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Visa Rebrands DeFi as 'Onchain Finance' to Build Institutional Lending Rails

Visa cites $670 billion in originations under new U.S. rules as evidence institutions are ready to plug in.

Overview

  • Visa’s report outlines a strategy to be the infrastructure layer for programmable credit by offering APIs, analytics, settlement, compliance and custody while avoiding token issuance or direct lending risk.
  • The company quantifies market scale at more than $670 billion in stablecoin loans since 2020, with August 2025 activity at $51.7 billion across 427,000 loans from 81,000 borrowers and an average loan size of $121,000.
  • Operational examples include Morpho’s liquidity meta-layer, Visa-partner Credit Coop’s receivables-based lending, and Huma Finance’s short-duration, cross-border working-capital loans, with Huma reporting $500 million in transactions and $98 million actively deployed.
  • Stablecoin credit remains concentrated, with USDC and USDT accounting for roughly 98% of borrowing and lending volumes dominated by Aave and Compound, as the broader stablecoin market sits near $307 billion.
  • Regulatory momentum from the GENIUS Act is drawing institutions into onchain credit even as the IMF warns about leverage and maturity risks and a recent Paxos PYUSD mint-and-burn error underscores operational hazards.