Fireblocks has pushed back against a news story claiming that Visa is engaged in advanced discussions to acquire the stablecoin and institutional crypto custody platform for roughly $2.5 billion.
“We are aware of the rumors about a possible acquisition of Fireblocks by Visa. This is news to us, and not true at present time,” the company told The Block on Thursday.
This rejection arrived hours following a report by Axios, which referenced multiple insiders stating that both parties were nearing an agreement. Such a purchase would mark Visa’s initial entry into the stablecoin sector through an acquisition, and stands as one of the largest deals in digital asset history, trailing Coinbase’s $2.9 billion purchase of Deribit in 2025 alongside Naver Financial’s ongoing $10.3 billion agreement for Upbit parent company Dunamu.
The stated valuation would have represented a massive discount compared to the $8 billion price tag Fireblocks achieved in January 2022, during which it secured $550 million through a Series E funding round at the peak of the venture capital boom. Established in 2018 by Michael Shaulov, Pavel Berengoltz, and Idan Ofrat—three veterans of the Israeli cybersecurity sector—the business provides the underlying architecture utilized by financial institutions, exchanges, and fintech companies to store and transfer digital assets.
Its clientele features organizations such as BNY Mellon, Worldpay, Revolut, and Galaxy, while reporting the secure processing of trillions of dollars in transactions spanning greater than 150 blockchains.
Fireblocks powers FIS’s institutional bitcoin trading, provides the foundation for BNP Paribas’s digital asset custody, and acts as a founding member of the Botanix federation, which is a bitcoin sidechain initiative.
The crypto land grab
Regardless of where discussions currently stand, the report emerged in a highly active market environment. Established payment giants spent 2026 purchasing or courting businesses managing stablecoin and cryptocurrency infrastructure rather than developing those systems independently.
Mastercard agreed in March to acquire BVNK for up to $1.8 billion following the breakdown of takeover discussions with Zerohash, successfully finalized that purchase in August, and subsequently acquired a New York BitLicense.
Meanwhile, Zerohash is actively pursuing a US national trust bank charter.
In August, Visa formed a partnership with Zerohash to integrate stablecoin funding and payouts into Visa Direct, and announced in September that its annualized run rate for stablecoin settlement transactions exceeded $20 billion, representing a figure greater than 15 times higher than the previous year.
Both payment networks joined a coalition comprising over 140 enterprises supporting Open USD, a dollar-pegged stablecoin created to distribute the economic advantages of a $300 billion market beyond Tether and Circle.
Fireblocks introduced its proprietary stablecoin payment network in September 2025 featuring more than 40 participants, including Circle, Bridge, Zerohash, and Yellow Card, and during the current year rolled out merchant acceptance solutions designed for neobanks alongside a settlement framework optimized for AI agents.
Originally published at https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/fireblocks-denies-report-of-visa-takeover.
