Why Stripe Acquired Privy: Inside the Payments Giant's Crypto Strategy

In one of the most significant acquisitions in the crypto infrastructure space, Stripe, the global payments giant processing approximately 1.3% of global GDP, acquired Privy, a leading embedded wallet provider with over 100 million accounts deployed across more than 1,500 customers. The acquisition signals Stripe's serious commitment to building out its crypto infrastructure, following its earlier acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge. In a revealing conversation on Lightspeed, Privy CEO Henri Stern unpacked the strategic rationale behind the deal, Stripe's broader crypto ambitions, and why he believes we're entering a transformative moment for programmable money and agentic commerce.

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The Strategic Logic Behind Stripe's Privy Acquisition

The acquisition of Privy by Stripe represents far more than a simple talent acquisition or technology purchase. According to Henri Stern, the deal reflects Stripe's comprehensive approach to building crypto infrastructure that extends well beyond stablecoins. While many observers know Privy primarily for its social media sign-in capabilities that brought smooth, familiar login experiences to crypto applications, Stern emphasized that the company's scope has evolved dramatically since its inception.

Privy today serves an incredibly diverse customer base spanning the entire spectrum of crypto and fintech. The company counts among its clients traditional fintechs, neo banks, payments companies, and deeply crypto-native protocols and applications. Names like Jupiter, Hyperliquid, Bitso, Farcaster, OpenSea, Frentech, and Pump all rely on Privy's infrastructure. This diversity demonstrates Privy's unique ability to build secure systems while making the user experience accessible to people who have no interest in understanding blockchain mechanics.

Stern articulated three primary reasons why Stripe found Privy to be the right acquisition target. First, Privy brings expertise in serving both traditional financial technology companies and crypto-native applications, understanding how to build secure systems while making them palatable to mainstream users. The company moves billions of dollars of assets every month through its infrastructure, but does so in a way that doesn't require users to have a "crypto PhD" to interact with the systems.

Second, as Stripe expands into crypto through its Bridge acquisition and recognizes the power of stablecoin rails for faster, cheaper, and more global money movement, the question becomes: what happens at the endpoints of these transactions? Stripe needed infrastructure for programmable accounts through which users can actually control and program their money. Privy provides exactly this capability—it's the account system that enables the programmable primitive.

Third, Stripe demonstrated genuine curiosity and willingness to engage with crypto beyond just stablecoins. Understanding that stablecoins exist within a broader ecosystem of programmable assets and decentralized finance, Stripe sought to bring on a team that has been working at the frontier of crypto development. This positions Stripe to understand and eventually offer services around emerging crypto primitives like DeFi yield opportunities through protocols like Aave or Morpho, which become increasingly important as traditional interest rates decline.

Understanding Stablecoins as Programs

One of the most philosophically interesting points Stern made was his characterization of stablecoins as programs—because that's literally what they are. USDC, for instance, is essentially a few thousand lines of code that determine the conditions under which assets can be minted, burned, and transferred. This programmatic nature is precisely why the money is programmable: it's built on smart contracts that can encode complex logic.

The implications of viewing money as code are profound. It suggests that the best product doesn't always win on technical merit alone. Circle didn't build something valuable simply because they wrote elegant code—anyone with sufficient programming skills could have forked that code and created their own stablecoin. The value comes from everything built around the program: regulatory compliance, trust, distribution, and ecosystem development. This is why open issuance initiatives like what Bridge is building become so exciting—they enable anyone to leverage their own stablecoins with flexibility in how yield gets distributed.

This programmatic view of money also expands what's possible. If money is code, then previously unimaginable financial products and behaviors become feasible. Flash loans, for instance, are only possible because of these digital rails—borrowing millions of dollars for a single transaction block is a phenomenon unique to programmable money. Stern suggested that there will be many more emergent properties of these systems that we cannot yet predict, which is why Stripe believes it's essential to work with crypto-native teams who understand the full breadth of what's being built in the space.

