SCOPE
The two-vendor math
BVNK announced an agreement to be acquired by Mastercard in March 2026; per Mastercard's July 30, 2026 SEC filing, the deal is pending regulatory approval and expected to close by the end of Q3 2026.
BVNK moves stablecoins.
zerohash runs the whole stack.
Crypto trading, staking, qualified custody, stablecoin payments, and tokenization on one regulated platform: the rails behind Interactive Brokers, Morgan Stanley, Stripe, and Franklin Templeton. Every claim below carries a source; where a number is BVNK's, it comes from BVNK's own pages.
$65B+
Volume Settled
7M+
End customers
51
U.S & NY BitLicense
99.99%
Published uptime
THE RAILS BEHIND THE NAMES YOU TRUST
THE SHORT VERSION
BVNK is a stablecoin payments company: checkout, payouts, and e-money accounts, anchored in Europe. zerohash is regulated digital asset infrastructure for financial institutions: trading, staking, qualified custody, stablecoin payments, and tokenization through one API, operating in 51 U.S. jurisdictions with a New York BitLicense, MiCAR-authorized in the EU with a Dutch e-money license, and $65B+ settled to date. So the decision is simpler than either marketing site makes it.
If your roadmap ends at stablecoin payouts, the comparison below is short. If it includes anything else in digital assets, one platform covers it and one doesn’t.
THE COMPARISON
Line by line,
with sources
BVNK publishes a seven-row comparison. Here’s the fuller picture: what each platform actually covers, where each is licensed, and what each has proven at scale. BVNK’s entries are taken from BVNK’s own published pages and are marked with their source. Judge for yourself.
FULL STACK
Sources: zerohash.com, press releases, regulators
BVNK
Sources: BVNK’s own published
pages, July 31, 2026
What the platform covers
Embedded crypto trading for brokerages, banks, and fintechs
LIVE
Powers buy/sell at named brokerages including Interactive Brokers, E*Trade, tastytrade, and Public.
NOT OFFERED
BVNK’s published scope is stablecoin payments infrastructure.
Staking
LIVE
Enterprise staking launched June 2026: validator operations run behind the API, with Interactive Brokers and Public among launch adopters.
DIFFERENT PRODUCT
An “Earn” feature pays rewards on idle balances. Staking-as-a-service for a platform’s end customers isn’t a published BVNK product.
Qualified custody
LIVE
Regulated custody with MPC key distribution and segregated client assets; a state-chartered trust company sits inside the group.
NOT MARKETED
Wallet infrastructure is offered; qualified custody is not a published BVNK product.
Stablecoin payins and payouts
LIVE
Powers buy/sell at named brokerages including Interactive Brokers, E*Trade, tastytrade, and Public.
LIVE
Core product; payouts across 130+ countries, as published.
Named virtual accounts (fiat)
PARTIAL
USD settlement with ACH, RTP, and SEPA processing; e-money in the EEA under our Dutch EMI license. GBP named accounts aren’t our product today.
LIVE
EUR, GBP, and USD named accounts under UK and EU e-money licenses.
Hosted merchant checkout
NOT OUR PRODUCT
We’re embedded infrastructure behind your product, white-labeled by design.
LIVE
Pre-built hosted checkout.
Tokenization: issuance engine and payment rails
LIVE
Institutional tokenization engine plus real-time settlement rails; Franklin Templeton and Securitize are on the public roster.
NOT OFFERED
No published tokenization product.
Wallet-linked account funding
LIVE
AUTH connects 75M+ wallet users across 400+ integrations for account-to-account movement.
NO EQUIVALENT PUBLISHED
No published tokenization product.
Licensing and regulation
U.S. money transmission
51 JURISDICTIONS
FinCEN-registered MSB and regulated money transmitter operating in 51 U.S. jurisdictions, licensed for virtual currency business by the New York DFS (BitLicense).
38 STATES + DC
Money transmitter licenses (or equivalent) in 38 states plus DC, per BVNK’s own licensing page, July 2026; FinCEN MSB registration. New York is reached through a partnership with Paxos.
U.S. federal posture
IN MOTION
Applied for an OCC national trust bank charter, March 2026 (pending). A North Carolina trust company already operates inside the group.
THEIR WORDS
“BVNK is not a bank and does not provide banking services in the US.”
European Union
MICAR + EMI
MiCAR authorization from the Dutch AFM (October 2025, CASP #41000042) with EEA passporting, plus an e-money license from the Dutch central bank, May 2026.
MICAR + EMI
MiCA CASP authorization from the Malta MFSA (February 2026), plus a Malta EMI.
United Kingdom
NOT LICENSED
We're not a UK e-money institution. Our European coverage runs through the Dutch MiCAR and EMI licenses.
FCA EMI
Authorized Electronic Money Institution via System Pay Services Ltd, FCA ref 901057.
