Visa and Brale have initiated a proof-of-concept to evaluate stablecoin-based settlement using SBC, a U.S. dollar-backed token issued by Brale, on the Canton Network.
The program is designed to test how privacy-enabled blockchain infrastructure can support institutional payment flows, including faster and programmable settlement, while allowing financial institutions and payment firms to maintain control over the visibility of sensitive transaction data, the companies said in a statement on Thursday.
Visa plans to evaluate SBC as an additional stablecoin option for institutional settlement use cases, with native support on the Canton Network enabling testing across real-world payment flows.
"Through our work with Brale, we’re exploring how SBC on the Canton Network can support institutional settlement use cases that require both programmability and privacy controls," Cuy Sheffield, Visa's Head of Crypto, said in the release. "This collaboration helps us evaluate what it takes to bring these capabilities into production environments."
Visa said it believes stablecoins represent a scalable, next-generation settlement layer for global payments.
The company first enabled stablecoin settlement in 2021. Visa's stablecoin settlement pilot reached a $7 billion annualized run rate as of April, a 50% increase from the prior quarter. The pilot now spans nine blockchains, including Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon, Tempo, Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana, and Stellar.
Meanwhile, the total supply of dollar-pegged tokens is approaching $300 billion, according to The Block's data dashboard. Tether's USDT accounts for roughly $188 billion of that total, while Circle's USDC ranks second at approximately $76 billion.
Expand Chart