Visa reportedly in talks to acquire crypto custody firm Fireblocks for about $2.5 billion

Fireblocks built its business since 2018 as back-end custody and wallet infrastructure for banks and exchanges, raising $550 million at an $8 billion valuation in 2022 at the height of crypto fundraising. Visa has spent the past two years piloting stablecoin settlement with banks and fintechs rather than owning custody outright. Mastercard moved first, completing its purchase of stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK for up to $1.8 billion, setting a template card networks are now racing to match.

A completed deal would hand Visa custody, wallet and stablecoin rails already wired into thousands of institutional clients, sparing it years of building that stack internally. Banks and exchanges using Fireblocks could find their infrastructure provider suddenly owned by a card network with its own settlement interests. Fireblocks' 2022 investors, who backed the $8 billion round, would be looking at a price near $2.5 billion, a marker of how far private crypto infrastructure valuations have fallen since that peak.

The reported $2.5 billion figure sits roughly 69% below the 2022 valuation, and that gap says more about reset expectations for crypto infrastructure than about Fireblocks' business itself. Fireblocks' denial was carefully worded as 'not true at present time' rather than a flat no, the kind of phrasing that keeps a deal alive without confirming one. It is a reminder that payment incumbents are quietly assembling stablecoin rails well ahead of any clear regulatory settlement on how those rails should be supervised.

Axios Pro's October 22 report, built on unnamed sources, remains unconfirmed by either side: Fireblocks has repeated its denial across outlets while Visa has declined every request for comment. The next marker will be whether Visa addresses the talks on an earnings call or files anything with regulators, or whether Fireblocks issues a firmer statement than 'not true at present time.' Silence from both sides so far leaves the acquisition exactly where it started: reported, not denied outright, not confirmed.

The move was larger before the first headline than after. That is an observation, not an explanation: the market also moves on things nobody publishes.