While the price of Bitcoin is still making headlines, countries issuing dollar-backed stablecoins, and payments use cases dominating the conversation, there are other important headlines that investors may have missed in this flurry of activity. Investors and advocates should be especially vigilant in analyzing developments in the system and what these developments mean for the broader market, especially as the end of 2025 approaches and the importance and focus of tax-related discussions increases.
Another reason why some investors and advocates may have missed the headlines below is that crypto hacks and breaches have brought renewed attention to weaknesses that still exist within the market. Whether it's the Bybit hack exposing the dangers of institutionally sponsored hacking operations, the debut of the film Code Is Law that examines elements of the cryptocurrency industry that believe regulatory protection is optional, or the billions of dollars lost in less flashy hacking attempts, the focus has understandably returned to cybersecurity, the risks surrounding customer data, and the lack of insurance solutions for crypto products.
In other words, the end of 2025 brought a wide range of headlines (both good and bad), policy updates, and developments that could obscure how widespread adoption was. Let's take a look at some of them and what the implications are for both investors and advocates.
Mastercard could spend billions to acquire cryptocurrencies
According to multiple sources, Mastercard is in late-stage negotiations to acquire stablecoin infrastructure platform Zerohash for approximately $2 billion, and while this specific acquisition has not been finalized as of this writing, it shows how the payment processing giant is prioritizing stablecoins and on-chain payments. Stablecoins have been in the spotlight recently, with a number of recent wins on the policy front and the deployment of stablecoin/stabletoken solutions by several major TradFi institutions.
The sheer size of the stablecoin payments space makes it attractive for the payment processing space, with an adjusted annual transaction value of approximately $9 trillion, accounting for bot-based trading and other potentially artificially inflated trading activity. While margins continue to face headwinds from a competitive and legal standpoint, stablecoins have the potential to open up almost entirely new markets for payment processors to expand into.
Combining the familiarity and security that customers expect from big names like Mastercard with the crypto-native improvements offered through stablecoins looks like the “killer app” crypto has been looking for.
Visa adopts stablecoin payments
Another payment processing giant, Visa, is also expanding its offering of products and services focused on the use of stablecoins and payments running on four proprietary blockchains. Visa CEO Ryan McInerney reiterated the company's commitment. As these new services come online, Visa will add support for four stablecoins running on four blockchains that can be converted into 25 fiat currencies. This announcement expands on the support Visa already provides for other stablecoins including USDC, Eurocoin (EURC), and PayPal USD (PYUSD) on multiple blockchains.
According to Visa, the company has facilitated $140 billion worth of stablecoin flows since 2020, further cementing the reality that stablecoins are 1) growing rapidly in terms of institutional usage, 2) playing a central role as an “everyday” cryptocurrency use case, and 3) delivering quantifiable benefits to the organizations involved in the transactions. This announcement is a foundational layer for other future initiatives that will enable more banks and TradFi institutions to offer stablecoin-related services, including the possibility that banks will eventually be able to mint and burn stablecoins natively on Visa's tokenized asset platform.
Visa continues its efforts to integrate TradFi banking products and services with the crypto-native space, and is another example of leading efforts to bring crypto into the mainstream through stablecoins.
Wall Street moves to RWA tokenization
Global asset management giant BlackRock is steadily increasing its presence in the cryptocurrency market, with its flagship Spot Bitcoin ETF amassing over $100 billion in assets. Additionally, in a recent announcement, Securitize (a Blackrock-backed tokenization company) plans to go public through a $1.25 billion cement-equivalent SPAC deal. The fact that Tether is merging with an affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald, a long-time service provider for USDT tokens, cements Wall Street's axis into the tokenized ecosystem.
The impact of the merger is significant because Securitize operates in the real-world asset tokenization space, which BlackRock CEO Larry Fink predicted could reach $10 trillion. Tokenization (RWA) is a pivotal part of the projected growth of DeFi systems, DAOs, and other blockchain-based applications built for enterprises. Given the scope and scale of support provided by both BlackRock and Cantor Fitzgerald, the impact of this list will certainly be felt across the sector.
