Bridge

Structure and history

Bridge was founded in 2022 by Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, alumni of Coinbase and Square. The company operated without public funding rounds until August 2024, when it disclosed $58 million raised, including a $40 million Series A led by Sequoia and Ribbit with Index Ventures and Haun Ventures; the valuation was about $200 million and annualized payment volume exceeded $5 billion at the time. Early clients included SpaceX (repatriating Starlink revenue from countries with currency controls), Coinbase, Stellar and Strike. On October 21, 2024 Stripe announced the acquisition of Bridge — for $1.1 billion according to the press, Stripe's largest deal at the time; it closed on February 4, 2025. Bridge kept its brand and leadership and operates as "a Stripe company", while Stripe separately acquired the embedded wallet provider Privy (June 2025) and, with Paradigm, incubated the payments blockchain Tempo (announced September 2025).

The group's legal structure: the parent Bridge Ventures LLC (Delaware, a Stripe subsidiary), Bridge Building Inc. — the licensed money transmitter and issuer of USDB, Bridge Building S.A. in Luxembourg for the EEA, Bridge Building Sp. z o.o. in Poland and Bridge Building Limited for other countries. The registered address is in San Antonio, Texas; correspondence with the OCC uses a South San Francisco address, and the team moved to Stripe's headquarters after the deal.

Products

Bridge sells two sets of APIs: orchestration — accepting, holding, converting and paying out funds between fiat and stablecoins, including virtual accounts in dollars and euros — and issuance. Orchestration underpins Stripe's Stablecoin Financial Accounts, launched on May 7, 2025 in 101 countries with USDC and USDB support. USDB is Bridge's own stablecoin, issued the same day and backed by cash and BlackRock money market funds.

The Open Issuance platform (announced September 26, 2025 and presented at Stripe Tour New York on September 30) lets a client issue a stablecoin under its own brand while Bridge retains the licence, reserves, minting and redemption; reserve managers are BlackRock, Fidelity Investments and Superstate, with Lead Bank providing liquidity. Tokens issued on the platform include Phantom CASH (the first), mUSD for MetaMask (announced August 21, 2025, on-chain minting via the M0 protocol), USDH for Hyperliquid, KlarnaUSD (November 25, 2025, on Tempo), DLUSD for Deel (June 3, 2026, settled on Tempo, held in Privy wallets, starting in Argentina) and MGUSD for MoneyGram (June 2, 2026, on Stellar, Fireblocks custody). According to the August 2026 digest issue, Bridge's Luxembourg entity also issues Revolut's euro stablecoin, introduced on August 26, 2026. As of August 2026 Bridge supports tokenized euro, Mexican peso and pound, with the Brazilian real in preparation.

The card business is built with Visa and the issuing bank Lead Bank: on April 30, 2025 stablecoin-funded cards launched in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Chile; by March 3, 2026 the programme was live in 18 countries with a plan to reach 100+ countries by the end of 2026, including Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Middle East; the Phantom and MetaMask wallets issue such cards on Bridge's infrastructure.

Licences and regulation

In the US, Bridge Building Inc. holds state money transmitter licences (NMLS 2450917) and acts as issuer of USDB and client tokens. In October 2025 the group applied for a national trust bank charter; on February 12, 2026 the OCC granted preliminary conditional approval (Corporate Decision 1365) to organize Bridge National Trust Bank in New York, wholly owned by Bridge Ventures LLC, with authority for dollar stablecoin issuance, fiduciary digital asset custody, orchestration and reserve management. In parallel, an application was filed with the NYDFS for a limited purpose trust company to issue USDB and serve New York residents. The company describes its model as ready for the GENIUS Act.

In the EU, Bridge Building S.A. received MiCA CASP and EMI licences from Luxembourg's CSSF on June 29, 2026 (announced July 2), passported to all 27 member states: named euro IBANs, client-branded euro stablecoins and crypto services. No registrations in the UK, Singapore or Brazil were found in available sources.

Risks and public objections

In February 2026 The Information reported that Bridge's services had been used by clients with flows to Venezuela via the Kontigo app; Bridge subsequently prohibited services in Venezuela, Afghanistan and Belarus, no transactions with sanctioned persons were reported, and no regulatory action followed. In November 2025 the NCRC filed an objection to the charter with the OCC, citing Stripe's earlier disputes with state authorities and the FTC. No outages, breaches or lawsuits against Bridge itself were found.

What to watch

• The OCC's final decision on Bridge National Trust Bank and the NYDFS response to the trust company application.
• Expansion of the Visa card programme to 100+ countries by the end of 2026.
• New tokens on Open Issuance and the launch of the Brazilian real.
• Bridge's role in the Open USD consortium, where Bridge founder Zach Abrams leads the operator Open Standard.