Stripe's Level of Seriousness About Crypto

Not all corporate crypto initiatives are created equal. Stern drew an implicit contrast between companies that announce blockchain projects with great fanfare but little follow-through and Stripe's approach. Having attended Stripe's recent announcements, the impression was unmistakable: crypto is genuinely at the forefront of the company's priorities.

One hallmark of Stripe that Stern has always admired is the seriousness with which products are launched and the care for craft evident in their work. This philosophy aligned well with Privy's own approach. When Privy launched integrated gas sponsorship—allowing applications to pay gas fees on behalf of their users for any EVM or Solana chain—the feature had already processed tens of millions of transactions before being publicly released. This production-ready approach ensures that when Stripe introduces crypto features, they will actually work reliably at scale.

Stripe's crypto strategy appears to operate on two parallel tracks. The first involves building out developer tools and infrastructure that enable others to build stablecoin and crypto applications. Privy and Bridge represent building blocks in what could become an "AWS for money." The second track involves asking where Stripe's existing products and massive distribution could benefit from adding crypto rails. The Shopify integration that enables merchants to receive crypto payments exemplifies this approach—leveraging Stripe's existing relationships to expand crypto's footprint in legitimate commerce.

The Case for Crypto Payment Rails

A fundamental question underlies Stripe's crypto ambitions: are crypto payment rails actually better than existing infrastructure? Stern offered a nuanced but ultimately optimistic assessment. He recounted attempting to pay for coffee with crypto and encountering the same friction many users experience—wallet connection issues, the phone distracting him mid-transaction, people waiting impatiently in line behind him—leading him to abandon the attempt and pay with a credit card instead.

This anecdote illustrates that crypto payments are not yet frictionless for everyday consumer transactions in the United States. However, Stern argued that the underlying infrastructure has improved dramatically. It used to be that buyers and sellers had to match exactly in terms of their expectations about which chain and which asset would be used. If a buyer held Ethereum on Arbitrum but a merchant wanted USDC on Solana, the transaction couldn't happen without multiple intermediate steps.

Today, on-chain infrastructure has advanced to the point where these conversions can be abstracted away. A person holding assets on one chain can pay a merchant expecting assets on a different chain without either party thinking about the technical details. The rails are getting much better, and wallets are improving to eliminate the constant app-switching that plagued earlier experiences.

Stern also emphasized the importance of considering different market segments. Business-to-business transactions currently represent a larger share of stablecoin usage than business-to-consumer. For a company like Coca-Cola with bottling plants in fifteen countries, maintaining reserve currencies in local denominations across all these jurisdictions represents enormous capital requirements and complexity. If that company could instead hold digital dollars that get converted to local currencies in real-time as needed, the capital efficiency gains would be massive.

Similarly, the US-versus-global divide matters enormously. Americans already have the dollar, so the urgency for stable digital currency is lower. But in countries with unstable currencies, people will tolerate subpar user experiences if it means access to dollar-denominated savings. Stern referenced the observation that Tether operates essentially as a hedge fund charging no management fee while taking all the carry—people accept zero yield because holding dollars is valuable enough.

Why Tempo and Multi-Chain Infrastructure Make Sense

Stripe's incubation of Tempo, a new blockchain project focused on payments, might seem to contradict a belief in Solana or other existing chains. But Stern explained the rationale: no existing chain today can support the throughput required for global commerce at Stripe's scale. Beyond throughput, payment-focused applications require specific features that general-purpose chains may not prioritize.

Batch transactions, the ability to pay gas in any token (so users don't need to hold native chain tokens just to transact), and priority lanes that prevent payment costs from spiking during network congestion from unrelated activities—these are optimizations that make sense for a dedicated payments infrastructure. As Stern put it, there are trade-offs inherent in any blockchain design. By focusing specifically on payments, Tempo can make choices that other chains with broader mandates might not.

This doesn't diminish Solana's importance or value. Stern was clear that Privy wants to work with whatever chains best serve their customers. The company has native bridging into Solana, policies on Solana, gas sponsorship on Solana, and wallet connectors built on Wallet Adapter that ensure broad interoperability with the Solana ecosystem. When trading venues or other customers request specific chain support, Privy accommodates them.

