What the card actually does
A stablecoin card looks ordinary at checkout. The customer taps a card or phone, the restaurant receives local currency through its usual payment provider, and the digital dollar balance is converted behind the scenes. Visa and Bridge in Colombia show how this works. The merchant does not need to accept crypto. Visa reported more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs on Oct. 1, with payment volume up nearly 200% from a year earlier. That growth has made card programs a real business for Bridge, Wirex, Rain and others. It does not mean every swipe is profitable.
Where the fees go
The name on the card rarely tells the whole story. A consumer app manages the customer, a regulated issuer supplies the card, a payment network connects institutions, and the merchant’s provider handles acceptance. Conversion and settlement can sit with another company. These roles sometimes overlap. Funding a purchase with USDC does not remove the old costs of running a card program. Interchange still matters. The merchant’s bank or payment provider pays it to the issuer, usually inside the fees merchants already pay to accept cards. Visa earns from its network and related services. Issuer agreements decide how much revenue gets shared with the company running the customer-facing card. Bridge, acquired by Stripe in 2025, advertises a card product that lets program operators keep 100% of interchange and charge extra transaction fees. The catch is that processing, fraud prevention, compliance, chargebacks and support still cost money.
Settlement needs cash, even with stablecoins
Card payments create obligations that may not settle when the customer taps. Authorization lets the merchant accept the purchase, but institutions still have to settle later. Stablecoins move around the clock. Card programs still need cash when settlement comes due. Rain uses a revolving credit facility from Credit Coop to meet Visa settlement obligations. It draws on the facility, then routes incoming cardholder proceeds through smart contracts to repay borrowing and interest. Credit Coop earns money for supplying cash between payment and repayment. Borrowing $1 million at 10% annually would cost about $274 for one day, or $68 for six hours. Those are illustrative figures, not Rain’s disclosed terms, but they show why faster settlement can cut financing costs.
The math behind cashback
Rewards add another cost. Britain’s Payment Systems Regulator caps covered domestic consumer debit interchange at 0.2% and credit at 0.3%. On a £100 debit purchase, that leaves at most 20 pence before expenses or partner shares. A 2% cashback offer would cost £2, leaving a £1.80 gap. That gap has to come from subscriptions, conversion charges, other services, or a promotional budget. Wirex ties higher cryptoback rates to subscription tiers and token lockups. Customers may still save if they already receive or hold digital dollars, especially freelancers paid in stablecoins. But conversion spreads, card fees and foreign-exchange rates can erase the benefit. Wirex says programs using its infrastructure process more than $200 million in monthly spending, including partner activity. It has not supplied the transaction-fee or retention breakdown needed to show how much it keeps or whether customers stay after introductory rewards end.
