Stripe is preparing to test a new stablecoin payments product aimed at companies based outside the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union.

The company’s CEO, Patrick Collison, confirmed on social media that Stripe had been planning this offering for nearly a decade and is now opening it up to pilot users.

Stripe is rolling out a new stablecoin payments product to companies operating outside the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union.

The company’s CEO, Patrick Collison, confirmed on social media that Stripe had been planning this offering for nearly a decade and is now opening it up to pilot users.

"We've been thinking about launching Stripe stablecoin payments for a long time (perhaps surprisingly, nearly 10 years!). Finally testing this out broadly (to companies operating in any country other than the U.S., the U.K., or the E.U.)."

This announcement follows Stripe's recent move to acquire Bridge, a payments platform founded by former Coinbase executives Zach Abrams and Sean Yu. Bridge's technology provides an alternative to traditional systems like SWIFT for facilitating cross-border transactions.

"We're also rolling out Bridge—a new way to move money between bank accounts anywhere in the world. It's faster and cheaper than SWIFT, and we think it'll be particularly interesting for companies making high-volume cross-border payments," the company said in a statement.

The pilot launch of Stripe's stablecoin offering comes at a time when companies ranging from crypto firms to TradFi banks are flocking into the industry, aiming to claim a piece of the burgeoning sector.

In fact, Citi believes that stablecoins could be a "ChatGPT" moment for blockchain adoption, and the market, primarily tied to the U.S. dollar, could swell to a staggering $3.7 trillion by 2030 with regulatory cooperation.

Stripe has a deep history with crypto. It was among the first major payment processors to introduce support for bitcoin payments in 2014, although it later discontinued the feature due to BTC's slow transaction speeds and high fees at the time.