Stablecoin-based cards could soon account for double-digit percentages of all cards in some Latin American markets, said John Timoney, head of strategic partnerships at Rain, a payments infrastructure platform.
Retail spending on stablecoin cards grew between 105% and 106% over the past year, Timoney said during a panel at Consensus Miami 2026. The cards are physical or virtual, allowing users to spend stablecoins like Tether. and USD Coin (USDC) directly from a digital wallet for everyday purchases.
Rain provides stablecoin infrastructure for card issuers and recently became a core member of Mastercard, allowing it to offer credit and prepaid cards on the Mastercard network. Rain and Mastercard are also exploring on-chain settlement for some card program flows using regulated stablecoins.
The company is not trying to replace card networks, Timoney said. It is trying to make stablecoin balances usable through existing networks that already reach merchants around the world.
“Card networks for decades have attracted hundreds of millions of merchants,” Timoney said. “Rain explicitly didn’t want to reinvent the wheel.”
Spending patterns are also increasingly difficult to distinguish from ordinary card activity, he said. Stablecoin card users spend across typical merchant categories, including large global merchants and everyday purchases.
“There’s nothing too remarkable about that,” Timoney said. “And I think that’s what’s remarkable.”
Despite their growth, stablecoin cards represent less than 1% of global card spending, Consensys senior vice president of business development Ray Hernandez said during the same panel.
Crypto Card Adoption
Latin America has become one of the clearest markets for adoption, Timoney added. Stablecoin cards are used in custodial and non-custodial wallets, crypto exchanges, and products that abstract the stablecoin experience from users.
The merchant still receives fiat money in many of those transactions. This separates card-based stablecoin spending from direct cryptocurrency payments, where merchants may have to manage cryptocurrency settlement, volatility, and transaction risk more directly.
The biggest change may be behind the scenes. Rain says stablecoin settlement allows card programs to settle on weekends and holidays, reducing trapped capital by more than 40% in some cases.
Traditional card programs often need to pre-fund network obligations or borrow from networks when banking barriers are closed. Stablecoins can move outside of banks’ cut-off times.
That can make the rewards and economics of the cards more flexible, Timoney said. Capital that would otherwise remain idle can be used in other parts of the business.
Mastercard has delved deeper into stablecoin payments. Earlier this year, Binance, PayPal and Ripple joined Mastercard’s broader blockchain payments push. That push prompted the payments giant to agree to buy stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK for up to $1.8 billion.
Christian Rau, senior vice president of digital assets and blockchain at Mastercard, said widespread adoption will depend on making the technology invisible to consumers.
“Other than the people in this room, no one says ‘oh, I just made a chain payment,'” Rau said. “The normal benchmark these days is having a card on your iPhone or Android. You tap it and the money is gone.”
The consumer-facing proposition is not a chain payment, he added. It is the ability to spend any asset in real time, with the network protections that users already expect.
Hernández said the next stage depends on easier on-ramps, abstract network fees and more local payment infrastructure. Current crypto card users are still mostly crypto-native consumers who already own assets on-chain.
MetaMask is expanding its card strategy around self-custody, Hernandez said. The MetaMask card, developed with Mastercard and Baanx, allows users to spend from a self-custodial wallet while assets are converted to fiat at the time of purchase.
“If all we’re doing is replicating the Apple Pay experience, I think we’ll be fine, but I don’t think we’re going to top it,” Hernandez said.
Pay in crypto
That vision prompted a challenge from GoMining CEO Mark Zalan, who argued that stablecoins and card infrastructure add unnecessary intermediaries to crypto payments.
Zalan said users want to keep bitcoins in their own custody and spend them without converting them to stablecoins or relying on off-ramps. He described conversion layers and payment intermediaries as “little helpers” that charge small fees for each transaction.
“Protection is another word for rent-seeking,” Zalan said, referring to the consumer protections built into card transactions.
Timoney responded, saying the payments are not just the movement of money. Card networks also handle chargebacks, merchant risks, and other protections that consumers and merchants have come to expect.
Rau made a similar observation. Most consumers were “socialized to deposit insurance” and chargeback protection, he said.
“Payment is more than moving money from A to B,” Rau said. “From a consumer perspective, the payment experience is about interoperability, security and safety.”
