Stripe unveils new stablecoin feature following $1.1 billion Bridge acquisition

Major payments firm Stripe has launched a new money management feature using U.S. dollar stablecoins.

The new product, named Stablecoin Financial Accounts, allows businesses in 101 countries to hold balances in dollar-backed stablecoins, receive funds on both crypto and fiat rails, and send stablecoins globally, according to Stripe's announcement.

"These accounts will allow entrepreneurs in countries with volatile currencies to hedge against inflation and more easily access the global economy," the company said. "Many of the world's largest companies are turning to Stripe to help assemble their stablecoin strategies."

At launch, Stripe's new product supports two types of dollar stablecoins, USDC and Bridge's USDB, with plans to add more in the future.

Stripe's Stablecoin Financial Accounts comes three months after the company announced the completion of its acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge. The $1.1 billion acquisition deal, first disclosed last October, remains the largest crypto M&A deal to date.

Along with the new stablecoin feature, Stripe unveiled an AI-powered payments foundation model, which it claims to be a world first. 

"Stripe's Payments Foundation Model is trained on tens of billions of transactions, and captures hundreds of subtle signals about each payment that specialized models can't," the company said.

Stripe said the AI model is projected to enhance the identification of fraudulent transactions and increase authorization rates, among other improvements.

"There are not one, but two, gale-force tailwinds, well off the Beaufort scale, dramatically reshaping the economic landscape around us: AI and stablecoins," Patrick Collison, Stripe's co-founder and CEO, said in the announcement.