Article
17 min read time
Stablecoin payment cards are quickly becoming one of the clearest bridges between digital assets and everyday payments. For card issuers, that creates a real strategic question: whether to treat stablecoin cards as a feature they can outsource, or as a new layer of payments infrastructure they need to control.
The growth is already too meaningful to ignore. Stablecoin-backed card transaction volume has risen from roughly $100 million per month in early 2023 to more than $1.5 billion by late 2025, with annualized spend reaching around $18 billion. Visa said its monthly stablecoin settlement volume had passed a $3.5 billion annualized run rate as of November 30, 2025. Although the momentum undeniable, it is still small relative to a global card market (Visa reported $14.2 trillion in payments volume and 257.5 billion processed transactions in FY2025, while Mastercard reported $10.6 trillion in gross dollar volume in 2025).
This suggests that the opportunity for stablecoin-funded card programs is still in its earliest phase - and that the issuers who build the right infrastructure now will define the category as it scales.
And yet most stablecoin card programs are still built on bundled, intermediary-heavy infrastructure setup. That may speed up launch, but it also means giving up control over margins, treasury flows, compliance design, and product flexibility. As stablecoin cards move into the mainstream, issuers that outsource too much of the stack risk handing off the strategic value of the category with it.
What comes next is a shift in how these programs are built. The issuers that treat stablecoin cards as strategic infrastructure, rather than a packaged crypto add-on, will be far better positioned to capture the economics, control the user experience, and adapt as the market matures.
Who's Issuing Crypto Cards Today
The stablecoin card market is dominated by two categories of infrastructure provider, but the products built on top of that infrastructure span a much wider range of players.
At the top sit full-stack card issuing platforms - Rain and Reap - which hold direct Visa Principal Membership and include BIN sponsorship, Lender of Record functions, and network settlement into a single integrated offering.
Below them sit program managers like Baanx, Bridge, and Gnosis Pay, which handle crypto-to-fiat conversion and white-label card issuance but rely on issuing banks (Lead Bank, Cross River Bank) for principal membership, compliance, and settlement.
Rain is the most extensively documented player. The Artemis report describes Rain as providing "BIN sponsorship, acting as the Lender of Record, and directly settling to the Visa network" in one product. Rain says it supports more than 200 card programs globally, and that its active card base grew 30x in 2025.
Reap focuses on B2B cross-border payments and positions itself around stablecoin-enabled business spend and treasury workflows.
Everyone else in the market - consumer apps, exchanges, wallets - sits on top of this infrastructure without controlling it.
RedotPay is one example. Categorized by Artemis as a consumer-facing neobank rather than infrastructure provider, RedotPay's crypto debit card enables users to spend digital assets at merchants worldwide by converting stablecoins to fiat currency at the point of sale. RedotPay issues cards through a BIN sponsor arrangement with StraitsX, not through direct scheme membership.
Centralized exchanges are another example. Coinbase, Crypto.com, Bybit, Binance - these all issue their own branded cards.
Beyond these examples, a new wave of self-custodial products (MetaMask Card, Phantom Card, Ether.fi Cash) is also emerging.
But whether the card is branded by a neobank, an exchange, or a wallet provider, nearly all of them depend on the same narrow set of infrastructure providers or bank partners for issuance.
Artemis estimates that Visa accounts for more than 90% of onchain card volume, despite Visa and Mastercard having a similar number of programs. The infrastructure layer - the piece that connects stablecoins to the existing card network's scheme settlement - remains structurally concentrated.
That concentration matters, because the institutions best positioned to scale stablecoin card programs are not the crypto-native startups. They are the thousands of existing card issuers who already have fiat settlement rails, compliance frameworks, and scheme relationships - but lack the digital asset infrastructure to use them.
How Stablecoin Card Settlements Actually Work
Understanding why infrastructure matters requires understanding the settlement mechanics. From the outside, stablecoin-backed cards function identically to traditional cards - tap, swipe, or enter card details. The merchant receives fiat. Visa or Mastercard intermediates the clearing. What changes is how the issuer funds merchant settlement.
In a traditional four-party card flow, the merchant’s acquirer submits transactions to the card network for clearing, and the network settles net obligations between issuer and acquirer participants. The merchant is ultimately paid in fiat by the acquirer, typically after clearing and settlement on standard banking timelines.
In a stablecoin-linked card program, the cardholder may spend against a stablecoin balance, but the back-end settlement model depends on the program design. In some programs, the stablecoin exposure is converted to fiat before network settlement. In newer Visa settlement models, select issuers and acquirers can settle their Visa obligations directly in stablecoins such as USDC, with seven-day settlement availability.
