Crypto Card Market Explodes 15x as Stablecoin Spending Soars 106% Annually: Report

The crypto funds panorama has undergone a dramatic transformation, with crypto card volumes surging from roughly $100 million month-to-month in early 2023 to over $1.5 billion by late 2025, representing a 106% compound annual development price that now rivals peer-to-peer stablecoin transfers, in keeping with a comprehensive report from Artemis Analytics.

The explosive development positions crypto playing cards as the first bridge between digital property and on a regular basis commerce, with annualized volumes exceeding $18 billion whereas conventional P2P transfers grew simply 5% to $19 billion over the identical interval.

Visa has emerged as the dominant pressure in crypto card infrastructure, capturing over 90% of on-chain card quantity by way of early partnerships with rising program managers and full-stack issuers.

Artemis famous that the cost large’s technique of participating infrastructure suppliers like Rain and Reap has confirmed extra scalable than Mastercard’s method of direct trade partnerships.

Full-Stack Issuers Reshape Card Economics

The crypto card infrastructure spans three essential layers (cost networks, card-issuing platforms, and consumer-facing merchandise), with essentially the most vital improvement being the emergence of full-stack issuers holding direct Visa principal membership.

Companies like Rain and Reap have collapsed conventional card issuance dependencies by combining BIN sponsorship, lender-of-record standing, and direct Visa community settlement into single platforms, capturing economics beforehand distributed throughout a number of intermediaries.

Visa’s stablecoin-linked card spend reached a $3.5 billion annualized run price in This fall fiscal 2025, marking 460% year-over-year development, although nonetheless representing roughly 19% of complete crypto card settlement quantity.

Centralized exchanges deploy playing cards as user-acquisition funnels, with platforms like Gemini absorbing ongoing losses from bank card applications to drive platform engagement.

DeFi protocols such as Ether.fi supply structurally greater cashback by way of token rewards, delivering roughly 4.08% returns whereas driving protocol TVL by way of collateralized borrowing options.

Geographic Opportunities Concentrate Where Stablecoins Solve Real Problems

Notably, India and Argentina stand out as world outliers the place USDC approaches parity with USDT in market share, presenting vastly completely different alternatives for crypto card adoption.

India recorded $338 billion in crypto inflows over the 12 months ending June 2025, but harsh tax insurance policies pushed most exercise offshore, creating huge latent demand for compliant crypto merchandise constrained by regulatory friction reasonably than person curiosity.

Argentina’s alternative facilities on stablecoin debit playing cards for inflation hedging, the place no competing digital rail exists, whereas India’s potential lies in crypto-backed bank cards, on condition that UPI has already commoditized debit performance.

However, Artemis famous that in developed markets, the chance lies in capturing a differentiated, high-value person section with better monetary sophistication and rising digital asset balances, reasonably than fixing unmet cost wants.

For occasion, the mature U.S. bank card market. Despite bank card revenues rising considerably throughout issuers, a brand new section is rising.

Consumers at the moment are holding significant stablecoin balances who more and more anticipate seamless spending capabilities, creating alternatives for conventional issuers who mix scale benefits with stablecoin-native capabilities earlier than crypto-native rivals solidify person relationships.

Cards Remain Strategic Despite Native Acceptance Push

While main networks, together with Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Stripe, are constructing stablecoin-native service provider acceptance architectures, three structural realities recommend that crypto playing cards will preserve strategic relevance.

Artemis famous that community results spanning 150 million service provider areas globally stay exceptionally tough to duplicate, requiring years of coordinated infrastructure funding that stablecoin-native methods should rebuild from near-zero service provider protection.

Card networks bundle companies customers anticipate, such as fraud safety, dispute decision, unsecured credit score, rewards applications, and buy protections, which stablecoin funds can not simply replicate.

Notably, earlier this month, Anthony Yim, co-founder of Artemis, noted that DeFi traders prefer USDC as a result of it “continuously transfer out and in of positions,” whereas broader adoption displays an “unstable geopolitical panorama” driving demand for the digital greenback.

Global stablecoin transaction worth totaled $33 trillion in 2025, up 72% year-over-year, with Bloomberg Intelligence projecting $56 trillion by 2030.

Revolut’s stablecoin cost volumes alone surged 156% to roughly $10.5 billion, with on a regular basis transactions between $100 and $500 accounting for 30% to 40% of platform exercise.

Despite surging adoption, main banks have escalated resistance to yield-bearing stablecoins, warning they may drain trillions from conventional deposits.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has warned that stablecoins might pull trillions of {dollars} out of the US banking system.#Stablecoins #Cryptohttps://t.co/TTQ8cqCSm6

— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) January 15, 2026

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan cautioned that as much as $6 trillion might migrate into stablecoins, whereas JPMorgan’s Jeremy Barnum warned in opposition to “the creation of a parallel banking system” with out prudential safeguards.

The pushback contributed to the Senate Banking Committee postponing its planned markup of a sweeping crypto market construction invoice after Coinbase withdrew assist, with Chairman Tim Scott citing ongoing bipartisan negotiations over provisions that might limit stablecoin yield funds.

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