Rain, a $1.95B-valued stablecoin infrastructure firm, is adding Mastercard support to extend its Visa-based model and plug on-chain settlement into legacy payment systems.
Stablecoin payments startup Rain, fresh off a $250 million Series C at a $1.95 billion valuation, has announced a new partnership with Mastercard to issue both credit and prepaid cards and to “explore pathways for using stablecoins for payment settlements” across the card giant’s network.
Mastercard deal pushes Rain into dual-network phase
Rain previously built its business primarily around Visa, with its infrastructure allowing enterprises to “launch compliant payment programmes through a single provider” and issue cards that let users spend stablecoins anywhere Visa is accepted, while settlements to Visa itself occur in stablecoins on-chain.
The Mastercard collaboration moves the company into what it describes as a “dual card network” phase, broadening its reach into institutions that are deeply tied to Mastercard’s rails and may have limited flexibility to switch providers.
Rain said the focus of the new arrangement is large institutional clients that are “deeply tied to a single payment network,” enabling them to bolt on stablecoin settlement capabilities “without changing their existing payment systems” by letting Rain handle on-chain treasury, conversion, and settlement in the background.
Stablecoins shift from trading tool to settlement plumbing
The partnership fits into Mastercard’s broader stablecoin push, which already includes acquisition of infrastructure firms like BVNK and pilots with issuers such as Circle and Paxos to use stablecoins as wholesale settlement assets inside its Multi-Token Network.
Industry observers note that Rain’s model — where “all customer settlements happen in stablecoins, and all payments to Visa settle in stablecoins on-chain” — is now being extended to Mastercard, turning card networks themselves into interfaces for blockchain-based settlement rails.
At the same time, mainstream firms such as Stripe and Coinbase are weaving stablecoins into their own systems: Stripe recently rolled out “full-stack stablecoin solutions” that let merchants accept stablecoins and settle in fiat balances, while Coinbase has pushed USDC into commerce, remittances, and on-chain corporate payouts.
A recent crypto.news briefing described Rain as trying to build the “global backbone for stablecoin payments,” citing 38x volume growth and its role in making stablecoin spending feel indistinguishable from traditional card transactions.
Another crypto.news overview highlighted how the firm’s platform lets businesses issue wallets, convert fiat to stablecoins, and make cross-border payouts with the same ease as domestic transfers.
A separate crypto.news analysis argued that as regulatory clarity improves, stablecoins are “rapidly shifting from trading chips on exchanges to the settlement medium for enterprise payments and cross-border commerce,” a thesis Rain and Mastercard now appear intent on testing at scale.