Stablecoin-linked card spending has increased from approximately USD 100 million per month in early 2023 to more than USD 1.5 billion per month by late 2025. Annualized volume exceeds USD 18 billion. Visa-linked stablecoin card spend reached a USD 3.5 billion annualized run rate by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, with year-over-year growth of 460%.
Visa reports more than 160 live stablecoin-linked card programs and a USD 20 billion annual run rate in global stablecoin settlement volume. The relevant analytical question is not volume growth. The relevant question is contractual allocation: which entity receives interchange, network fees, conversion spreads, reserve income, float income, and settlement financing income when a cardholder funds a card with a stablecoin and a merchant receives local currency.
Payment Roles and Contractual Counterparties
A stablecoin-linked card transaction passes through five functional layers. Each layer has a separate contractual claim on revenue.
Card network. Visa or Mastercard authorizes the transaction, routes authorization messages between issuer and acquirer, and collects network fees. Interchange flows through network infrastructure but is not retained by the network as interchange.
Visa holds the largest share of on-chain card transaction volume, exceeding 90% by late 2025. Mastercard uses direct exchange partnerships; Visa uses infrastructure partnerships with providers including Rain and Reap.
Issuer or program manager. The issuer holds the card-issuing relationship, manages BIN sponsorship, and acts as legal counterparty to the card network. In traditional card programs, a bank performs the issuer function.
In stablecoin-linked programs, full-stack infrastructure providers including Rain and Reap hold Visa principal memberships and combine BIN sponsorship, lender-of-record functions, and network settlement. The issuer receives interchange from the merchant acquirer and bears processing, fraud, compliance, and chargeback costs.
Consumer-facing wallet or application. The wallet or application is the user interface. Exchanges, neobanks, and wallets including Coinbase, Crypto.com, Wirex, and KAST operate at the layer. The wallet does not usually hold the issuing license.
The wallet partners with an issuer infrastructure provider and receives a contractual share of interchange, foreign-exchange spreads, subscription fees, or income from deposited funds. Bridge, acquired by Stripe in 2025 for USD 1.1 billion, provides a program product under which the program operator retains 100% of interchange and can charge additional transaction fees. Wirex processes more than USD 200 million in monthly spending across partner programs.
Settlement and conversion provider. Stablecoin card spending requires conversion and settlement. A USDC payment at a merchant in Colombia requires conversion into Colombian pesos and settlement of the merchant obligation.
Bridge performs conversion and removes merchant cryptocurrency exposure. Conversion providers receive conversion spreads and settlement fees. Settlement providers can also finance the timing gap between authorization and final settlement.
Merchant acquirer and merchant. The acquirer pays interchange to the issuer and passes cost to the merchant through the merchant discount rate. The merchant receives local currency in most current stablecoin-linked card flows. Rain reports merchant acceptance exceeding 100,000 merchants without merchant awareness, because transactions settle through traditional card networks on a T+3 cycle.
Revenue Allocation: Interchange, Network Fees, and Program Fees
Interchange is the most visible revenue source. Interchange magnitude varies by jurisdiction and card type. The United Kingdom Payment Systems Regulator caps covered domestic consumer debit interchange at 0.2% and covered credit interchange at 0.3%. A GBP 100 debit transaction generates at most GBP 0.20 in interchange.
A 2% cashback program creates a GBP 2 reward cost and a GBP 1.80 shortfall before processing, fraud, compliance, and chargeback costs. The arithmetic explains reliance on subscription fees, foreign-exchange spreads, and foreign transaction fees in capped markets. In uncapped markets, interchange is larger but must still cover processing, fraud, compliance, and chargeback costs.
Network fees are volume-based and accrue to Visa or Mastercard. Program fees accrue to issuers and program managers. Wallet revenue depends on contractual allocation. Bridge permits program operators to retain 100% of interchange and charge additional transaction fees. The allocation between issuer and wallet therefore depends on BIN sponsorship terms, program management terms, and customer ownership.
