Fintech Highlights — March 2026
Jack Dorsey made the AI-layoffs conversation impossible to ignore.
Block announced it would cut more than 4,000 jobs — around 40% of the company — with Dorsey saying plainly that AI tools and "smaller and flatter teams" are changing what it means to run a company. Block shares spiked 25% on the news. Whatever you think of the framing, expect more CEOs to point to Dorsey's candor as cover for similar moves.
Stripe's valuation kept surging while payments stocks got spooked.
Stripe signed tender-offer agreements valuing it at $159 billion — up from $107 billion just months earlier — even as Bloomberg reported Stripe had expressed interest in acquiring a struggling PayPal (down more than 80% from its 2021 highs). The rise came the same week publicly traded payments stocks like Adyen sold off on fears that AI agents could eventually cut out payments middlemen entirely — a scenario most in the industry think is much further off than a few years, given how compliance-heavy payments actually is.
Card networks bought their way into crypto rails.
Mastercard agreed to acquire stablecoin infrastructure startup BVNK for up to $1.8 billion, after Coinbase walked away from its own acquisition talks with the company late last year. It's the clearest sign yet that legacy payment giants would rather own the new infrastructure than compete against it.
The 2026 IPO window looked shakier.
PayPay, SoftBank's Japanese payments app, priced its IPO below range at $880 million — a soft outcome that, combined with a Medtronic carveout also pricing under range days earlier, suggests 2026's IPO market is more cautious than 2025's.
Also this month:
- Kraken became the first crypto firm to get direct access to the Federal Reserve's core payments system;
- Better and Coinbase launched a crypto-backed mortgage product letting borrowers pledge bitcoin or USDC toward a Fannie Mae-backed loan; and
- Kalshi raised $1B at a $22B valuation.