Stripe has some cool new crypto tricks up its sleeve! They are buying Privy, a New York-based startup that focuses on embedding Bitcoin and crypto wallets into apps and websites. The acquisition, announced on June 11, 2025, will integrate Privy’s technology into Stripe’s platform, supporting over 75 million accounts and more than 1,000 developer teams. Privy’s infrastructure powers billions in transaction volume.

Privy, founded in 2021 by Henri Stern and Asta Li, has quickly become a key player in simplifying crypto integration for developers. Asta Li was a founding engineer at Aurora. For Henri Stern, that web3 fascination eventually led him to work as a research scientist at the decentralized tech firm Protocol Labs. The company’s stated mission is “to create basic, useful infrastructure that makes crypto easier for developers and consumers to use.”

"When we started, wallets were powerful but inaccessible for all but the most technical," - Henri Stern

"Developers had to send users off-platform to get started, breaking flows and killing user conversion. That friction fundamentally constrained what could be built in crypto." - Henri Stern

Privy’s technology solves these problems by allowing companies to easily add crypto functionality to their current platforms. Clients such as Hyperliquid, Blackbird, Toku and Farcaster trust Privy’s infrastructure. From firm to firm, across the world, most of the innovation is occurring in real-world products in trading, payments, payroll and social applications. Such integrations make it possible for crypto features to feel like a natural extension of the user experience.

"Whether crypto is core to your app or simply a new layer of functionality, a good crypto product should just feel like a good product, period. By making crypto usable, we help make it useful for everyone.” - Privy

Beyond just e-commerce, Stripe’s acquisition of Privy is part of a larger strategy to increase its foothold in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Privy is working to plug its wallet technology into Stripe’s payment and infrastructure back-end solutions. Their aim is to build the world’s best, open, and collaborative platform for Internet-native financial services.

"With a unified platform, connecting Privy’s wallets to the money movement capabilities in Stripe and Bridge, we’re enormously excited to enable a new generation of global, Internet-native financial services,” - Patrick Collison

Before the acquisition, Privy had raised a bit over $40 million from investors like Ribbit Capital, Definition and Coinbase Ventures. The company was last valued at $230 million in March, reflecting its rapid growth and strategic importance in the crypto infrastructure landscape.