Visa added five blockchains to its global stablecoin settlement pilot on April 29, 2026, expanding the network to nine supported chains and pushing its annualized settlement run rate to $7 billion.
The payment giant said the newly supported blockchains are Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon, and Tempo. They join the four chains already in the pilot: Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana, and Stellar.
The expansion doubles the network’s blockchain footprint from the four-chain setup Visa announced in July 2025, when it added support for USDG, PYUSD, and EURC alongside the Stellar and Avalanche blockchains.
Settlement volume doubled in five months
Visa said the pilot reached a $7 billion annualized stablecoin settlement run rate, representing 50% growth quarter over quarter.
That trajectory accelerated sharply from the more than $3.5 billion annualized volume Visa reported as of November 30, 2025, when it launched USDC settlement for U.S. institutions in December of that year.
The progression from four stablecoins on four blockchains in mid-2025 to nine chains and $7 billion in early 2026 suggests that acquirer and issuer demand is pulling Visa toward broader blockchain coverage, not the other way around.
Why multi-chain settlement matters for payments
Rubail Birwadker of Visa framed the expansion in practical terms, stating that partners “are building in a multi-chain world, and they expect their options to reflect that reality.”
“Our partners are building in a multi-chain world, and they expect their options to reflect that reality.”
— Rubail Birwadker, Visa
This is a settlement infrastructure story, not a retail crypto story. Visa’s pilot lets issuers and acquirers move stablecoins like USDC between counterparties as a final settlement layer, replacing slower correspondent banking rails for cross-border payouts.
Adding chains like Base and Polygon gives payment partners lower-cost settlement options. Canton, an enterprise-focused network, signals that Visa sees institutional and permissioned chains as part of the same multi-chain settlement fabric. The mix of public and enterprise chains in the expanded pilot is notable.
The stablecoin sector overall carries a market cap near $292 billion, and USDC alone accounts for roughly $77 billion of that. For context on how major crypto infrastructure developments are unfolding alongside shifting policy signals from the White House, this expansion lands during a period of improving U.S. stablecoin regulatory clarity shaped by the passage of the GENIUS Act.
What Visa’s blockchain push signals next
Visa’s four-to-nine chain expansion over roughly nine months, paired with a run rate that doubled from $3.5 billion to $7 billion, points to continued infrastructure build-out rather than a one-off pilot.
The December 2025 U.S. launch brought USDC settlement to domestic institutions for the first time. The April 2026 expansion pushed the network international and multi-chain. The pattern suggests Visa is layering geographic reach on top of chain diversity.
For the broader crypto ecosystem, where security incidents like the recent $292 million DeFi hack have highlighted infrastructure vulnerabilities, having a payments incumbent like Visa build settlement rails across nine blockchains adds a layer of institutional validation. Meanwhile, the Ethereum Foundation’s recent OTC activity shows that major ecosystem players continue to manage treasury operations on chains now included in Visa’s settlement network.
The concrete next marker to watch is whether Visa converts the pilot into a generally available product and whether quarter-over-quarter settlement growth holds at or above the 50% pace into the second half of 2026.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency and digital asset markets carry significant risk. Always do your own research before making decisions.
