Visa Handles 90% of Stablecoin Crypto-Card Transactions

Visa processed about 90% of crypto-card transactions in the latest datasets, with monthly crypto-card spending near $600 million and $7.2 billion in cumulative on-chain card volume. The dataset covers roughly 24 million transactions across 1.36 million wallets. USDT accounted for about 62.5% of settled volume.

Card programs link a user’s stablecoin balance to a Visa debit product and convert USDC or USDT into U.S. dollars at checkout. Merchants receive ordinary fiat and the blockchain does not interact with the point of sale. Several wallet providers and card issuers have deployed or are distributing stablecoin-backed Visa cards; one USDC-backed card reported a 660% month-over-month increase in activity in the same dataset. A stablecoin-enabled card program launched in 18 countries in March and plans to expand into more than 100 countries by year-end, potentially reaching roughly 175 million merchant locations that accept Visa.

Visa’s separate stablecoin settlement pilot reached an annualized run rate of $7 billion as of April 29 and was operating across nine blockchains, a 50% increase quarter over quarter. Mastercard is pursuing similar infrastructure work and announced plans to acquire a banking-as-a-service firm while supporting stablecoin spending at more than 150 million merchant locations.

The current $7.2 billion in cumulative on-chain crypto-card volume represents about 2.2% of a $322.6 billion stablecoin market cap. USDT and USDC supply figures in that market were about $189.2 billion and $76.6 billion, respectively.

Projections for stablecoin supply vary. One banking projection estimates supply could reach $2 trillion by the end of 2028; another projects roughly $500 billion. If crypto-card spending holds at approximately 2.2% of supply, a $2 trillion supply implies about $45 billion in annual crypto-card volume. If penetration doubles, that figure could approach $90 billion. Under the $500 billion supply projection, current penetration would imply about $11 billion in annual volume.

Analyst scenario estimates outline a lower-growth path in which annual crypto-card volume falls near $9 billion and a higher-growth path toward $18 billion. Under the lower-growth scenario, Visa’s share is estimated around 75%, implying roughly $6.8 billion routed through Visa; under the higher-growth scenario, Visa’s share is estimated near 90%, implying about $16 billion routed through Visa.

Stablecoin-backed cards interact with banking and cross-border systems by enabling on-chain dollar balances to fund payments without direct bank prefunding for each transaction. Officials at a major central bank have flagged potential impacts on deposit stability and bank lending if large-scale stablecoin adoption occurs. Recent legislative provisions would restrict anonymous direct-payment models and route regulated on-chain balances through compliance-facing intermediaries, aligning these flows with established card-network compliance and consumer protection frameworks.

At the consumer level, stablecoin-linked cards provide a way for users who hold digital dollars to spend those balances at existing card terminals while merchants receive fiat and existing fraud controls and chargeback mechanisms remain in place.