Stripe has put Henri Stern, co-founder and CEO of wallet platform Privy, in charge of its crypto and stablecoin strategy, while he keeps running Privy. The move comes as Stripe pushes to scale its stablecoin-linked card program from 18 countries to more than 100 by the end of 2026.
Stripe has handed its crypto and stablecoin strategy to Henri Stern, the co-founder and CEO of Privy, who takes the role around October 5, 2026 and keeps running Privy, the wallet platform Stripe acquired in 2025. Stern's new remit spans Stripe's stablecoin card programs and its developer-facing stablecoin tools.
Building a stablecoin stack
Privy builds embedded wallets that give apps a way to issue users a crypto wallet without a separate install or a seed phrase to memorize. The platform supports over 160 million accounts and processes billions in monthly volume for more than 2,000 developers and businesses, which is why Stripe wanted it.
Stripe bought Bridge, a stablecoin orchestration platform, for $1.1 billion in 2024, then added Privy in 2025. Together, Bridge handles the plumbing that moves stablecoins between crypto and regular money, while Privy covers the wallet layer — stacking into a stablecoin developer infrastructure that spans wallets, orchestration and card issuing.
A sprint to over 100 countries
Stripe aims to expand its stablecoin-linked card program to more than 100 countries by the end of 2026. That is up sharply from the 18 countries, mostly in Latin America, where the Visa partnership first launched in March 2026. Monthly spending on the cards hit about $1.2 billion in September 2026, roughly three times what the sector did a year earlier.
Cardholders can spend across Visa's merchant network, which covers more than 175 million locations. Stripe has separately processed more than 400 million cards since 2018. Current users of the stablecoin cards include Kraken, Ramp and Morse, all plugged into Bridge for the orchestration piece.
An open stack, with execution risk
Stern has emphasized what he calls an "open stack" approach, the idea that developers should not get trapped inside Stripe's ecosystem just because they use one of its products. Keeping him as Privy's CEO while expanding his scope suggests Stripe wants continuity at the wallet layer rather than the usual post-deal drift.
Expanding from 18 to over 100 countries, however, means navigating a patchwork of local rules on payments and digital assets. The year-end target remains a plan, not a finished rollout.
Sources: Crypto Briefing, Crypto Briefing
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