Mastercard is reportedly in late-stage talks to acquire Zerohash for between $1.5B and $2B, a company that raised $104M from Interactive Brokers, Morgan Stanley, and Apollo at a $1B in September and just became one of the first firms authorised under Europe’s new MiCAR framework. [NEWS]
The seven-year-old startup not only powers 5M+ users across 190 countries but also serves blue-chip clients like Stripe, Franklin Templeton, Morgan Stanley’s E-Trade and BlackRock’s BUIDL fund. Let’s unpack.
Mastercard is making its biggest move in crypto by acquiring Zerohash, a turnkey, regulated infrastructure stack that lets banks, brokers, and fintechs plug into digital assets without touching the backend.
Zooming in: Mastercard has long talked about “crypto-ready” payments, but most of its progress has been through partnerships and pilots. Owning infrastructure like Zerohash would give Mastercard direct control over the APIs that convert dollars into stablecoins, settle transactions on-chain, and manage custody. Zerohash key technological services include: custody and settlement, on/off ramps, tokenisation APIs, and compliance layer.
Zerohash isn’t a “payments” company. It’s basically a crypto’s back office. They enable
This means: Mastercard is not bidding for its revenue, but for a plug-and-play infrastructure that buys time and regulatory access. It will an add-on to Mastercard’s existing Multi-Token Network (MTN)™.
