launching in January. More than 2.4 million wallets have been created, making it one of the most rapidly adopted self-custodial wallets in consumer crypto.

Courtyard

Then there’s Courtyard, which brings physical collectibles like Pokémon and baseball cards — on-chain as NFTs. Users buy, trade, and redeem these assets using USDC. The platform has facilitated over $260M in volume since 2024, with Pokémon cards accounting for more than half of that. It’s the kind of seamless collectible commerce that’s starting to feel inevitable with Privy wallets.

Blackbird

And finally, Blackbird is a dining and loyalty platform that’s reimagining how restaurants engage with their customers. Powered by embedded wallets from Privy, it enables diners to earn rewards — including NFTs — simply by checking in or paying with USDC. The platform is live across 142 restaurants, with over 65,000 users having claimed more than 200,000 NFTs to unlock real-world perks.

What this means:

Stripe understands what’s happening beneath the surface.

Stablecoins and embedded wallets aren’t hype but they’re becoming core infrastructure.

Stablecoins are emerging as a new kind of money movement layer: fast, global, and programmable. And then embedded wallets make that layer usable, abstracting away the crypto complexity so users don’t have to “learn blockchain” to benefit from it.

Privy is the wallet layer that makes all of this feel seamless.
And now, Stripe will own it with the acquisition.

This isn’t about speculation.
It’s about reducing friction, improving user experience, and unlocking new fintech possibilities — while keeping the infrastructure invisible but powerful.

P.S. I write about how stablecoins are powering real-world apps with data, not hype. Subscribe to stay ahead.