MA
V
The boring part of crypto just got interesting
Crypto still loves a flashy headline, but this one is more like the plumbing behind the party: card payment volumes tied to crypto have jumped hard, climbing to about $7.8 billion cumulatively and more than doubling monthly from $271 million in May 2025 to $656 million in May 2026. That’s not meme-coin behavior. That’s real transaction flow.
Stablecoins are doing the heavy lifting
According to the Paymentscan data highlighted by The Kobeissi Letter, the big winner here is stablecoins — specifically the ones people actually use to settle stuff instead of just staring at them in a wallet like a digital Beanie Baby collection.
- Tether’s USDT handled about 72% of the total payment volume
- USDC chipped in roughly 18%
- The surge accelerated after the GENIUS Act became law last July, giving dollar-pegged stablecoins a more formal U.S. regulatory lane
That matters because stablecoins aren’t just living in crypto-native corners anymore. They’re creeping into everyday payments, which is the kind of adoption story that can outlast the latest Bitcoin mood swing.
Visa and Mastercard are in the splash zone
Visa was the dominant payment network in the data with more than 90% market share, and Mastercard followed behind it. Translation: if crypto cards keep growing, the old-school card rails may end up being the toll booths for a very new kind of traffic.
For investors, that’s the interesting twist. This isn’t about whether crypto prices are hot this week. It’s about whether stablecoins are quietly turning into a settlement layer with actual consumer use. Big picture: if that trend keeps accelerating, the winners may be the payments giants that already own the rails.