Beyond the U.S. and Europe
REGISTERED
MiCAR authorization from the Dutch AFM (October 2025, CASP #41000042) with EEA passporting, plus an e-money license from the Dutch central bank, May 2026.
UK, MALTA, U.S.
Advertises “40+ licenses worldwide”; its itemized licensing page lists the UK EMI, the Malta EMI and CASP, FinCEN registration, and U.S. state licenses.
Scale and reliability
Volume
$65B+ SETTLED
Cumulative settled volume, as published. Stablecoin volume on the platform grew 690% in 2025.
AS PUBLISHED
Reported passing $20B in annualized processing volume in October 2025; about $30B annualized was reported at the Mastercard announcement. Annualized processing is a flow measure, stated as BVNK publishes it.
End customers reachable
7M+
End customers served through partner platforms.
NOT PUBLISHED
Published uptime
99.99%
About 53 minutes of allowed downtime a year.
99.9%
About 8.8 hours a year, as published on BVNK’s own comparison page.
Security certifications
CERTIFIED
SOC 2 Type 1 and 2, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, GDPR program, public vulnerability disclosure.
CERTIFIED
ISO 27001:2022 and SOC 2 Type II, as published.
Proof and backing
Named institutional references
28 ON THE ROSTER
Includes Interactive Brokers, Morgan Stanley, Stripe, Franklin Templeton, BlackRock, and Worldpay, with ten published case studies.
FEWER NAMED
A payouts testimonial and a G2 rating of 4.7/5 across roughly 13 to 18 reviews.
Operating since
2017
Nine years running regulated digital asset infrastructure.
2021
Founded 2021 (launched October 2021), headquartered in London.
Ownership
INDEPENDENT
$104M Series D-2 at a $1B valuation led by Interactive Brokers, with Morgan Stanley, SoFi, and Apollo-managed funds participating, September 2025. $275M raised to date.
ACQUISITION PENDING
Mastercard agreed to acquire BVNK on March 17, 2026 for $1.5B plus up to $300M contingent. Per Mastercard’s 10-Q filed July 30, 2026, the deal remains subject to regulatory approval, expected to close before the end of Q3 2026.
Sources 1 through 13 are listed below with links and access dates. Spot an error? [email protected]. We correct within one business day.
LICENSING
The U.S. question
If you serve U.S. customers, count licenses before you compare features. Only 2 companies operate in all U.S. jurisdictions with a New York BitLicense and applied for a national bank charter as of March 2026. BVNK's own licensing page lists money transmitter licenses in 34 states and DC, with New York reached through a Paxos partnership, and its US entity is not licensed and does not provide banking services in the US.
INTEGRATION
The rails question
If your roadmap stops at stablecoin checkout, the comparison is narrow. If it includes trading, custody, staking, or tokenization, count how many vendors you are stitching together—and which rails each one actually covers.
WHO IT'S FOR
Who zerohash
is built for
You're a bank, brokerage, fintech, or payments company that serves U.S. customers or plans to. You expect trading, staking, tokenized assets, or wallet-linked funding to reach your roadmap within the life of the contract. And your compliance team reads licensing schedules before it reads pricing. That's who we built the platform for.
And if your digital asset roadmap truly ends at stablecoin payouts, the table above is still the diligence file your team will want on record.
PROOF
Live, named, and on the record
Turned on 24/7 stablecoin account funding with zerohash in January 2026: USDC deposits that clear near-instantly, weekends and holidays included, feeding trading across 170 markets
Runs cross-border remittances on zerohash at a flat $2.99 per transfer, against a 6.65% industry average.
Pays contractors in stablecoins in under a minute, extending payouts it already runs in 70+ countries.
“Users aren’t interested in how the money crosses borders. They simply want their money quickly, affordable, and reliably in their local currency.”
Manuel J Godo
Co-Founder & CEO
Recognized by the industry
PROOF
Run us side by side
No rip-and-replace. Keep your incumbent running while one corridor decides it on numbers.
Week 1
Scope
Pick one corridor or flow. We map licensing, assets, and settlement against it and hand you the integration shape.
Weeks 2 to 4
Integrate
Sandbox on day one. The SDK goes live in a day with your branding; production integrations ship in weeks.
Weeks 5 to 8
Parallel run
Route a slice of live volume through both platforms. Measure settlement speed, cost, coverage, and ops load.
Week 9
Decide
Scale what won. You keep the benchmark data either way.
FAQs
Is zerohash licensed to operate across the United States?
Yes. zerohash is a FinCEN-registered Money Services Business and a regulated money transmitter operating in 51 U.S. jurisdictions, licensed for virtual currency business activity by the New York DFS. Real-time transaction monitoring, sanctions and wallet screening, and full AML/KYC run on every onchain movement.
Does zerohash support euro and pound flows?
Euro, yes: SEPA processing on the on/off ramp, a MiCAR authorization from the Dutch AFM, and an e-money license from the Dutch central bank covering EEA flows. GBP named accounts aren't our product today. Bring your corridor list to the comparison call and we'll be straight with you about fit, line by line.
