The Monad Foundation, which is responsible for the development of Monad, a Layer 1 blockchain network, has announced its acquisition of Portal Labs, a developer of stablecoin infrastructure. This strategic acquisition aims to bring a comprehensive payment solution to Monad while incorporating Monad’s blockchain technology into Portal’s multi-chain approach, as stated in a recent press release.
Following the completion of the acquisition, Raj Parekh, co-founder and CEO of Portal, will take up the role of Head of Payments and Stablecoins at the Monad Foundation. Portal Labs, known for building infrastructure like software development kits and APIs that facilitate developers to integrate stablecoin payment systems into their offerings, will continue to operate as a subsidiary under the Monad Foundation.
Portal supports over 100 blockchains, such as Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and networks compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, as per the information on the company’s website. “The shared visions of Portal and the Monad Foundation will expedite our mission to lower the obstacle for anyone to transact money onchain,” Parekh said in the release.
The acquisition of Portal Labs by the Monad Foundation follows similar significant stablecoin M&A activities in the past. For instance, in March, crypto payment firm MoonPay bought Iron for a minimum of $100 million, and Stripe purchased the stablecoin platform Bridge for nearly $1.1 billion in October 2024. Interest in stablecoins surged in 2025, with major tech companies, prominent banks, and retail giants examining their potential applications.
“Payments are a critical use case for blockchains and represent an exciting opportunity for widespread crypto acceptance,” said Keone Hon, co-founder and general manager of the Monad Foundation. “Portal’s mature stablecoin rails will offer enterprises and developers plug-and-play solutions to incorporate stablecoin payments into their platforms and apps.”
The Monad Foundation claims that its network is 1,000 times faster than Ethereum due to its use of both parallel and asynchronous execution. The testnet of this Layer 1 network was launched in February, with the mainnet expected to go live later in 2025.
