Crypto Card Spending Nears $10B, Quadrupling in a Year

A speculation cycle would have spending tracking the market. It didn’t. People are using stablecoins to buy things, and they keep doing it whether the screen is green or red.

There are three main reasons why we’re seeing an explosion in volumes here. Firstly, emerging-market demand is real as dollar-denominated stablecoins solve a problem local banking rails leave open. Secondly, the GENIUS Act was a massive regulatory catalyst that gave issuers a proper framework to build on instead of operating in a type of gray zone.

Lastly, Visa rails mean a stablecoin balance spends like any other card at checkout, with no added friction for the merchant or the person holding it. Utility, not narrative, is doing the work here.

Cards issued by centralized exchanges settle internally and never touch a public ledger, which makes them invisible to onchain measurement. Whatever those programs are running sits entirely outside the $9.898 billion.

So the milestone reads less like a peak and more like a baseline. Crossing $10 billion will pull the headlines. The more durable signal is underneath it: spending held through a down market, the issuer base broadened past a single name, and the slice nobody can see keeps growing in the background.