Does zerohash offer staking?
Yes, live since June 2026. We run validator operations, rewards accounting, and compliance behind the API so platforms can offer branded staking, with Interactive Brokers and Public among launch adopters. Available across the U.S. excluding four states at launch.
Who owns each company?
zerohash is independent. Our investors include Interactive Brokers, Morgan Stanley, SoFi, and Apollo-managed funds, following a $104M Series D-2 at a $1B valuation in September 2025. BVNK agreed in March 2026 to be acquired by Mastercard for $1.5B plus up to $300M in contingent payments; as of Mastercard's July 30, 2026 SEC filing, the acquisition was pending regulatory approval and expected to close before the end of Q3 2026. What that means for BVNK's roadmap, pricing, and neutrality is a question for BVNK, and a fair one for your diligence list.
What does switching or piloting involve?
One corridor, run in parallel. Sandbox on day one and production in weeks, and you keep the benchmark data whatever you decide. Book the comparison call and we'll scope it in 20 minutes.
Why should I trust this page?
Every claim carries a numbered source with an access date, and BVNK's entries come from BVNK's own published pages. If we got something wrong, email [email protected] and we'll correct it within one business day.
SOURCES
- zerohash.com: homepage stats bar, product pages (buy/sell, staking, qualified custody, account funding, on & off ramp, payouts, AUTH, tokenization engine), security page, and public customer roster. Accessed July 31, 2026. zerohash.com
- BVNK, "BVNK vs Zero Hash" comparison landing page and linked claims (99.9% uptime, 130+ countries, "40+ global licenses," G2 4.7/5, hosted checkout, EUR/GBP/USD accounts). Accessed July 31, 2026. try.bvnk.com/zerohash-alternative
- zerohash legal disclosures (51 U.S. jurisdictions; NYDFS virtual currency license), docs.zerohash.com licensing FAQ (AUSTRAC #DCE100804170-001, FINTRAC #M20282196, Argentina CNV, New Zealand FSP, Bermuda BMA, North Carolina trust company), and the OCC national trust bank charter application, March 4, 2026. zerohash.com/legal/disclosures
- BVNK FAQ, "How is BVNK licensed?" (UK EMI via System Pay Services Ltd, FCA ref 901057; "BVNK is not a bank and does not provide banking services in the US"; Money Transmitter Licenses; minimum $500,000/month volume and 6+ months operating history). Accessed July 31, 2026. try.bvnk.com
- zerohash press: MiCAR authorization from the Dutch AFM (announced November 2, 2025; CASP #41000042); e-money license from De Nederlandsche Bank (May 18, 2026); Amsterdam European headquarters (March 18, 2026). zerohash.com/press
- zerohash press: staking infrastructure launch, June 25, 2026 (validator operations behind the API; Interactive Brokers, Public, BitMart; available across the U.S. excluding CA, MD, NJ, WI at launch). zerohash.com/press
- zerohash 2026 Stablecoin Momentum Report (stablecoin volume up 690% YoY in 2025; transaction count up 208%; active users across 106 countries). January 21, 2026. zerohash.com
- GlobeNewswire: "$104M Series D-2 at a $1B valuation led by Interactive Brokers," with Morgan Stanley, SoFi, and Apollo-managed funds participating; $275M raised to date. September 23, 2025.
- Interactive Brokers press release, January 15, 2026: 24/7 stablecoin account funding via zerohash (USDC live; RLUSD and PYUSD to follow; trading across 170 global markets).
- zerohash case studies: Felix Pago (flat $2.99 vs 6.65% industry average; Manuel Godoy quote) and Gusto (contractor payouts in under a minute; 70+ countries). zerohash.com/case-studies
- BVNK licensing article, "What licenses & registrations does BVNK and BVNK's Partners have?" (UK EMI via System Pay Services Ltd; Malta EMI and MiCA CASP via System Pay Services (Malta) Ltd; FinCEN MSB, NMLS ID 2531294; state-by-state license table listing 38 states plus DC, counted July 31, 2026; "System Pay Services (US), Inc. is not licensed as a bank in the US"). BVNK MiCA announcement, February 16, 2026. New York coverage via Paxos partnership: The Paypers, August 14, 2025. Deal relationship: BVNK's published materials. help.bvnk.com
- BVNK fourth-anniversary release: "surpasses $20bn in annualized processing volume," October 1, 2025 (Financial IT / Finextra); approximately $30B annualized reported in March 2026 acquisition coverage (FXC Intelligence deal analysis); founded/launched October 2021.
- Mastercard investor relations: agreement to acquire BVNK, March 17, 2026. Mastercard Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, filed July 30, 2026 (SEC EDGAR). Note 2: "$1.5 billion... contingent consideration of up to $300 million... subject to regulatory approval... anticipates completing the acquisition before the end of the third quarter of 2026." sec.gov