In Rain’s case, Visa still settles with the merchant acquirer as usual, while Rain uses stablecoins in its settlement stack and says it can settle with Visa seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Consider a concrete example. A fintech issues cards to its customers via Rain. As card transactions accumulate, Rain manages the settlement process on the program’s behalf. The fintech funds that process using stablecoins from its treasury wallet, and Rain handles the conversion and network settlement workflow. The merchant is paid in local currency. The cardholder spent stablecoins.
Everything in between is infrastructure. That infrastructure stack should - at minimum - include:
Wallet management (holding and moving stablecoins securely through an institutional-grade digital asset wallet)
Gas management (paying blockchain transaction fees - negligible on chains like Solana, where average fees are roughly $0.001 per transaction, but operationally complex across multiple chains),
On/off-ramp connectivity (converting between stablecoins and fiat through licensed counterparties)
Cross-chain liquidity management (ensuring funds are available on the right blockchain at the right time)
Compliance integration (AML screening, KYC verification, and travel rule data exchange for every transfer between service providers).
Each of these components is a distinct operational requirement. And in the current market, they are bundled together inside Rain or Reap's integrated stack - invisible to the card issuer sitting on top.
The Problem with Outsourcing Your Card Stack
For early movers in the stablecoin card space, outsourcing the crypto infrastructure to Rain or Reap made sense. Building stablecoin settlement capability from scratch while simultaneously navigating scheme approval was a tall order. The bundled model let card programs launch faster.
But that model carries structural costs that grow as programs scale.
The first cost is control. When a card issuer relies on Rain for settlement, the issuer hands over the core mechanics of its payment flow - stablecoin custody, liquidation timing, counterparty selection for off-ramping, and settlement execution.
The issuer does not choose which off-ramp or fiat conversion provider provider converts its stablecoins. It does not control which blockchain its funds sit on, or when and how gas fees are managed. It receives a daily settlement request and sends stablecoins to an address. Everything between that transfer and the fiat arriving at Visa is someone else's operation.
As a consequence, the issuer loses full control over the payment flow - Rain operates as a single platform handling custody, conversion, and settlement on issuer's behalf.
The second cost is compliance exposure:
The FATF's Travel Rule requires that transfers between virtual asset service providers above established thresholds include originator and beneficiary data.
Under MiCA, fiat-pegged stablecoins are generally treated as electronic money tokens, with additional rules applying where a token is classified as significant.
Brazil's 2026 regulations classify stablecoin transfers as foreign exchange operations, triggering FX broker licensing requirements.
Singapore's MAS requires DPT licensing for stablecoin services, with a separate stablecoin issuance license for pegs above SGD 5 million.
Hong Kong's stablecoin law, effective August 2025, mandates HKMA licensing and 100% reserve requirements for HKD-denominated stablecoins.
In each of these jurisdictions, the card issuer's compliance posture depends on how well its infrastructure provider implements these requirements. If the provider lacks full travel rule coverage or operates with gaps in regional licensing, the issuer inherits that regulatory exposure - often without visibility into where the gaps are.
The third cost is economic. Full-stack infrastructure providers capture interchange value and conversion margins that would otherwise flow to the issuer. Artemis notes that Rain "uniquely capitalizes on much of the value often leaked to banks and other intermediaries." That value capture is Rain's business model. For a card issuer building a long-term payments business on stablecoin rails, ceding those economics to a third party erodes unit economics at scale.
This is the Stablecoin 1.0 model: bundled, opaque, intermediary-dependent. It mirrors the early days of fintech infrastructure more broadly - before embedded finance, before open banking, before issuers demanded modular, composable infrastructure they could control. Today's dominant stablecoin card providers operate on this model.
The Stablecoin 2.0 model is the solution to these shortcomings: infrastructure that lets issuers own their stack, plug in best-in-class providers for each function, and maintain direct visibility into every step of the settlement flow.
Why Traditional Card Issuers Will Build Their Own Programs
The control, compliance, and economic costs of the bundled model tend to compound with scale. And they matter most to the institutions that have the most to lose from getting the infrastructure decision wrong: the established card issuers who already run payment programs across dozens of markets.
Visa alone works with approximately 14,500 financial institutions across 220+ countries - institutions that issue everything from a standard Visa debit card to premium credit products and corporate Visa card programs. The vast majority of those institutions have never issued a crypto-linked card. The Artemis report counts 260+ crypto card programs globally (130+ on each of Visa and Mastercard) - a fraction of the total card programs in operation worldwide.
This gap can mostly be attribute to infrastructure complexity. A traditional card issuer already possesses fiat settlement rails, scheme principal or associate membership, regulatory licenses, and established compliance frameworks. What it lacks is the ability to receive stablecoins, manage digital asset custody, execute onchain transactions, convert between stablecoins and fiat through regulated channels, and comply with crypto-specific regulatory requirements like the travel rule.
Until recently, acquiring those capabilities meant either building from scratch - a multi-year engineering and licensing effort - or outsourcing to Rain or Reap, which meant accepting the control, compliance, and economic trade-offs described above.
