October's stablecoin push: Mastercard puts BVNK to work as Ramp hits a $60bn valuation

A week where stablecoins stopped being a side project. Three of the four items below are about moving them in and out of the regular banking system.

• Ramp raises at $60bn: $1.85bn led by Dragoneer, with annualised revenue past $2bn and more than 85,000 business customers. The valuation was $44bn in June. A company that keeps growing faster as it gets bigger is rare, and investors are paying for it (Fintech Brainfood).
• Mastercard puts BVNK to work: two months after closing the acquisition, the two launched Global Money Platform. It offers fiat and stablecoin accounts, conversion, stablecoin-linked cards and local payouts behind one API, with Nuvei and Marqeta among the first to integrate. For BVNK, that means Mastercard's distribution. For everyone else, that means a big new competitor in stablecoin payouts (Fintech Brainfood).
• Visa's USDC prefunding goes live: Inyo Global is the first to use it commercially. Payout firms can top up cross-border accounts in USDC around the clock instead of guessing on Friday what they'll need over the weekend. That's a small change with a real working-capital effect (Fintech Brainfood).
• Coinbase goes after banks from both ends: Moov offers a route to more than 1,000 community banks and credit unions, and a wider tie-up with Citi plugs into its acquiring and institutional banking platforms. Not every Moov bank will switch it on, and there's no timeline yet (Tearsheet).

Sources: Fintech Brainfood · Tearsheet