Crypto payments infrastructure is starting to look less like an experiment and more like a core layer of the digital economy.
That shift is now being reflected in valuations. Mesh Connect has reached unicorn status after closing a new funding round that values the company at $1 billion, a milestone driven not by user growth hype but by real transaction volume flowing through its network.
Key Takeaways
Mesh reached a $1B valuation driven by real crypto payment volume, not hype.
Investors are betting on crypto infrastructure, not consumer apps.
Mesh aims to expand globally as crypto payments scale.
The bet investors are actually making
Mesh doesn’t compete with exchanges, wallets, or payment apps. Instead, it sits underneath them.
Its role is to solve a growing problem in a tokenized economy: fragmentation. As crypto spreads across dozens of wallets, blockchains, and platforms, businesses need a single way to interact with users’ assets without building endless custom integrations. Mesh positions itself as that neutral connection layer.
Investors backing the latest round, led by Dragonfly Capital, are effectively betting that the most valuable companies in crypto payments won’t be consumer-facing brands, but the infrastructure quietly routing value between them.
Volume, not sign-ups, changed the story
Mesh has been on investors’ radars for years, but what unlocked this round was scale. The platform is now handling close to $10 billion in transactions every month, a level that signals real economic usage rather than early experimentation.
That shift marked a turning point. Earlier phases were defined by onboarding and integrations. The current phase is defined by flow — payments actually moving across the system at speed and consistency.
This acceleration helped justify participation from firms such as Coinbase Ventures and Paradigm, alongside other fintech-focused backers.
Where Mesh already shows up
Most end users don’t know they’re using Mesh — and that’s intentional.
Behind the scenes, PayPal relies on Mesh to allow merchants to accept crypto from multiple wallets while avoiding direct exposure to volatility. Payments can arrive in crypto, but merchants receive fiat or PayPal’s stablecoin instead.
Beyond payments, platforms like Revolut and Kalshi use Mesh to connect crypto functionality into their broader financial products without rebuilding infrastructure from scratch.
Regulation quietly unlocks adoption
Timing also matters. Investors point to clearer rules around stablecoins in the US as a catalyst that made companies more willing to build crypto-native payment features. With legal uncertainty reduced, product teams shifted from “pilot mode” to production.
That change didn’t just increase sign-ups — it increased usage, which is ultimately what infrastructure businesses live or die on.
Scaling the plumbing, not the brand
Mesh plans to use its new capital to expand internationally, focusing on Latin America, Asia, and Europe. The strategy is not to chase consumers directly, but to embed itself deeper into local fintechs, payment processors, and platforms.
The underlying thesis is simple: as crypto becomes a standard financial rail, the companies routing transactions between wallets, banks, and merchants may end up more defensible — and more valuable — than the apps users see on the surface.
