Wall Street payments giants don’t believe in the utility of cryptocurrencies in everyday transactions — at least not yet.
On earnings calls this week, executives from Visa and Mastercard offered cautious assessments of digital assets, particularly stablecoins, suggesting that consumer demand is not necessarily materializing in a meaningful way.
“As we’ve said before, if a consumer wants to pay for something using digital dollars in the U.S., there are now enough ways to do that,” Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said in a statement. “They can pay from their checking or savings account. It’s become very easy. So in a digitally developed market, we don’t see a lot of product markets that are compatible with stablecoin payments or consumer payments.”
Stablecoins aim to speed up payments by allowing money to move directly between parties on the blockchain, without going through banks or card networks. Unlike traditional payments, which can take days to settle, especially when crossing borders, stablecoin transactions can settle in seconds and operate 24 hours a day, including weekends and holidays.
In a September report, JPMorgan described stablecoins as a “digital, on-chain form of fiat currency” that is “easy to self-custody and transact” and “fast, especially in the context of cross-border funds transfers.” The bank said stablecoins could even be a “better form of fiat currency” in some cases, thanks to their low costs and 24-hour settlement.
However, the report also warned of risks, including the potential to destabilize stablecoin operations. “The collapse of TerraUSD in May 2022 highlights how quickly crashes can occur in an asset class that trades 24/7,” said analyst Joyce Ho.
Mastercard has been more open than Visa, with CEO Michael Mierbach saying the company is “leaning” into emerging technologies such as stablecoins and AI-powered agents, but even he said the company’s role is more about enabling infrastructure than leading change.
“For us, stablecoins are another currency that we can support within our network,” Miebach said. He pointed to collaborations with Metamask, Ripple, and Gemini, but stressed that the current mainstream use case is still trading, not payments.
“We have built good traction by enabling the purchase of these assets, facilitating transactions and supporting stablecoins for payments on our network,” he said.
Both companies are dabbling in blockchain infrastructure, with Mastercard piloting on-chain identity and payment tools and Visa experimenting with stablecoin payments using USDC. However, despite these efforts, neither treats cryptocurrencies as a short-term threat or opportunity to their core business.
That stance stands in contrast to the scale of on-chain activity. According to data from Glassnode, $25 trillion worth of transactions will be settled in Bitcoin alone by 2025, more than Visa ($17 trillion) and Mastercard ($11 trillion) combined. While Bitcoin volumes include high-frequency, large-scale institutional transfers, their size reflects the growing demand for blockchain across financial applications.
SoFi’s Cryptocurrency Push
Meanwhile, SoFi, a digital bank and fintech company, is leaning more aggressively into cryptocurrencies.
SoFi’s stock price rose briefly after the company’s fourth-quarter results beat Wall Street expectations, then fell, and is now down 5%.
More than 63,000 accounts were actively buying, selling, and holding digital assets in the fourth quarter of 2025, but this option only became fully available in late December. Nevertheless, the company said it views cryptocurrencies as part of a larger strategy.
CEO Anthony Noto told investors that SoFi is “working with urgency to lead the next phase of financial services by delivering cryptocurrency and blockchain innovation backed by bank-grade stability and security.”
