Fireblocks Denies Report of $2.5 Billion Visa Takeover Talks

The denial came hours after Axios reported, citing multiple sources, that the two sides were close to a deal. It would have been Visa's first acquisition in the stablecoin sector and one of the largest in crypto's history, behind Coinbase's $2.9 billion purchase of Deribit in 2025 and Naver Financial's pending $10.3 billion deal for Upbit parent Dunamu.

Valuation markdown

The reported price would have been a steep markdown from the $8 billion valuation Fireblocks commanded in January 2022, when it raised $550 million in a Series E round at the peak of the venture cycle. Founded in 2018 by three Israeli cybersecurity veterans, the company provides infrastructure for banks, exchanges and fintechs to hold and move digital assets.

Its customers include major financial institutions like BNY Mellon, Worldpay, Revolut and Galaxy. The company says it has secured trillions of dollars in transfers across more than 150 blockchains and powers FIS's institutional bitcoin trading, underpins BNP Paribas's digital asset custody, and sits among the founding members of the Botanix federation, a bitcoin sidechain project.

Crypto land grab

Whatever the status of the talks, the report landed on fertile ground. Payment incumbents spent 2026 buying or courting companies that handle stablecoin and crypto rails rather than building them from scratch. Mastercard agreed in March to buy BVNK for up to $1.8 billion after takeover talks with Zerohash fell through, closed that deal in August and secured a New York BitLicense along the way.

Zerohash, for its part, is seeking a US national trust bank charter. Visa partnered with Zerohash in August to add stablecoin funding and payouts to Visa Direct, and in September said its stablecoin settlement volume had passed a $20 billion annualized run rate, more than 15 times the prior year's level.

We are aware of the rumors about a possible acquisition of Fireblocks by Visa. This is news to us, and not true at present time