Conduit, whose cross-border payments network integrates stablecoins and local currencies, raised a $36M Series A co-led by Dragonfly and Altos Ventures
RT Watson / The Block :
Context & Ripple Effects
Conduit’s Series A follows its earlier $17M seed round for DeFi-service APIs, marking a move from early API positioning toward a cross-border payments network that connects stablecoins with local currencies.
The financing arrives amid repeated investment in stablecoin payment infrastructure, including Bridge’s $40M round to build a global stablecoin network. It matters because the competition is increasingly centered on the rails that translate stablecoin settlement into usable local-currency payments.
First-order effects
- Conduit gains $36M in new capital from Dragonfly and Altos Ventures to develop its cross-border network and its stablecoin-to-local-currency integration.
- Dragonfly expands its exposure to payments infrastructure; the firm also later backed crypto payments network Mesh’s Series C, underscoring its focus on the category.
Second-order effects
- Other stablecoin settlement and payment-network builders face a better-funded Conduit in competing for integrations with local payment rails and customers needing cross-border settlement.
- The round reinforces the value of infrastructure that joins stablecoin settlement to conventional currency endpoints, rather than treating stablecoins as a standalone consumer product.
Third-order effects
- If funding continues to favor these bridge layers, cross-border stablecoin adoption may be shaped less by individual tokens and more by a smaller set of companies controlling connectivity to local-currency rails.
- That consolidation is not assured: platforms that cannot turn network integrations into durable payment usage may remain infrastructure providers without the scale advantages implied by large funding rounds.
The trend: Stablecoin financing is shifting toward payment and settlement networks that make on-chain value interoperable with local-currency systems.