The broader principle is that different chains will optimize for different use cases. Just as you wouldn't use your iPhone for the same tasks as your MacBook, different blockchains will serve different purposes. VCs funding numerous competing chains may have created a fragmented landscape, but Stern believes this reflects genuine differences in optimization targets rather than purely rent-seeking behavior.

Solana's Unique Position and Strengths

Despite his multi-chain perspective, Stern had notably positive things to say about Solana and its ecosystem. He described Solana builders as "extremely pragmatic" with unusual "care for product and craft"—a cultural characteristic he sees as relatively unique in the crypto space. When working with Solana teams like Jupiter, Hyperliquid, or Pump, he observes thoughtfulness about user experience that he doesn't consistently see elsewhere.

From a market perspective, Solana demonstrates "real velocity of money" that other chains have struggled to match. Capital flows more efficiently through Solana than most other ecosystems, as evidenced by the explosive growth of meme coins in late 2023 and early 2024. While Stern couldn't explain precisely why this is the case, the empirical evidence is clear.

The node infrastructure and RPC systems on Solana, particularly with contributions from teams like Jito, make development relatively simple. However, Stern noted that wallet connector standardization remains more advanced on Ethereum, which creates friction for developers trying to build applications where users bring their own wallets.

Stern revealed that many major fintechs are currently building on Solana rails, with significant launches expected in 2026. He couldn't name specific companies, but expressed confidence that traditional fintech players will increasingly leverage Solana for stablecoin-driven applications. The key question for Solana's future is whether the DeFi infrastructure will be ready when mainstream users with stablecoin balances want to put their money to work. Solana has excellent trading infrastructure, but the full spectrum of DeFi services for "normies" remains an open question.

Solana's ongoing technical improvements also matter. The Alpenglow upgrade promises faster finality, and Anza has been working on optimizations throughout 2025 to address compute limits and other bottlenecks. Stern's conversation with someone from Anza about building privacy primitives directly into Solana particularly excited him—he sees privacy as a major underdelivered promise of crypto that may experience a renaissance as traditional finance enters the space.

The Business Model Evolution of Crypto Wallets

The economics of building wallet infrastructure present unique challenges compared to launching a new blockchain. When launching an L1, investors or retail buyers pay up before value is proven—you can raise enormous sums based on potential. Wallets, by contrast, typically monetize through transaction flows, which means they only generate revenue if people actually use them. You can launch a wallet, but if usage doesn't materialize, it's not a business at all.

This explains why the wallet landscape appears more consolidated than other crypto sectors. Power laws dominate because wallets are extremely sticky—what wallet someone uses becomes "carbon dating" for when they entered crypto. The friction of moving assets to a new wallet means most people simply don't bother, even if superior alternatives exist.

Privy took a deliberately different approach to monetization that Stern believes better aligns incentives. Rather than monetizing users through transaction fees or selling order flow data (as Robinhood does to some extent), Privy charges developers as a SaaS business. This transparency about the business model prevents the "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product" dynamic that Stern finds antithetical to crypto's values around data sovereignty.

Some developers have complained about paying for wallet infrastructure when alternatives appear free, but Stern argues that "free" always means someone is paying somewhere. Better to be transparent about costs than to engage in hidden monetization that might not align with user interests. Over time, additional revenue opportunities may emerge, but Stern is committed to ensuring they align with the value Privy provides to both developers and end users.

The Remaining UX Challenges in Crypto

Despite tremendous progress, several significant friction points remain in the crypto user experience. Stern identified three primary areas needing improvement: cross-chain connectivity, on-ramps, and off-ramps.

Cross-chain and cross-asset issues persist despite being theoretically solvable with existing technology. Users still encounter situations where they have digital assets but the "wrong" digital assets—like trying to use an American electrical plug in Europe. All the infrastructure exists to swap and bridge seamlessly through services like Jupiter and Raydium, but the productization hasn't fully eliminated friction. This is an area where Privy is actively focused.

