Visa is taking its stablecoin experiment home.
The payments giant has launched USDC settlement for U.S. financial institutions, allowing banks and payment partners to move money on the back end using Circle’s dollar-pegged stablecoin instead of relying entirely on traditional fiat rails.
In practical terms, Visa is letting issuers and acquirers settle obligations on-chain, inside Visa’s own network without changing anything about how cards work for consumers. Swipe, tap, and checkout stay the same. What changes is what happens behind the scenes.
The Course Record presented by @Nexo is officially back for the 2026 season!
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) November 27, 2025
We’re kicking things off in Australia this week, where a $10,000 prize pot is on the line, rolling over each week until a new course record is set 📈 pic.twitter.com/MsSBR4JAzb
And that’s where things start to move faster.
Visa says the system enables 24/7 settlement, including weekends and public holidays, a sharp contrast to legacy banking infrastructure that still pauses outside business hours. For treasury teams, that means better liquidity timing and more predictable cash management.
The U.S. rollout builds on Visa’s existing stablecoin settlement pilots overseas and marks the first time the company has offered the service domestically at scale.
Who’s live and what’s next
Two U.S. banks are first out of the gate: Cross River Bank and Lead Bank. Settlement activity is currently happening on the Solana blockchain, which Visa has leaned on for its speed and low transaction costs.
Broader access for U.S. issuers and acquirers is coming, with Visa planning a phased rollout through 2026.
The bigger signal here isn’t just about Solana or USDC. It’s about Visa formally treating blockchain rails as production infrastructure not a sandbox.
Visa’s stablecoin bet is getting bigger
Visa also shared a telling data point: its stablecoin settlement volume has now reached an annualized run rate of more than $3.5 billion.
That number underscores how far this initiative has come since Visa first started experimenting with USDC settlement back in 2021. Since then, pilots have quietly expanded across Europe, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and CEMEA, laying the groundwork for this U.S. launch.
Visa is also going deeper into blockchain infrastructure itself.
The company confirmed it’s acting as a design partner for Circle’s upcoming Arc Layer-1 blockchain, a network built specifically for high-throughput commercial payments. Visa plans to use Arc for USDC settlement once it goes live and will operate a validator node, giving it a direct role in securing the network.
That’s a notable step for a company that once positioned itself as “blockchain-agnostic.”
Markets reacts
Wall Street liked the news, at least for Circle.
Shares of Circle, the issuer of USDC, jumped 8.9% to $82.16, even though the stock is still below previous highs. The price remains well above Circle’s $31 IPO price from June, suggesting investors see Visa’s move as validation of USDC’s role in mainstream payments.
Visa’s own stock dipped about 0.6% on the day. But the company says interest from financial institutions is growing as banks prepare to adopt stablecoin settlement and as Visa rolls out more on-chain payment tools.
The takeaway is straightforward.
Stablecoins aren’t just a crypto-native product anymore. With Visa bringing USDC settlement fully onshore, they’re becoming part of the plumbing of U.S. payments; quietly, efficiently, and increasingly at scale.
