Financefintech & payments
Crypto Cards Rival Stablecoin Transfers as Spending Tops $18 Billion: Artemis
The quiet revolution in how we spend digital assets just hit a major milestone, with crypto-linked payment cards now processing over $18 billion in transactions, a figure that positions them as a serious rival to the stablecoin transfer rails that have long dominated the on-chain economy. According to a pivotal January 15 report from blockchain analytics firm Artemis, which synthesized on-chain settlement data with card network disclosures, this isn't just incremental growth—it's a tectonic shift.Monthly volume for these cards has exploded from a modest $100 million in early 2023 to a staggering $1. 5 billion by late 2025, charting a trajectory that mirrors the early, explosive adoption phases of foundational DeFi protocols.This surge signals a profound maturation: we are moving beyond the speculative trading floors of exchanges and into the tangible realm of groceries, subscriptions, and travel bookings, effectively weaving programmable money into the very fabric of daily commerce. For years, the promise of decentralized finance was locked behind technical barriers—wallet addresses, gas fees, and the daunting final step of off-ramping to fiat.Crypto cards, offered by giants like Visa in partnership with crypto-native platforms such as Wirex and Binance, have elegantly dismantled that last barrier. They function as a seamless, real-time bridge, automatically converting a user's USDC or USDT holdings at the point of sale, a process so frictionless it renders the underlying blockchain complexity invisible to the end-user.This is the critical inflection point where user experience meets mass adoption, a lesson the broader Web3 ecosystem has been painfully slow to learn. The implications are vast and multifaceted.From a macroeconomic perspective, this $18 billion flow represents a significant, growing drain of liquidity from the purely on-chain DeFi ecosystem into the traditional economy. While some purists may lament this 'leakage,' it's a necessary evolution for legitimacy and scale; it demonstrates tangible utility beyond recursive yield farming and creates a powerful, real-world demand sink for stablecoins.Furthermore, this data, meticulously tracked by firms like Artemis, provides regulators with their first clear window into the *velocity* of crypto in everyday use—a metric far more telling than static market cap figures. It offers a compelling counter-narrative to the skepticism of lawmakers, showing that digital assets are not merely vehicles for speculation but are actively being used for their intended purpose: as efficient mediums of exchange.Looking ahead, the competition between direct stablecoin transfers and card-based spending will define the next chapter of crypto economics. While peer-to-peer stablecoin transfers excel for large, cross-border settlements, cards dominate the micro-transaction, retail space.
#crypto cards
#stablecoins
#payments
#fintech
#blockchain analytics
#Artemis
#featured
