Stripe Doubles Down on Crypto

Stripe is expanding its crypto stack with the acquisition of Privy, a wallet infrastructure startup used by platforms like OpenSea, Blackbird, and Toku to embed wallets directly into user flows, removing friction and improving conversion.

Privy enables seamless wallet creation behind the scenes, allowing users to interact with crypto services or purchase NFTs without needing to install MetaMask or connect third-party wallets. “That off-platform friction constrained what could be built,” said Henri Stern, Privy’s CEO and co-founder.

The deal follows Stripe’s $1.1B purchase of stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge, positioning Stripe to unify wallet onboarding (Privy), stablecoin rails (Bridge), and global payments infrastructure (Stripe) into one integrated stack.

Stripe’s acquisition of Privy marks a clear move toward abstracting away crypto’s UX friction, one of the last major bottlenecks to mainstream adoption. From our perspective, this signals a broader shift: infrastructure players are no longer just enabling Web3, they’re consolidating it into the core of “global fintech.”

“We’re enormously excited to enable a new generation of global, Internet-native financial services,” said Patrick Collison, Stripe’s CEO, and so are we at BlackWood :)

More here: Bloomberg