Stablecoin Visa card platform Rain has partnered with Plasma, integrating its card infrastructure to enable Plasma USD₮ spending at over 150 million merchants worldwide, signaling increased stablecoin utility.

Executive Summary

Stablecoin Visa card platform Rain has partnered with Plasma, integrating its card infrastructure to enable Plasma USD₮ spending at over 150 million merchants worldwide, signaling increased stablecoin utility.

The Event in Detail

Rain, a stablecoin Visa card platform, has announced a partnership with Plasma, a cryptocurrency startup focused on stablecoin transactions. This collaboration integrates Rain's existing card infrastructure with Plasma's network, allowing users to spend their Plasma USD₮ at an estimated 150 million merchant locations globally. The move is designed to enhance the real-world utility and adoption of stablecoins within traditional payment ecosystems.

Financial Mechanics and Strategic Alignment

The partnership leverages Rain's infrastructure, which expanded following a $58 million funding round in 2025 aimed at developing stablecoin-backed Visa cards. Mastercard also supports stablecoin payments at over 150 million locations, underscoring a growing trend in traditional payment networks embracing digital assets.

Plasma's core offering includes zero-fee USD₮ transfers, a feature enabled by a system-level paymaster that covers transaction gas costs. This mechanism, comparable to Chrome's disruption of browsers through free access, aims to accelerate stablecoin adoption by removing transaction fees for official USD₮ token transfers, subject to basic identity checks and transfer limits. Plasma's blockchain is a sidechain to Bitcoin, designed for efficient USD₮ transfer while maintaining compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), supporting Ethereum-based smart contracts and decentralized applications. In March 2025, Plasma introduced its HotStuff-inspired consensus mechanism, PlasmaBFT, which facilitates transaction finality within a second, ensuring low latency for high-frequency, cross-border stablecoin transfers. The project secured $24 million in funding in February 2025 to develop its infrastructure and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

Broader Market Implications

This integration signifies a continued blurring of lines between traditional finance and the crypto ecosystem, potentially accelerating the mainstream adoption of stablecoins as a payment method. Stablecoins offer reduced foreign exchange and conversion costs, and corporate treasuries increasingly utilize them for liquidity management. The market has seen substantial growth, with stablecoins processing over $8.9 trillion in on-chain volume in the first half of 2025 and the total market capitalization reaching between $250 billion and $300 billion by mid-2025.

The utility beyond trading and DeFi is also expanding, with 5-8% of stablecoin transaction value now unrelated to these sectors. Regulatory clarity has significantly improved, with uncertainty falling from 85% in 2023 to 25% in 2025, suggesting a more streamlined environment for stablecoin payments. Active stablecoin wallets increased by over 53% year-on-year, and adjusted monthly transaction volume rose approximately 49% from $472 billion in 2024 to $702 billion in 2025. These trends, coupled with 81% of corporations planning ROI analyses for stablecoin adoption, suggest a strong trajectory for stablecoins becoming viable rails for global financial transactions.