You Won’t Believe What Stripe Is Now Doing With Stablecoins… and in 100+ Countries!

In the dim tableau of financial innovations, between the creaking floorboards of old bank institutions and the echo of coins long departed, Stripe, a merchant of digital payments—yes, those tireless men in frock coats and linoleum offices—now offers stablecoin accounts to its clientele scattered across more than a hundred countries. So grand is their gesture, it’s as if they are distributing warm bread to a frozen village.

On May 7, amid yawns and the endless drumming of accountants’ fingers, an announcement declared that clients could now send, receive, and hold balances in the US-dollar masquerade of stablecoins. Quite like a bank account, only the bank smells less of mothballs and more of server racks.

If one dusts off the technical parchment, the account feature (delivered with the enthusiasm of a tired clerk) dons the colors of Circle’s USDC and Bridge’s USDB—these noble stablecoins. Stripe, ever the romantic, purchased the Bridge platform in October 2024, a move more exciting than Aunt Marfa’s annual birthday party.

To stir the pot, the service sweeps across countries like Argentina 🍷, Chilé (with that curious accent), Turkey, Colombia, and Peru. Who knows—perhaps even a goat farmer in Turkey might one day send USDC with the same casual air as sending a postcard?

Stripe’s latest invention breathes fresh irony into these times, when stablecoins are treated as treasures in economies where the only thing that inflates faster than the currency is your uncle’s stories. Banks are scarce, capital flows are trapped like mice in a cupboard, but at least—praise the blockchain!—you can now cling to a digital coin as the ship of state lists in the wind.

Stablecoins are banking the unbanked and are increasingly used as a store of value

The evangelists of stablecoins—a sect nobler than the moonshiners—declare these innovations as lifeboats for the “unbanked” in lands where banks are rumored but never seen. With nothing but a cellphone, a crypto wallet, and a connection as reliable as Ivan’s marriage vows, a peasant can now send value across borders. Fees drop. Verifications become swift—no more bribing the sullen clerk at the post office!

demand flared up in 70 countries, prompting Stripe to wonder why they didn’t invite more people to the party sooner.

Bitso, a crypto platform apparently immune to boredom, notes Latin American residents are hoarding stablecoins like Galina collects cats: as stores of value, mediums of exchange, and (occasionally) objects to gaze at when dreams of economic stability fail. 🤑

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2025-05-08 01:54