On-ramps represent perhaps the most stubborn challenge, and notably, Stern characterized this as "not a crypto problem" but rather "a fraud problem" and "a payments problem." The fundamental issue is that crypto transactions are irreversible, creating massive fraud incentives. When someone uses a stolen credit card to buy physical goods, the payment can be stopped and goods recovered. When they use it to buy crypto, the assets can disappear instantly into pseudonymous wallets.

This fraud risk means KYC requirements remain stringent and rejection rates high—Stern cited approximately 40% failure rates. Regulatory clarity could help enable simpler on-ramping, and recent changes to app store policies have removed some barriers, but the core challenge remains unsolved. Stripe's expertise in fraud prevention makes this an interesting opportunity, but there's no silver bullet yet.

Off-ramps complete the circuit of the crypto economy. Once users have crypto, they need to be able to spend it in the real world. Card issuance has emerged as a crucial bridge—companies like Bridge, Rain, and Coolup are enabling users to spend stablecoins directly through Visa and MasterCard networks. Building the necessary banking relationships in every country to enable direct crypto-to-fiat conversion remains a real-world logistics challenge rather than a software problem.

The Agentic Payments Revolution

Perhaps the most forward-looking topic discussed was agentic payments—the idea that AI agents will need to conduct commerce on behalf of users. OpenAI announced initiatives in this space alongside Stripe's stablecoin announcements, reflecting growing industry attention.

Stern quoted Zach from Bridge observing that most fintech innovation to date has essentially been about credit cards, with the internet enabling card growth. The analogous unlock for stablecoins and stable growth might be AI. If agents need to trade with each other, they should do it with natively digital currency that's programmable and can be controlled with appropriate safeguards.

The practical implications are significant. Imagine an AI agent that can book plane tickets or make purchases on your behalf within a defined spending limit. The activation energy to complete transactions drops dramatically when an agent handles the mechanics. This could resurrect business models like micropayments that failed when humans had to manually authorize each transaction—the friction was comparable to larger purchases despite lower value.

Privy's development of wallet policies emerged directly from this use case. A trading app wanted to enable agents to trade on behalf of consumers but worried about what would happen if the LLM hallucinated and placed wrong orders. Privy built policy systems to limit daily spending by wallets, restrict which assets could be traded, and require additional authorization for large transactions. These same policies now serve neo banks that want spending caps and authorization requirements for corporate accounts—a frontier use case that generated broadly applicable infrastructure.

The compute implications of agentic commerce are staggering. Just as AI has driven energy consumption far beyond what crypto mining ever required, agentic payments could multiply transaction volumes by orders of magnitude if agents are conducting countless small transactions on behalf of users. Current blockchain infrastructure isn't remotely prepared for this scale, which provides motivation for all builders in the space rather than fuel for chain tribalism.

Stripe's Relationship with Credit Card Networks

Given Stripe's position in payments and the emergence of stablecoin rails, an obvious question arises about competition with credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard. Stern characterized the relationship as complementary rather than competitive, at least from Privy's perspective.

He doesn't share the antagonism toward credit card companies that some in the stablecoin space express. While merchants would certainly prefer to avoid high processing fees, Stern sees the situation evolving through competitive dynamics. Visa and MasterCard are already embracing stablecoins because they recognize the power of the coming changes. Consumers will ultimately "vote with their feet and their money" regarding which payment rails they prefer.

The incumbents will either adapt or die, but that's the healthy functioning of markets rather than a crusade to defeat particular companies. In the meantime, card networks provide valuable last-mile infrastructure for getting value from crypto to real-world merchants, particularly in markets where direct stablecoin acceptance hasn't developed. Pragmatism suggests working with these networks where they provide value while building infrastructure that eventually makes them less necessary.

Privy positions itself as a platform—the "pipes" that allow various services to connect into core money accounts. On-ramps, off-ramps, exchanges, applications, and card networks are all "connectors" that can be integrated to make accounts more powerful and useful. This infrastructure layer sits beneath any particular payment rail.

