Visa Brings Base Into Its Stablecoin Settlement Pilot

Visa has officially added Base to its global stablecoin settlement pilot, expanding the program's onchain payments infrastructure to a total of nine supported blockchains. The announcement landed on April 29, 2026, with Visa confirming the expansion alongside support for four other newly added networks: Polygon, Canton, Circle's Arc, and Stripe's Tempo.

The move marks a structural moment for Coinbase's Layer 2. Base, which launched in 2023 as Coinbase's flagship Ethereum scaling network, is now part of the same settlement infrastructure that handles transaction flows across Visa's global card programs in 50+ countries. The integration places Base alongside Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and Stellar as the chains Visa now uses for live stablecoin settlement with issuers and acquirers.

$7 Billion Annualized Run Rate

The expansion arrives with the kind of usage data that signals real adoption rather than experimental positioning. Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot now runs at a $7 billion annualized run rate, up 50 percent from the previous quarter. The figure represents live transaction volume rather than projections. The annualized rate jumped from roughly $4.7 billion to $7 billion in a single quarter, marking the pilot's largest quarterly growth since its inception.

The pilot supports more than 130 stablecoin-linked card programs across more than 50 countries. Live tests and regional rollouts have run across Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The run rate doubled since December 2025, when USDC settlement was extended to U.S. banks.

The growth pattern underscores institutional confidence in blockchain settlement infrastructure. Stablecoin settlement over blockchain rails is now positioned by Visa as a viable complement to traditional banking infrastructure rather than an experimental side product.

Why Base Was Added

Visa described Base as a high-performance blockchain enabling fast, low-cost settlement for stablecoins, onchain assets, and agentic commerce. The chain's selection ties to Coinbase's broader push to position Base as the backbone for everyday onchain payments and consumer applications.

Jesse Pollak, Founder of Base, framed the integration directly. The team's goal with Base, he said, has always been to make onchain the new standard. Visa's expansion is described as a pivotal step in making stablecoin payments a daily reality for billions of people, enabling a faster, cheaper, and more useful financial system for everyone.

That framing is consistent with how Base has been positioned across 2026. The chain has prioritised consumer applications, casual gaming, social products, and payments rails over deep DeFi infrastructure, with the bet being that mainstream user flows are where the next wave of crypto adoption actually happens. Visa's settlement integration validates that thesis at the institutional level.

What Each New Chain Brings

The five newly added networks each serve a distinct operational role within the settlement ecosystem.

Arc, built by Circle, is the open Layer 1 blockchain purpose-built to unite programmable money and onchain innovation with real-world economic activity. Visa is a design partner for Arc, with the chain targeting programmable commerce and real-time settlement using USDC.

Base, developed by Coinbase, focuses on fast, low-cost transactions for stablecoins, onchain assets, and agentic commerce. The chain's high-throughput execution layer makes it well-suited for consumer-grade payment flows where every basis point of cost matters.

Canton was designed for regulated capital markets and offers configurable privacy. Eric Saraniecki, co-founder of Digital Asset and the Canton Network, said Canton was built to meet the demanding requirements of regulated institutions and that Visa's stablecoin settlement platform provides a bridge that lets them explore onchain settlement while staying aligned with their compliance requirements.

Polygon delivers high-throughput infrastructure for global payments and digital commerce. Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, framed the integration as evidence that stablecoins are entering real-world payments at scale.

Tempo, the Stripe-backed Layer 1, targets faster and more private movement of stablecoin liquidity. Visa is acting as both a validator and settlement partner for Tempo, supporting always-on programmable payments.

A Multi-Chain World by Design

The five new blockchain integrations reflect a deliberate strategic shift inside Visa. The company is no longer treating stablecoin settlement as a single-chain bet on Ethereum or Solana. The expansion makes Visa a chain-agnostic settlement layer that lets partners choose the network that fits their specific needs, with Visa absorbing the underlying complexity of operating across them.

Rubail Birwadker, Global Head of Growth Products and Strategic Partnerships at Visa, framed the strategy directly. Visa's partners are building in a multi-chain world, he said, and they expect their options to reflect that reality. Expanding the stablecoin settlement pilot program to more blockchains lets partners choose the networks that best fit their needs while relying on Visa to provide a common settlement layer across all of them.

That multi-chain approach mirrors a broader trend in stablecoin liquidity flow. Activity now spans a diverse, multi-chain ecosystem, and settlement infrastructure has had to evolve to match. By supporting nine blockchains rather than two or three, Visa positions itself as the interoperability layer between fragmented onchain liquidity pools.

What This Means for the Base Ecosystem

For Base specifically, the Visa integration carries implications well beyond the immediate settlement pilot. Coinbase's Layer 2 has become one of the most active venues for consumer applications, gaming projects, and SocialFi products in 2026. The chain hosts B3 Open Gaming and its various gamechains including SuperGaming's GameChain and Parallel Studios' Primechain. It carries deep USDC liquidity through Coinbase's native integration. It is also the home base for projects like GRAMPUS and the Rolling Burger token launches via Clanker.

Visa's settlement integration adds a new dimension. Card programs settling stablecoin transactions through Base means the chain now sits inside the rails that support real-world consumer payments at global scale. That is the kind of structural infrastructure win that compounds over time as more issuers and acquirers add Base to their settlement options.

For consumer apps and games building on Base, the implication is that the chain's USDC layer is now plugged directly into Visa's global card network. The bridge between an in-game economy on Base and a consumer's everyday Visa card payment becomes shorter than it has ever been.

Stablecoins as the Settlement Layer

The Visa expansion lands inside a broader shift in how stablecoins are being used across the global financial system. Visa CEO Ryan McInerney articulated the company's stablecoin strategy during last week's earnings call, describing a model in which stablecoins function primarily as a store of value and settlement mechanism, while Visa's network handles acceptance and transaction routing. Examples include stablecoin-linked cards that allow consumers to spend digital assets at traditional merchants, alongside settlement options that enable transactions outside standard banking hours.

McInerney framed the company's positioning as the "key interoperability layer between this powerful infrastructure and real-world solutions for users." The April 29 expansion is the operational follow-through on that strategic positioning.

Visa has also been expanding into the broader onchain banking stack. The company announced earlier this week that it is working with WeFi, the blockchain stablecoin infrastructure firm co-founded by former Tether OG Reeve Collins, to build onchain payments and banking services. The rollout will begin in selected markets across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, with the partnership positioned as closing the "last half mile" of onchain banking infrastructure.

Where the Run Rate Goes Next

The pilot's growth pattern through 2026 has been steady and structural rather than spiky. From a $4.7 billion run rate at the start of the quarter to $7 billion at the end, the trajectory implies continued expansion as more issuers and acquirers integrate stablecoin settlement into their flows. The addition of five new chains provides the optionality those partners have been asking for, and the underlying USDC liquidity from Circle's continued issuance across Solana, Ethereum, Base, and other networks gives the rails the depth they need to support meaningful volume.

Stablecoin settlement is no longer a side product inside Visa. It is now part of the company's core infrastructure, and Base's inclusion in that pilot signals where the next phase of consumer onchain payments is headed. With Base, Polygon, Canton, Arc, and Tempo now part of the settlement layer, Visa has positioned itself as the connective tissue between a fragmented multi-chain world and the everyday card transactions billions of people already use.