Stablecoin card spending hits record $1.17B in September

Stablecoin-linked cards processed $1.17 billion through Sept. 30, the highest monthly total recorded by Paymentscan. The total surpassed August’s completed figure even though the reported number of transactions declined.

Paymentscan recorded 11.0 million transactions in September, down from 11.07 million in August, which raised the implied average transaction size to about $107. Active on-chain addresses fell to 283,761 from 287,634. Paymentscan notes its active-address metric counts addresses rather than individual users and that some large programs do not report active-address figures on the platform.

On-chain-only activity across tracked networks totaled $788.9 million for September. Base, backed by Coinbase, led on-chain spending with $216.8 million, or about 27.5% of the on-chain total. Optimism processed $127.0 million and Solana $109.3 million. Stellar handled $69.3 million, Polygon $50.9 million, Ethereum $49.5 million and Plasma $38.3 million. Another $127.8 million was spread across 11 other chains. Paymentscan’s broader September total, which can include issuer-supplied off-chain clearing and settlement data depending on the program, was reported at about $1.13 billion.

At the card-program level, RedotPay led with $401.9 million in 30-day spending, an annualized run rate near $4.9 billion. EtherFi reported $127.4 million in 30-day volume (about $1.5 billion annualized), followed by KAST at $113.1 million (about $1.4 billion annualized). Karta and Wirex One reported $48.7 million and $46.9 million respectively, with annualized run rates near $593 million and $570 million.

Growth over the latest 30-day period varied across programs. RedotPay rose 3%, EtherFi increased 20.3%, KAST grew 11.1%, Karta gained 14.4% and Wirex One climbed 40.1%.

Cuy Sheffield, head of Visa’s crypto unit, described the market as being in “hyper growth mode” and said issuers are increasingly linking dollar-denominated tokens to existing card networks rather than waiting for merchants to accept crypto directly.

Tiger Research noted that while crypto-linked cards can use existing payment rails and avoid merchant acceptance hurdles, issuers still have limited control over salary deposits, recurring bill payments and other primary-account relationships. The firm highlighted that competition in the next phase will focus on whether card issuers can capture recurring flows in markets where banks and major payment firms currently dominate.