The Multi-Chain Future and Anti-Tribalism

Stern explicitly positioned himself against chain tribalism while remaining bullish on Solana's specific strengths. His thesis is that no single chain will dominate because blockchain design involves inherent trade-offs. Optimizing for speed might mean sacrificing modularity; optimizing for privacy might mean sacrificing transparency; optimizing for throughput might mean sacrificing decentralization.

The venture capital ecosystem has also created strong incentives for chain proliferation—too much value has been captured by launching new chains for the "one true chain" thesis to play out even over extended timeframes. But beyond the financial incentives, Stern believes optimization genuinely matters. Different applications have different requirements, and general-purpose chains can't excel at everything.

This is why Privy built its infrastructure to be fundamentally multi-chain. Native bridging to Solana, policies on Solana, gas sponsorship on Solana, and native Solana wallet connectors all exist because so much interesting activity happens there. But the same infrastructure supports EVM chains and will support whatever emerges next. Developers should be able to build across ecosystems and choose the best chain for their specific use case.

The comparison to consumer electronics is instructive: nobody expects their iPhone, MacBook, and potentially iPad to converge into a single device. Each form factor has distinct advantages for different tasks. Similarly, different blockchains will serve different purposes, and the interoperability layer—where Privy operates—becomes increasingly important.

The Coming Stablecoin Flywheel

Despite the current challenges with on-ramps and off-ramps, Stern expressed strong optimism about the current moment for stablecoin adoption. A flywheel is beginning to spin: as more people globally receive stablecoins—whether through remittances, gig economy payments, or B2B transactions—they gain entry into the crypto ecosystem without needing to navigate complex on-ramping.

Once people hold digital assets, they can find ways to off-ramp through card networks, spend digitally through e-commerce, engage with DeFi for yield, or participate in future developments like agentic commerce. The friction points remain real, but the momentum is building.

Stern characterized this as the most exciting time he's seen for crypto to have genuine global impact. The infrastructure has reached sufficient maturity that real capital is flowing through these systems for real economic purposes, not just speculation. Major fintechs building on Solana for 2026 launches suggests mainstream adoption is accelerating. The question is whether the crypto ecosystem can continue building fast enough to meet the coming demand.

Privacy as a Potential Competitive Advantage

An intriguing aside in the conversation touched on privacy. Stern sees privacy as "a major let down of crypto over the last decade and a half"—it seemed inevitable that crypto would enable far more private transactions than have actually materialized. The revealed preference is that most people don't care enough about financial privacy to accept worse user experiences, and pseudo-anonymity provides sufficient privacy for most use cases.

However, Stern believes traditional finance entering the space may drive a renaissance in privacy technology. Institutional players have legitimate needs for transaction privacy that individuals have been willing to forego. Chains that focus on building privacy primitives may capture significant value as this demand materializes.

His conversation with someone from Anza about building privacy directly into Solana particularly excited him. If Solana can differentiate on privacy while maintaining its other strengths—speed, cost, developer experience—that could be a powerful combination for capturing institutional and eventually consumer usage.

The Emergence of Wallet Policies and Programmable Controls

One of Privy's most significant recent developments is wallet policies—programmable rules that govern what wallets can do. Originally developed to address the specific challenge of AI agents potentially making erroneous trades, this infrastructure has found much broader application.

Neo banks can set spending caps on accounts, require multiple authorizations for large transactions, or restrict which asset types can be traded. Enterprises can implement sophisticated treasury management controls. The same policy system that prevents an LLM from wrecking your wallet can ensure that corporate accounts have appropriate oversight.

This represents a meaningful evolution in what "wallet" means. Rather than simply holding keys and signing transactions, modern wallet infrastructure includes expressive policy systems that make wallets suitable for regulated financial institutions and corporate treasuries, not just individual crypto enthusiasts.

