Mastercard said Tuesday it will integrate Fiserv’s dollar-pegged FIUSD stablecoin across its payments network, allowing settlement in the token for more than 150 million merchants worldwide. The two companies will also pilot “stablecoin-powered” cards and evaluate FIUSD as a global settlement asset on Mastercard’s blockchain-based Multi-Token Network, aiming to smooth the transition between fiat and on-chain payments. The tie-up is one of the strongest endorsements yet of stablecoins by a major card issuer and comes a day after Fiserv launched FIUSD with PayPal. It also lands as the U.S. Senate advances the GENIUS Act, which would impose full-reserve requirements on issuers, and less than three weeks after Circle’s blockbuster initial public offering, whose shares have risen roughly 700 percent since listing at US$31. Regulatory clarity and heightened investor interest are fuelling broader activity in the sector. Stablecoin and payments start-ups logged 43 and 42 venture deals in the final two quarters of 2024, eclipsing their 2021 record, according to The Block. Separately, Redstone estimates tokenized real-world assets—largely powered by private credit—have reached US$24 billion this year, trailing only stablecoins as the largest blockchain-based asset class.