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Visa has partnered with WeFi, an on-chain banking company founded by former Tether CEO Reeve Collins, aiming to enable digital asset payments through WeFi's on-chain banking infrastructure. WeFi allows users to hold assets in self-custodial wallets and retain control of their private keys, while ensuring they can spend at any merchant that accepts Visa payments.The project will initially launch in select markets in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, with plans to expand to other regions pending regulatory approvals. WeFi CEO Maksym Sakharov stated that stablecoins will be directly embedded into the underlying infrastructure, with settlement processes handled in the background, eliminating the need for users to manually perform conversions.
According to The Block, Visa has partnered with WeFi—a “blockchain-based bank” founded by Reeve Collins, former CEO of Tether—to enable users to hold digital assets in self-custodial wallets and spend them directly across the global Visa acceptance network, without depositing assets into centralized exchanges. Maksym Sakharov, Co-Founder and CEO of WeFi, stated that stablecoins are natively embedded into the underlying infrastructure, with settlements processed automatically in the background, delivering a user experience indistinguishable from conventional payments. This partnership will initially launch in select markets across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, with further expansion contingent upon regulatory approvals.
The Kansas City Federal Reserve’s latest analysis indicates that stablecoins currently serve primarily as tools for cryptocurrency trading and liquidity provision within the financial ecosystem, rather than as mainstream payment instruments. According to the report, approximately 49% of stablecoin supply supports trading liquidity on centralized exchanges, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, and broader crypto infrastructure; 29% is used for wallet-to-wallet transfers or internal fund operations; and 21% remains idle—with less than 1% actually deployed for real-world payments. The report notes that, as natively crypto-designed instruments, stablecoins face constraints in cross-chain interoperability and integration with traditional financial systems, hindering their large-scale adoption for payments. Although payment processors such as Mastercard and Visa announced support for related technologies in 2026, stablecoin-based payment use cases remain in their infancy. Future development hinges on resolving critical challenges including interoperability, regulatory compliance, and identity verification.