Conclusion: The Opportunity Ahead

Henri Stern's conversation painted a picture of crypto infrastructure at an inflection point. The underlying technology has improved dramatically—cross-chain connectivity, wallet user experience, and DeFi primitives have all advanced significantly. Major financial players like Stripe are making serious, long-term investments rather than experimental forays.

At the same time, significant work remains. On-ramps and off-ramps still create friction that prevents casual adoption. Privacy features remain underdeveloped relative to crypto's promises. Throughput limitations mean no existing chain could handle global commerce at scale.

But these are solvable problems, and the incentives to solve them have never been stronger. With Stripe processing over 1% of global GDP and actively investing in crypto infrastructure, the motivation to overcome remaining obstacles is backed by substantial resources and distribution. Solana's pragmatic builder culture and real velocity of money position it well to capture significant share of the coming growth, while the multi-chain future ensures diversity and competition in blockchain development.

For builders, the message is clear: the opportunity is massive and mostly ahead of us. Chain tribalism is counterproductive when orders of magnitude of growth remain to be captured. The focus should be on solving real user problems—making it easier to get money on chain, spend it in the real world, and trust it to AI agents when appropriate.

The acquisition of Privy by Stripe is one data point in what appears to be an accelerating trend of traditional financial infrastructure providers embracing crypto rails. Whether through stablecoin payments, agentic commerce, or applications not yet imagined, the programmable money era seems genuinely to be arriving—not in some distant future, but in product launches scheduled for 2025 and 2026.

Facts + Figures

• Privy has deployed approximately 100 million accounts across more than 1,500 customers, making it the most scaled embedded wallet provider according to Henri Stern.

• Approximately 1.3% of global GDP flows through Stripe's payment rails, representing massive distribution potential for crypto payment infrastructure.

• Privy processes billions of dollars of asset movements monthly while maintaining user-friendly interfaces that don't require crypto expertise.

• The Privy gas sponsorship feature was tested with tens of millions of transactions before public launch to ensure production-ready reliability.

• Approximately 40% of crypto on-ramp attempts fail due to fraud prevention measures, highlighting a major remaining friction point.

• USDC consists of only a few thousand lines of code, illustrating how stablecoins are fundamentally programs with value deriving from everything built around them.

• Stern revealed that multiple major fintechs are building on Solana rails with significant launches expected in 2026.

• The attention transformer paper that birthed generative AI was published in 2017, and ChatGPT launched in December 2022—making generative AI newer than Bitcoin in some ways.

• Privy raised approximately $40 million in venture funding before the Stripe acquisition.

• Tether operates essentially as a zero-fee hedge fund that takes all the carry, enabled by global demand for dollar-denominated assets.

• Stripe's Shopify integration enables merchants to receive crypto payments, representing an example of adding crypto rails to existing product distribution.

• Privy serves customers spanning from deeply crypto-native protocols (Jupiter, Hyperliquid, Pump) to traditional fintechs and neo banks.

• AI energy consumption now dwarfs previous concerns about crypto mining energy usage, with compute and energy spend increasing dramatically.

• The wallet connector ecosystem on Ethereum has more standardization than Solana, creating some developer friction on Solana.

• Bridge is building open issuance capabilities that enable anyone to leverage their own stablecoins with flexibility in yield distribution.

• Privy's wallet policies feature was originally developed to prevent AI agents from making erroneous trades but now serves neo banks and enterprise treasury management.

Questions Answered

Why did Stripe acquire Privy?

Stripe acquired Privy for three primary reasons: Privy's proven ability to serve both traditional fintechs and crypto-native applications while maintaining excellent user experience, the need for programmable account infrastructure as Stripe expands its stablecoin rails through Bridge, and Stripe's genuine interest in engaging with crypto beyond just stablecoins. With 100 million deployed accounts and billions in monthly transaction volume, Privy represents the most scaled embedded wallet provider, making it a natural fit for Stripe's ambition to build comprehensive crypto infrastructure.

What is an embedded wallet and how does it differ from traditional crypto wallets?

