Crypto Cards: $1.17 Billion Spent in One Month

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics," Mark Twain liked to repeat. The chart of crypto card payments circulating since October 6 does not lie. It just deserves to be read twice.

Indeed, The Kobeissi Letter reports $12.5 billion in payments made by crypto card, up 140% since January. The figure is accurate, but it adds everything that has been spent since the beginning of the survey, ensuring a record every morning. The monthly amount is more modest and much more telling, as stablecoin payment applications multiply, with OKX leading the way. Key points of this article:

• The cumulative amount of payments by crypto cards has reached $12.5 billion, but this figure includes all expenditures since the start of the tracking, guaranteeing a constant increase.
• In September, stablecoin-backed cards processed approximately $1.17 billion in transactions, marking a monthly record despite a slight decrease in active addresses.

Crypto Cards: $12.5 Billion in Payments, But Cumulative

Look at the title of the chart. It states "Total Stablecoin Card Payment Volume," which is the total volume of payments made by stablecoin cards. The source is PaymentScan, an analysis site that tracks about thirty card programs on the blockchain.

In its message from October 6, The Kobeissi Letter highlights two percentages, +140% since the beginning of the year and +247% compared to October 2025. The calculation is correct, as the bars go from $3.6 billion to $12.5 billion. None ever decrease, and a total that never goes down is a cumulative figure. Your odometer also breaks its record with every trip, without anyone thinking of issuing a press release. Cumulative volume of payments by crypto cards in stablecoins, from October 2025 to September 2026. Source: PaymentScan

Stablecoin Cards: $1.17 Billion Spent in September

The real thermometer is monthly. In September, stablecoin-backed cards (these cryptocurrencies pegged to a traditional currency) processed approximately $1.17 billion in purchases according to PaymentScan. This is the highest in the series.

Be careful what this amount covers. It is the expanded total, which adds off-chain data provided by card issuers to the visible flows on the blockchain. The strictly on-chain share is around $788.9 million. PaymentScan counts 11 million transactions in September, compared to 11.07 million in August.

The growth remains solid. No monthly figures are published for the end of 2025, but the gap between the bars on the chart gives a rhythm of about $0.5 billion per month at that time. This is a home calculation, not an official data. It is enough to say that the pace has more than doubled in less than a year.

The principle is simple. You pay with an ordinary Visa or Mastercard, your balance in stablecoins is debited, and the merchant receives euros or dollars without seeing any crypto. Three players dominate over thirty days: RedotPay ($401.9 million), Ether.fi (127.4 million), and KAST (113.1 million).

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Crypto Card: Real Growth, Still a Tiny Scale

At Visa, crypto head Cuy Sheffield speaks of a phase of "hyper growth." So be it. At this rate, crypto cards weigh about $14 billion per year, or $1.17 billion multiplied by twelve, while Visa and Mastercard each process thousands of billions of dollars over the same period.

One detail tempers the enthusiasm. Active addresses slightly decreased in September, to 283,761 from 287,634 a month earlier, while amounts were increasing. Don’t read too quickly into this a loss of users. PaymentScan counts addresses and not people, and its counter is incomplete since RedotPay, the largest program, does not publish its figures.

The Kobeissi Letter finally cites a 55% increase over a quarter in activated cards at Jupiter Spend, driven by QR code payments. PaymentScan does not detail this figure.

The crypto card progresses by borrowing the rails of finance it was supposed to replace, and this is probably what makes it usable at the baker's. Its adoption will be read in monthly expenditures rather than in a total that inflates by itself. For now, they hold an average basket of about $107, the price of a full grocery shopping.

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