Stablecoin payments arriving as card payments
Rain's chief executive says more than 100,000 merchants take them already, settling through Visa in about three days without knowing the origin.
2 minFinTech Payment Rails
Speaking at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, Rain chief executive Farooq Malik said stablecoin payments routed by the company already reach more than 100,000 merchants without those merchants knowing it. The transactions arrive through Visa and settle in roughly three days, exactly as any card payment does.
Rain builds stablecoin card programmes and wallets for more than 200 partners, has processed over $3 billion annualised, and became a Mastercard principal member in May 2026, which opens operations in more than 210 countries. It raised $250 million in January at a $1.95 billion valuation, $338 million in total.
Why the invisibility is the story
The usual framing has stablecoins competing with card rails. Here they sit behind them: the settlement asset changes while the acceptance surface, the merchant contract and the three-day timing all stay as they were. Malik notes merchants could opt into same-day settlement in stablecoins instead — an option, not the default.
That means the adoption number and the disruption narrative measure different things. A merchant who does not know is not choosing, and nothing about their treasury or reconciliation has changed.
For scale, total stablecoin supply now stands at $290 billion, with USDT at $183 billion and USDC at $72 billion. Rain's stated next move is scoped cards for AI agent payments — preset limits and balances on an authority granted to software.
Retold from The Block. This is a summary in our own words; follow the link for the original reporting.