Mastercard (MA) investors might be feeling a bit of FOMO right now. As the crypto market heats up again—still as volatile as ever—“stablecoins” have emerged as the most compelling corner of digital assets, overshadowing headline tokens like Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and Ethereum (ETH-USD). While crypto startups chase massive multiples (and equally massive risks), major institutions and banks have mostly avoided the speculation. That began to shift this year as regulators finally changed their tone.
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In fact, dollar-pegged tokens have quietly grown into a roughly $300 billion asset class and a core piece of global crypto liquidity. At the same time, U.S. regulators are finally drawing clearer lines around who can issue new cryptos (and how) and how the entire venture should be regulated long-term.
That combination of scale and clarity is precisely the sort of moment when companies like Mastercard tend to show up – and the good news for growth-hungry investors is that it has. Let’s take a look at how stablecoins might benefit the payments network giant, and why I remain bullish on the stock.
Stablecoins Finally Go Mainstream
In 2020, the stablecoin market was worth less than $30 billion. This year, outstanding supply has grown 10x to $300 billion, with Tether and Circle (CRCL) controlling most of it. Notably, one estimate shows that stablecoins have settled roughly $46 trillion of on-chain value over the past year, a rather mind-bending sum that already puts them in the same league as the big card networks in terms of payment volume.
Moreover, the entire space is no longer a regulatory grey zone. When I look at what’s happening in Washington with the new GENIUS Act and the related rules, you would be forgiven for thinking that the U.S. government is putting a genuine federal wrapper around dollar stablecoins. The promise is more transparency, stronger reserves, and also a clear signal that these are now part of the mainstream dollar system. For a highly regulated network operator such as Mastercard, that is the difference between an interesting experiment and a potential business venture that’s worth pouring billions into.
Before readers become too giddy, it’s almost impossible for Mastercard to launch its own coin. However, the firm intends to be the rails and the rulebook for others — a bit like a company selling shovels in a gold rush. Through its Multi-Token Network and the Mastercard Move platform, the credit card specialist is enabling its partners to use regulated stablecoins for real-time cross-border settlement, B2B flows, and remittances. Merchants and consumers still see a familiar card or account interface, but the operations behind the scenes are utilizing crypto tech.
An expanded partnership with Circle extends USDC and EURC settlement to acquirers across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, thereby providing a clear distribution channel for stablecoin-based settlement into mainstream acquiring.
Economically, nothing really changes. When a consumer buys stablecoins with a Mastercard-branded card, or a fintech startup uses Move to send funds that happen to utilize stablecoins, it is still network volume that MA can record and report to the market. The token is new, but the tollbooth that collects fees along the way isn’t, so the company is already reaping the benefits of stablecoins’ better characteristics, while collecting much heftier fees on retail crypto transactions.
The Core Business is Accelerating
All of this would be a sideshow if the core network business were faltering, but this isn’t the case. In fact, the core business is picking up. In Q3, Mastercard grew revenue 17% YoY to about $8.6 billion, marking an acceleration from 13% last year and 14% in the same quarter two years ago. Impressively, cross-border volumes climbed roughly 15%, and value-added services grew faster still, now contributing more than a third of total revenue. The number of active cards also continued to grow like clockwork, reaching 3.32 billion.
On the earnings call, CEO Michael Miebach connected that strength directly to the stablecoin strategy. He told investors that Mastercard has embedded stablecoins into Mastercard Move to support remittances, disbursements, and B2B payments (including prefunding with stablecoins and paying out in either local fiat or supported tokens), and highlighted that Move’s transaction volumes are growing quickly.
To get a sense of the scale, new partnerships with players like Thunes mean banks and payment providers plugged into Move can now push funds straight to supported stablecoin wallets alongside cards, bank accounts, and cash in more than 200 markets. This sits atop a broader push into digital assets. Earlier in the year, Mastercard said it was working with exchanges such as Kraken and OKX so that customers can spend cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins, at more than 150 million Mastercard acceptance locations worldwide.
A Wide-Moat Franchise at a Softer Multiple
Given that stablecoins could prove a long-term tailwind for Mastercard’s capabilities, it’s bizarre that its share price has been subdued. Year to date, the stock is up just over 5%, compared with a mid-teens gain for the S&P 500 (SPX), a rather strange underperformance for a business whose revenues have accelerated lately.
On consensus numbers, Mastercard now trades at just under 30x forward earnings, with analysts expecting earnings per share to grow around 12% in 2025 and in the mid-teens in 2026. That multiple is hardly bargain-basement, but it is lower than the 30+ forward P/Es investors routinely paid for this name in recent years (and the 40-50+ P/Es paid around 2020-2021), even though, as I just mentioned, revenue growth has not only not decelerated but has in fact accelerated.
The key question is whether the moat is growing or shrinking. Analysts concur that evidence points in favor of Mastercard because regulators are clearly pushing for stablecoins to be issued by well-capitalized, licensed players that are more open to working with global networks, rather than trying to replace them.
Merchants and banks still want interoperability, fraud controls, and dispute resolution baked in as well. And for all the talk of disruption, stablecoins have primarily created more digital money that needs to be moved safely, which I view as a problem tailor-made for a multi-rail, value-added network operator like Mastercard.
Is Mastercard a Good Stock to Buy Now?
MA currently has a Strong Buy consensus on Wall Street, based on the view of 20 analysts. Specifically, MA stock now carries 17 Buy and three Hold ratings. No analyst rates the stock a Sell. At $690.04, the average MA stock price forecast implies more than 26% upside potential over the next 12 months.
Mastercard’s Quiet Advantage in the Stablecoin Era
Mastercard isn’t a pure-play stablecoin bet—and that’s precisely its strength. Rather than relying on a single emerging technology, it can leverage its vast global network and regulatory credibility to integrate the most useful aspects of stablecoins, thereby amplifying its existing dominance.
Meanwhile, the stock trades at a relatively undemanding multiple, offering an attractive entry point into a company that continues to post double-digit growth, produce strong free cash flow, and quietly weave the most promising corner of the crypto ecosystem into one of the world’s most durable competitive moats.