An embedded wallet is a developer tool that enables applications to build secure, self-custodial wallet systems directly into their products, rather than requiring users to download separate wallet apps. Unlike consumer wallets like MetaMask or Phantom that users install independently, embedded wallets allow neo banks to offer stablecoin accounts alongside fiat, social networks to integrate tipping, and games to reward players with actual currency—all without users needing to think about crypto mechanics. This approach makes crypto accessible to mainstream users who have no interest in learning blockchain technicalities.

Are crypto payment rails actually better than traditional payment methods?

Crypto rails offer significant advantages for specific use cases but aren't universally superior yet. For B2B transactions and international money movement, crypto enables faster, cheaper, and more efficient capital flows—a company like Coca-Cola with global operations could dramatically reduce capital requirements by using stablecoins instead of maintaining reserves in multiple local currencies. However, for consumer retail payments in the US, the user experience often isn't smooth enough to compete with credit cards. The rails are improving rapidly with better cross-chain connectivity, but on-ramp and off-ramp friction remains significant.

Will there be one dominant blockchain or will multiple chains coexist?

Henri Stern believes we're heading for a multi-chain world rather than one dominant chain. Blockchain design inherently involves trade-offs—optimizing for one characteristic means sacrificing something else. Different applications have different requirements, and general-purpose chains can't excel at everything. Even over very long timeframes, the venture capital ecosystem has created too many incentives for chain proliferation for a single winner to emerge. This is why Privy built multi-chain infrastructure from the start, supporting both Solana and EVM chains while enabling developers to choose the best chain for their specific use case.

What are the biggest remaining UX challenges in crypto?

Three major friction points remain: cross-chain/cross-asset connectivity (having digital assets but the "wrong" ones for a particular transaction), on-ramps (getting fiat into crypto with approximately 40% failure rates due to fraud concerns), and off-ramps (spending crypto in the real world). On-ramps are particularly challenging because crypto transactions are irreversible, creating massive fraud incentives that traditional payment fraud doesn't face. Card issuance through networks like Visa and MasterCard currently provides the most practical off-ramp solution.

What is Solana's competitive position among blockchains?

Solana demonstrates unique strengths including "real velocity of money" with capital flowing more efficiently than most other ecosystems, and a builder culture characterized by pragmatism and care for product craft. Major fintechs are building on Solana rails with significant launches expected in 2026. However, Solana still has work to do on wallet connector standardization compared to Ethereum, and the key question is whether DeFi infrastructure will be ready when mainstream users want to put their stablecoin holdings to work. Ongoing upgrades like Alpenglow should address finality speed and other technical limitations.

What are agentic payments and why do they matter?

Agentic payments refer to AI agents conducting financial transactions on behalf of users, which could dramatically change commerce patterns. If agents can book travel, make purchases, and handle transactions within defined spending limits, the activation energy for commerce drops significantly. This could revive business models like micropayments that failed when humans had to manually authorize each transaction. Crypto provides ideal rails for agentic payments because it's natively digital, programmable, and can be controlled through wallet policies that prevent erroneous or unauthorized transactions. The scale implications are enormous—agentic commerce could multiply transaction volumes by orders of magnitude.

How does Privy make money without monetizing users?

Privy deliberately chose a SaaS business model that charges developers rather than monetizing user transactions or selling data. This transparency avoids the "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product" dynamic that contradicts crypto's values around data sovereignty. While some developers have complained about paying for services that appear free elsewhere, Stern argues that "free" always means someone is paying somewhere—better to be transparent about costs than engage in hidden monetization through mechanisms like payment for order flow.

Why is Stripe building Tempo if existing blockchains like Solana exist?

No existing chain today can support the throughput required for global commerce at Stripe's scale, and payment-focused applications require specific features that general-purpose chains may not prioritize. Tempo can optimize for batch transactions, paying gas in any token, and priority lanes that prevent payment costs from spiking during network congestion—optimizations that make sense for dedicated payments infrastructure. The project operates independently but reflects Stripe's desire not to be dependent on other projects' timelines and roadmaps when building mission-critical payment infrastructure.