Visa Adds Monad to Stablecoin Settlement Before Privacy Launch

Visa has plugged Monad into its stablecoin settlement lineup. Participating card issuers and acquirers can now settle Visa obligations with supported stablecoins on the network, the Monad Foundation confirmed in a November 10 report by The Block. Nothing changes for shoppers paying with a card — the new option sits behind the scenes.

The addition runs alongside Visa's existing multichain settlement pilot, which lets institutions move funds on weekends and holidays, outside conventional banking settlement windows. Visa brought Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon and Tempo into the pilot in April. Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche and Stellar were already supported.

Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said on October 27 that the program was running at a $25 billion annualized settlement rate, ten times the level a year earlier. That figure covers Visa's stablecoin program overall, not transactions on Monad. The announcement carried no Monad-specific settlement total and named no bank using the option.

Monad's privacy ambitions are not there yet. Category Labs introduced a design for a Private Settlement system on October 6, according to the Monad Foundation. The proposal would let institutions spin up encrypted execution environments while keeping access to shared network liquidity, run their own validators, and decide which records auditors and regulators can inspect. The foundation describes it as a published design rather than a live product, leaving its rollout timetable and production performance unconfirmed.

That distinction carries weight, because institutional settlement can involve confidential balances, counterparties and treasury movements — Visa's network support does not establish that Monad's privacy system is operational. Visa's earlier privacy work includes a June proof of concept with Brale on the Canton Network, aimed at testing privacy controls for stablecoin settlement of institutional payment obligations, and a September seven-day live pilot with Lloyds Banking Group. Lloyds settled $750,000 in USDC and the funds reached Visa within an hour, weekends included, while the pilot also tested interoperability between private and public blockchains.

Separately, Reap said in October it plans to support Monad-based stablecoin card programs. That work covers card infrastructure and does not establish live Visa settlement volumes on Monad.