MetaMask Card Hits 13 New LatAm Countries, Crypto Spending Goes Mainstream

MetaMask expanded its crypto-powered debit card to 13 new countries in Latin America, the wallet announced Tuesday. Users in Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay can now apply for the Mastercard-backed card. It was already live in Brazil and Argentina.

The card auto-converts crypto from a user's self-custody wallet to local currency at the point of sale. Each purchase earns 1% cashback in mUSD, MetaMask's own dollar-pegged stablecoin. The mechanism removes the need to pre-fund a separate account or manually convert crypto before spending.

Crypto debit cards are moving from early-adopter novelty to a regular payment method. Alex Oblakevich, head of research at Utexo, said transaction volumes in the crypto card sector have grown 2.7 times with no correlation to Bitcoin's price. He also noted that deposits have shifted from large, infrequent top-ups to smaller, regular ones. That pattern suggests users are treating the card as a daily spending tool, not a speculative experiment.

MetaMask launched the card pilot in 2024, calling it the first Mastercard debit card that lets users spend directly from a self-custody wallet. In February the company rolled out a nationwide U.S. launch. Product Lead Gal Eldar said at the time the goal was to make crypto "seamlessly woven into daily life."

The card is issued in partnership with Mastercard and Baanx, a crypto-financial platform. Mastercard's involvement ties the product to a global payment network that already processes billions of transactions. The company's AlphaScala Alpha Score sits at 61, reflecting a moderate position in the crypto payments space.

Latin America has become a key testing ground for crypto spending products. High inflation, limited banking access in some markets, and a large unbanked population make the region a natural fit for card-based crypto conversion. MetaMask's expansion adds 13 more markets to a footprint that already covered the region's two largest economies.

The move signals that crypto card issuers see LatAm as a growth corridor worth investing in. With transaction volumes rising and deposit behavior normalizing, the product category may be crossing into mainstream usage faster than many expected.