Utila's modular, stablecoin 2.0 infrastructure completely changes that equation.
An issuer that already holds a Visa or Mastercard membership (or can obtain crypto program approval from the network) can plug in wallet infrastructure for stablecoin collection and custody, connect to on/off-ramp providers for fiat conversion, integrate compliance tooling for AML/KYT screening and travel rule data exchange, and layer on cross-chain liquidity management and gas optimization - all without ceding control of its settlement flow to a bundled provider. Stablecoins become another payment method the issuer supports natively, rather than a capability it rents from a third party.
Mastercard's launch of its Crypto Partner Program in March 2026, with 85+ ecosystem partners including both infrastructure providers and card issuers, signals that the networks themselves expect this unbundling.
The program explicitly connects wallet infrastructure, stablecoin settlement, compliance tooling, and card issuance into a partner ecosystem - precisely the modular architecture that replaces bundled dependency. It is one of the clearest signs yet that digital finance and traditional payments are converging at the infrastructure level.
Building a Stablecoin Card Program with Utila's Modular Infrastructure
The practical question for an issuer evaluating this space is: what does the modular stack look like, and which components need to come from where?
Artemis defines a three-layer infrastructure stack: payment networks (Visa, Mastercard), card issuing infrastructure (program managers and full-stack platforms), and consumer-facing products. What the Artemis framework does not include as an explicit layer is the digital asset operations infrastructure that sits beneath the card issuing layer - the systems that manage stablecoin wallets, onchain transactions, cross-chain movement, fiat conversion, and compliance integration.
This is the layer where Utila operates.
In a modular architecture that we provide, the issuer retains ownership of the card program - its scheme relationship, its customer base, its brand. Critically, the issuer also retains self custody of digital assets, with direct control over private keys through MPC wallet infrastructure rather than entrusting them to a bundled provider. The digital asset infrastructure layer handles the crypto-specific operations:
Wallet infrastructure and custody. Institutional-grade wallet management for receiving, holding, and disbursing stablecoins. This includes multi-signature security, policy-based transaction controls, and support for multiple blockchains and token standards.
Gas management. Automated handling of blockchain transaction fees across chains. While individual transaction costs are minimal (fractions of a cent on Solana or Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum - near-zero fees per transaction), managing gas across high-volume, multi-chain operations requires dedicated tooling.
On/off-ramp connectivity. Integration with licensed fiat conversion providers, giving the issuer choice over counterparties, conversion rates, and settlement timing rather than accepting a single bundled provider's terms. Direct control over on/off-ramp selection also lets issuers optimize FX costs and minimize foreign transaction fees and FX fees that erode margins on cross-border card spend.
Cross-chain liquidity management. Ensuring stablecoin balances are available on the right chain at the right time, with automated bridging and rebalancing across networks.
Compliance integration. AML/KYT screening and travel rule data exchange embedded into the transaction flow. Utila's integration with Corsa, for example, provides a unified view of onchain transactions alongside fiat movements, KYT results, and travel rule verification within a single compliance workflow.
Settlement between counterparties - the actual movement of stablecoins from issuer to infrastructure provider, or between issuers - is another function that benefits from dedicated tooling. Where today a card issuer like KAST or ether.fi sends settlement to Rain's wallet address as a simple blockchain transfer, a purpose-built settlement layer (such as Utila Link) can formalize that flow with automated address whitelisting, policy controls, and audit trails appropriate for institutional-grade payment operations.
The point is not that every issuer needs to use every component in the same way. The point is that each component should be selectable, replaceable, and visible to the issuer - not buried inside a black-box provider where the issuer has no leverage and no line of sight.
What's Next for Stablecoin Cards
Several trends will shape this market over the next two to three years.
Virtual cards will likely become the dominant form factor for stablecoin-backed spending, particularly in B2B contexts. Global virtual card spending reached approximately $5.2 trillion in 2025, with 76% attributed to business use cases; projections put that figure at $14.6 trillion by 2029, with B2B share rising to 83%. Virtual cards offer instant issuance, granular spending controls, and ERP integration - all advantages that compound in a stablecoin-native environment where card provisioning can happen programmatically and in real time.
Physical cards may persist in some consumer segments, as they remain popular for everyday purchases, ATM withdrawals, and the ability to withdraw cash. These use cases still keep them relevant in everyday life - but the growth curve points toward virtual-first programs. As issuers evaluate card economics, the virtual model also eliminates physical production costs, reduces ATM fees exposure, and can be structured with lower or no monthly fees - making it easier to serve high-frequency, low-margin everyday payments at scale.
Settlement infrastructure will become a competitive differentiator. As more issuers enter the market, the ability to settle stablecoin-to-fiat efficiently - with low conversion costs, continuous settlement cycles, and full compliance coverage - will separate viable programs from experiments.
