The concept is simpler than it sounds. When you tap a Visa card, money eventually has to move between the bank that issued your card and the bank serving the merchant. That behind-the-scenes cleanup is called settlement.
Traditionally, it runs over legacy banking rails. Visa’s program gives issuers and acquirers another option: settle in stablecoins over a public or institutional blockchain instead.
The numbers behind the expansion
The program has grown quickly. When Visa announced the April batch of chains, its annualized run rate for stablecoin settlement hit $7 billion, up 50% quarter over quarter.
By October 2026, that figure had climbed to a $25 billion annualized run rate. Visa described that as a tenfold jump year over year.
The program was then running across 10 blockchains in all five of Visa’s geographic regions. It supports five stablecoins.
More than 225 stablecoin-linked card programs are active in over 50 countries, and transaction volumes on those programs are growing at more than 150% year over year.
Monad was already on Visa’s radar before the formal addition. The chain appeared in Visa’s on-chain analytics with nearly 1 million stablecoin transactions in August 2026.
Why Visa keeps saying yes to new chains
Visa has positioned itself as both “stablecoin agnostic” and “blockchain agnostic.” The company is not trying to crown a winning chain or a winning dollar token.
That strategy goes a step further on some networks. Visa acts as a validator on certain chains, including Tempo and Canton, meaning it helps run the infrastructure rather than just using it.
What this means for Monad and the stablecoin market
For Monad, inclusion is a credibility marker. Being named alongside Ethereum, Solana and Avalanche in a Visa settlement program signals that a major payments incumbent views the chain as usable for real money movement.
For the broader market, the trend line is the bigger story. Visa’s run rate grew from $7 billion to $25 billion within a single year, and the number of supported chains keeps rising.
Settlement volumes are still small relative to Visa’s fiat operations, and expanding across many chains adds operational complexity. Stablecoin regulation and network reliability also remain open questions.