Mastercard to Expand Stablecoin Settlement to Eight Blockchains, Including XRP Ledger

Mastercard said Wednesday it will open its global card-settlement network to regulated stablecoins, enabling card issuers and acquirers to clear transactions directly on-chain. The service is set to run across eight blockchains, which the company framed as expanding the "real-world utility" of digital assets. Mastercard also plans to add intraday, weekend and holiday settlement cycles. In its announcement, Mastercard said Circle's USDC is part of the stablecoin set and is already supporting early on-chain settlement in select markets. The company also named Paxos-issued stablecoins, including PYUSD, USDG and USDP, as well as Ripple's RLUSD and SoFi's SoFiUSD. Mastercard said the stablecoins will be available across Arbitrum (ARB), Base, Canton, Ethereum (ETH), Polygon (POL), Solana (SOL), Tempo and the XRP Ledger (XRPL). It did not detail changes to the partner types eligible to use the network, but said customers will be able to access both traditional settlement and digital-asset-based settlement through the same infrastructure they use today. Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president of Blockchain & Digital Assets at Mastercard, said the next phase of stablecoin adoption will hinge on practical use cases where timing and liquidity are critical, pointing to settlement as a key lever. He said intraday and weekend settlement options are designed to help partners manage liquidity in an always-on digital economy. Mastercard said the rollout will be global "subject to regulation," with the initial deployment limited to parts of the United States and Latin America. The company added that additional regions, partners and regulated stablecoins are planned through 2026 as the offering expands beyond the initial markets. Featured image created with OpenArt; chart from TradingView.com