Reserve Income and Distribution Costs
The largest revenue pool in the stablecoin ecosystem is reserve income. Stablecoin issuers hold customer dollars in short-dated US Treasury bills and overnight repurchase agreements, retain interest, and return only the peg to the holder. The GENIUS Act, enacted in July 2025, prohibits issuers from paying interest or yield to token holders. The prohibition assigns float income to the issuer.
Tether reported approximately USD 13 billion in net profit for 2024 and more than USD 10 billion for 2025 on Treasury exposure exceeding USD 122 billion. Circle generated USD 2.75 billion in total revenue in fiscal 2025. Reserve income accounted for USD 2.64 billion, or 96% of total revenue. Tether retains an estimated 3.0 to 3.5 cents per dollar annually from reserves. Circle retains 0.8 to 1.0 cent per dollar. The difference reflects distribution costs.
Circle paid USD 1.66 billion in total distribution and transaction costs in fiscal 2025, including approximately USD 1.36 billion to Coinbase and a USD 152.1 million increase attributable to Binance.
Under the renewed August 2023 agreement, Coinbase receives 100% of reserve income on USDC held on Coinbase and 50% of reserve income generated elsewhere. The issuer earns reserve yield; the distributor receives a contractual share; the token holder receives no yield.
Settlement Financing, Float, and Foreign-Exchange Spreads
Stablecoin card programs face a timing gap between authorization and settlement. Blockchain transfer operates continuously, but settlement obligations between financial institutions occur after authorization. Rain uses a revolving credit facility from Credit Coop to fund Visa settlement obligations.
Incoming cardholder proceeds pass through smart contracts to repay borrowing and interest. Credit Coop receives income for supplying funds between payment and repayment. Visa reports borrowing-cost reductions of as much as 30% for some participants. Rain tokenizes card receivables and uses receivables as collateral for on-chain loans.
Cumulative lending and repayments exceed USD 175 million. Collateral requirements are 60% lower than collateral requirements for traditional issuers. No public evidence shows pass-through of settlement financing savings to cardholders through lower fees.
Foreign-exchange spreads form a third revenue source. Cross-border stablecoin card use creates a spread between the stablecoin dollar value and local-currency conversion. Wallets and neobanks monetize the spread. Foreign-exchange economics explains stablecoin card attractiveness in emerging markets with constrained dollar access.
India and Argentina show USDC approaching parity with USDT in stablecoin payment share. Argentina demand reflects inflation hedging. India demand reflects latent demand for compliant crypto products despite regulatory friction.
Merchant Settlement and Network Integration
Merchant settlement remains predominantly local-currency settlement through traditional card networks. Reap now settles payment obligations with Visa directly in stablecoins, removing dependence on banking hours and weekend delays.
Stripe/Bridge enables merchant settlement directly in stablecoins. Visa and Mastercard integrate stablecoin settlement as a network settlement layer. The integration increases network volume and partner-bank retention.
The economic result is a settlement layer inside card networks. Reserve income, distribution income, settlement financing income, and foreign-exchange spreads accrue to entities controlling reserves, customer distribution, and settlement capital. Interchange accrues to issuers and contractual wallet partners.
Cardholders receive rewards or convenience and bear subscription, foreign-exchange, and transaction costs. Public disclosure remains incomplete for settlement financing terms, credit-risk allocation, and pass-through of financing savings.
Jack Reynolds is SatoshiPick’s infrastructure mind. Based in Denmark, he follows Bitcoin, Ethereum, Layer 1 networks, stablecoins and DeFi with a practical question always in the background: does this actually make crypto work better?
His articles focus on the systems beneath the headlines: settlement rails, protocol upgrades, stablecoin usage, DeFi coordination and the regulatory limits around them. Jack avoids turning technical coverage into a maze. He explains what is live, what is still experimental and why the difference matters.