Key Highlights
- Mastercard is in late-stage negotiations to acquire the crypto infrastructure startup Zerohash for a reported $1.5 billion to $2 billion
- Zerohash provides critical behind-the-scenes technology that allows major banks and financial institutions to offer crypto services, including trading, stablecoin payments, and others
- This potential acquisition is a strategic move by Mastercard to directly accelerate its crypto capabilities
The global payments giant Mastercard is in the final stages of talks to purchase a cryptocurrency infrastructure company called Zerohash. According to a report from Fortune, the deal could be worth between $1.5 billion and $2 billion.
According to the sources related to the matter, this potential acquisition, which first became public on October 29, is one of the largest traditional finance moves into the digital asset space.
What is Zerohash?
The target of this huge deal, Zerohash, is a Chicago-based startup founded in 2017. The company has become a critical behind-the-scenes partner for major financial institutions looking to enter the cryptocurrency market.
Zerohash provides a complete technology package that allows banks, brokerage firms, and fintech companies to offer their own branded crypto services. Their tools enable everything from stablecoin payments and crypto trading to holding digital assets and creating tokenized versions of real-world items like bonds.
The company’s impressive growth caught the attention of major investors. Just a month before the acquisition talks, in September 2025, Zerohash raised $104 million from a group that included financial powerhouses like Interactive Brokers, Morgan Stanley, and Apollo Global.
This funding round valued the startup at $1 billion. Zerohash’s technology already supports well-known companies, including the payment processor Stripe and the tokenization platform Securitize, which works with asset managers like BlackRock.
Mastercard’s Blockbuster Deal
For Mastercard, this move is not a sudden or a new experiment but the culmination of a long-term strategy. The company began strengthening its crypto capabilities a year ago, starting with the 2021 acquisition of CipherTrace, a firm that specializes in tracking blockchain transactions for security.
More recently, in June 2025, Mastercard partnered with Zerohash and another blockchain company, Chainlink, on a project that allowed its billions of cardholders to purchase cryptocurrencies directly. In that partnership, Zerohash provided the essential technology to convert fiat currency into digital assets.
Mastercard has also been actively rolling out other crypto services, including ways for consumers to spend stablecoins, and joining industry groups with companies like Robinhood. Acquiring Zerohash outright would be the most game-changing step so far. It would allow Mastercard to bring all of these advanced crypto capabilities in-house. This will give it full control over the technology and accelerate its plans for a new generation of payments. This aggressive progress is also seen as a direct competitive response to similar efforts by its rival, Visa.
The Stablecoin Boom and Corporate Strategy
According to some experts, this development is linked to the current stablecoin boom. These are digital currencies whose value is pegged to stable assets like the USD. In 2024, the total transaction volume for stablecoins reached a staggering $27.6 trillion, overtaking Visa at $15.7 trillion and Mastercard at $9.8 trillion.
Their ability to settle payments almost instantly and for almost no cost is transforming international money transfers and corporate finance.
Zerohash is particularly valuable because it offers a full suite of services that support not just stablecoins, but also crypto trading and the tokenization of assets. It makes it a more comprehensive partner than many of its competitors.
At the time of writing, the cumulative market capitalization of stablecoins is around $316.42 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. This includes leading stablecoins like USDT, USDC, and USDe.
