Crypto Card Spending Hits $759M, Stablecoins Fund 84%

Crypto card spending reached about $759 million in July, roughly 2.5 times the level a year earlier, with dollar-backed stablecoins accounting for the bulk of transactions, according to Paymentscan data cited by venture firm a16z.

Nearly 9 million transactions were tracked during the month. USDC and USDT together funded about 84% of activity. USDC alone made up about 58% of July volume, up from 48% a year earlier, while USDT's share climbed to about 26% from roughly 7%. The average ticket size rose to about $86 from $59, suggesting cards are moving beyond occasional cryptocurrency withdrawals into routine spending.

“The real measure of crypto’s progress is not simply how many people own digital assets, but how useful those assets become in everyday life,” said Thomas Gregory, VP of payments and fiat at Binance.

Crypto cards let users fund purchases with stablecoins or other digital assets while merchants receive local currency through existing networks. Funds are either held with the card issuer or in a self-custody wallet before conversion at checkout. Visa said in June that more than 130 stablecoin-linked card programs now operate across over 50 countries.

StraitsX, a firm that helps crypto companies launch Visa-linked cards, reported a 40-fold increase in transaction volume on its card infrastructure between the fourth quarters of 2024 and 2025. The company said gross transaction value jumped about 600% in lower-GDP markets during the year through February 2026, compared with 150% in higher-GDP markets. Food and retail led spending categories.

Operator-level data points to everyday use. Oobit said active users in Brazil spend about $400 across 20 transactions each month, with grocery stores accounting for 35% of its regional activity. In Argentina, USDT funded 72% of Oobit payments, while food purchases represented 41% of transactions.

“Stablecoins are increasingly doing two jobs at once: helping people preserve value, then letting them use that same balance for everyday expenses,” said Eduardo Prota, Oobit’s managing director for Brazil and head of Latin America.

Binance reported that the average number of users of its Brazilian card rose 53% between its launch quarter and the second quarter of 2026, while average volume per user climbed 80%. Common categories included ride-hailing, food delivery, groceries, restaurants and online subscriptions. Kraken said weekly payments on its Krak Card more than doubled over the past year to 8.3 per user. Retail and store purchases accounted for 59.3% of spending, while half of transactions used assets other than the card’s euro or pound denomination.

The headline growth figures come with a concentration caveat. RedotPay generated $395.1 million of July volume, EtherFi recorded $100.3 million and KAST contributed $89.6 million. Those three platforms together represented about 77% of tracked activity. Paymentscan’s figures for RedotPay are self-reported rather than directly verified onchain.

EtherFi CEO Mike Silagadze said its $100.3 million figure covered card purchases and excluded an additional $30 million of fiat transfers. Purchase volume had been below $10 million in July 2025, two months after product launch. RedotPay said its customer base grew more than 33% over six months to exceed 8 million.

Usage patterns differ on large mainstream platforms. Coinbase said USDC represented about 16% of combined transaction volume across its credit and debit cards, even though customers held roughly $20 billion of USDC across Coinbase products, up 44% over the past year. The gap suggests crypto-native card providers see stablecoins dominate spending while broader platforms still hold far more stablecoin value than users actually spend.

Mastercard has its own stablecoin compliance tests with Borderless.xyz, and Visa's program count keeps rising. The real test, operators say, is whether everyday transaction growth broadens beyond a few providers and becomes a durable use case across mainstream payment products.