Fireblocks pushed back against an Axios report published on Thursday claiming that Visa is engaged in advanced negotiations to buy the digital asset custody and stablecoin infrastructure provider for roughly $2.5 billion, referencing multiple unnamed sources.
“We are aware of the rumors concerning a potential buyout of Fireblocks by Visa. This is brand new information to us and is entirely false at this moment,” the organization stated to The Block. Meanwhile, a representative for Visa declined to comment, stating, “We do not address rumors or market speculation.”
The last public valuation for Fireblocks stood at $8 billion, recorded in January 2022 following a $550 million Series E financing round. Established in 2018, Fireblocks specializes in institutional-grade digital asset custody and security infrastructure. The company unveiled a stablecoin payment network back in September 2025 featuring upwards of 40 participants, such as Circle, Bridge, Zerohash, and Yellow Card.
A deal of this magnitude would rank among the largest corporate takeovers in the history of the cryptocurrency sector, though still trailing Coinbase’s $2.9 billion acquisition of derivatives platform Deribit in 2025, as well as Naver Financial’s pending all-stock transaction to absorb Upbit parent company Dunamu for approximately $10.3 billion.
Visa’s stablecoin expansion
Over the past several months, Visa has actively scaled up its own stablecoin operations. Back in August, the payments giant formed an alliance with Zerohash to enable stablecoin transactions and payouts via Visa Direct. Shortly after, the firm announced that its stablecoin settlement volume had climbed past an annualized rate of $20 billion, representing a greater than 15-fold surge compared to the previous year.
Meanwhile, Visa’s competitor Mastercard finalized its takeover of BVNK in August. That competing financial titan had initially reached an agreement to purchase the stablecoin tech provider back in March for a valuation up to $1.8 billion, which included $300 million tied to performance-based payouts.
Updated throughout to reflect Fireblocks’ denial of the talks and Visa’s response.
Originally published at https://www.theblock.co/news/deals/2026-10-22-visa-in-talks-acquire-crypto-custody-firm-fireblocks-around-2-5-billion-axios-421926.