The programs that achieve global acceptance and high volumes of real world spending will be those with settlement infrastructure that scales without manual intervention. Issuer-to-issuer settlement, where stablecoins move directly between card programs without routing through a centralized intermediary, is a logical next step.
Regulatory frameworks are converging toward clearer stablecoin treatment. MiCA in the EU, Brazil's FX classification rules, Singapore's DPT and stablecoin issuance licensing, Hong Kong's HKMA framework - all provide specific, if demanding, requirements for operating stablecoin payment services. Clarity, even when it means higher compliance costs, favors institutional issuers who already have regulatory infrastructure. It raises the bar for loosely regulated crypto-native providers.
The broader trajectory is clear: stablecoin infrastructure is becoming a standard component of the global payments stack, not a separate crypto vertical. Visa's partnership with Bridge to bring stablecoin-linked cards to over 100 countries, Mastercard's Crypto Partner Program with 85+ participants, and the Visa stablecoin settlement pilot reaching $3.5 billion in annualized volume all point in the same direction.
Cardholders will increasingly spend digital assets at merchants worldwide through cards that look and behave like any other payment instrument. The question for card issuers is not whether to engage with stablecoin rails, but whether to control them or rent them.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a stablecoin payment card?
A stablecoin payment card is a Visa or Mastercard-branded card funded by stablecoins (such as USDC) rather than a traditional bank account. The cardholder's stablecoin balance is converted to fiat at the point of settlement, allowing them to spend at any merchant that accepts the card network - typically over 100 million locations globally. The merchant receives fiat; the conversion happens behind the scenes through the card issuer's infrastructure.
How do stablecoin card settlements work?
When a cardholder makes a purchase, the transaction is authorized and cleared through Visa or Mastercard like any standard card transaction. At settlement (typically daily), the card issuer liquidates stablecoins to fiat - either directly or through an infrastructure provider - and settles to the card network. The network then routes fiat to the acquiring bank and the merchant. Some providers, like Rain, execute this cycle seven days a week using blockchain-based settlement, eliminating the weekend gaps in traditional banking settlement.
Who can issue stablecoin-backed cards?
Any institution that holds or can obtain card scheme membership (Visa or Mastercard) and meets the network's requirements for a crypto card program. Today, this includes full-stack platforms like Rain and Reap (which hold direct Visa Principal Membership), program managers like Baanx and Bridge (which issue through bank sponsors), and any licensed financial institution that secures crypto program approval from the scheme. The infrastructure requirements - stablecoin custody, onchain operations, fiat conversion, and compliance - can be met through modular providers rather than built in-house.
What infrastructure is needed to build a crypto card program?
At minimum: card scheme membership or BIN sponsorship, stablecoin wallet and custody infrastructure, on/off-ramp connectivity to convert between stablecoins and fiat, gas management for onchain transactions, cross-chain liquidity management, and compliance tooling covering AML/KYT screening and travel rule data exchange. The issuer also needs a stablecoin settlement process - either internal or through a dedicated settlement platform - that integrates with the card network's clearing cycle.
What's the difference between using Rain/Reap and building your own stack?
Rain and Reap provide bundled, full-stack infrastructure: they handle stablecoin custody, fiat conversion, compliance, and network settlement as a single integrated service. This gets a card program to market quickly but means the issuer cedes control over settlement mechanics, counterparty selection, compliance implementation, and conversion economics. Building your own stack using modular infrastructure means the issuer retains control of each component - choosing wallet providers, on-ramp partners, compliance integrations, and settlement workflows independently. The modular approach requires more upfront integration work but gives the issuer direct visibility, economic control, and the ability to swap providers without rebuilding the program.
How do stablecoin cards compare to traditional credit cards?
Traditional credit cards draw on a bank-issued credit line denominated in fiat currency. Stablecoin cards draw on a digital asset balance - typically USDC or another supported stablecoin - that is converted to fiat at settlement. From the cardholder's perspective, both work identically at the point of sale: they are accepted at the same merchants, processed through the same Visa or Mastercard networks, and subject to the same scheme protections (chargebacks, fraud monitoring, dispute resolution). The difference is entirely on the funding and settlement side, where the issuer replaces fiat reserves with stablecoin reserves and adds a crypto-to-fiat conversion step before settling to the network.
Do stablecoin cards work on the existing card network?
Yes. Stablecoin-backed cards are issued on Visa or Mastercard and processed through the same existing card network infrastructure as any other card. The merchant's terminal, the acquiring bank, and the scheme's clearing system do not distinguish between a stablecoin-funded card and a traditional one - the transaction arrives as a standard fiat authorization. The stablecoin-specific operations (custody, conversion, compliance) happen upstream, between the cardholder and the card issuer, before settlement reaches the network.
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