Visa Taps Zerohash to Let Stablecoins Do the Heavy Lifting on Direct Rails 💸

Visa is broadening stablecoin functionality across its payment network through a partnership with crypto infrastructure provider Zerohash, enabling eligible Visa Direct clients to prefund accounts and disburse payouts using stablecoins. The companies announced the integration on Wednesday, saying the capability will be available through Visa Direct, Visa's money-movement network.

"Working with zerohash helps us bring stablecoin capabilities to our clients at scale, in a way that's reliable and interoperable with the financial systems they already rely on today," Mark Nelsen, Visa's global head of product, said in a statement. "Unlocking stablecoin use cases at the core network level further accelerates adoption globally," Zerohash founder and CEO Edward Woodford added. "Stablecoins are creating new opportunities to make money movement faster and more flexible, particularly for cross-border use cases," Nelsen said.

The setup lets businesses fund Visa Direct accounts with stablecoins before making payments, allowing treasury teams to manage liquidity outside traditional banking hours, and lets recipients receive payouts directly in stablecoins rather than local currency. Zerohash, which provides crypto infrastructure to financial institutions since launching in 2017, will provide the back-end plumbing for the integration.

The arrangement adds to Visa's stablecoin push. In January, Visa partnered with BVNK to pilot stablecoin prefunding and payouts on Visa Direct. In July, the company launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform, giving banks and fintechs tools to issue, hold, and transfer stablecoins while integrating them into existing treasury and payment systems. Zerohash in March applied for a national trust bank charter to expand its custody and settlement business, and in July helped power Morgan Stanley's rollout of Bitcoin ($BTC), Ethereum ($ETH), and Solana ($SOL) trading on E*Trade.

Separately, Circle said it will open the public mainnet of its Arc blockchain on September 16, naming BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation and Visa as a founding validator cohort drawn almost entirely from traditional finance. BlackRock is expected to deploy BUIDL, its tokenized money market fund, on Arc, while DTCC will enable tokenization on the network alongside the launch. BlackRock has also launched tokenized share classes for a range of European money market funds holding a combined $311 billion, its first on-chain fund access in Europe. Hashdex is shutting down its U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF (NYSE Arca: DEFI) after it amassed $14.7 million in assets under management, according to a Monday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; the fund will stop trading after the close on Aug. 17 before being delisted, with cash distributions to remaining shareholders expected on or about Aug. 28.