Fireblocks has denied a report that Visa is in late-stage talks to buy the institutional crypto custody and stablecoin infrastructure firm for around $2.5 billion.

“We are aware of the rumors about a possible acquisition of Fireblocks by Visa. This is news to us, and not true at present time,” the company told The Block on Thursday. 

The denial came hours after Axios reported, citing multiple sources, that the two sides were close to a deal. It would have been Visa’s first acquisition in the stablecoin sector and one of the largest in crypto’s history, behind Coinbase’s $2.9 billion purchase of Deribit in 2025 and Naver Financial’s pending $10.3 billion deal for Upbit parent Dunamu.

The reported price would have been a steep markdown from the $8 billion valuation Fireblocks commanded in January 2022, when it raised $550 million in a Series E round at the peak of the venture cycle. Founded in 2018 by Michael Shaulov, Pavel Berengoltz and Idan Ofrat, three veterans of the Israeli cybersecurity scene, the company sells the plumbing that banks, exchanges and fintechs use to hold and move digital assets. 

Its customers include BNY Mellon, Worldpay, Revolut and Galaxy, and it says it has secured trillions of dollars in transfers across more than 150 blockchains.

Fireblocks powers FIS’s institutional bitcoin trading, underpins BNP Paribas’s digital asset custody, and sits among the founding members of the Botanix federation, a bitcoin sidechain project.

Whatever the status of the talks, the report landed on fertile ground.

Source link