Join us as we look at what crypto card vendors actually shipped, announced, and got approved for. This was a busy week - here is what happened.
Mastercard Puts 85 Companies in One Room
The biggest story this week was not from a card vendor - it was from the network itself. Mastercard launched a formal crypto partner program pulling together 85+ companies across custody, stablecoins, exchanges, compliance, banking, and card issuance.
The list includes names like MetaMask, Kraken, Binance, Consensys, Fireblocks, and Nuvei. These are not speculative partnerships. This is Mastercard building coordinated infrastructure so that a stablecoin sitting in your wallet can flow through the same rails your grocery purchase uses today.
If you have been waiting for a signal that card networks see crypto payments as real plumbing and not a side experiment, this is it.
RedotPay: Two Licenses, One Week
RedotPay quietly picked up regulatory approvals in two countries within days of each other.
On March 12, they announced a Money Services Business license in Canada. Four days later, a VASP registration in Argentina. Both allow RedotPay to legally operate fiat on/off-ramps and crypto-to-local-currency spending in those markets.
Argentina is particularly interesting. The country has one of the highest crypto adoption rates in the world, driven by persistent inflation and a population that already thinks in parallel currencies. A licensed crypto card that lets you hold stablecoins and spend pesos locally is not a novelty there - it is a practical tool.
Canada adds institutional credibility. RedotPay now holds licenses across multiple continents, which matters for a card issuer positioning itself as globally available.
Crypto.com Expands in Asia
Crypto.com made two Asia-focused moves this week.
First, they partnered with KG Inicis, the largest payment gateway in South Korea. The integration enables foreign travelers to pay at Korean merchants using Crypto.com Pay. KG Inicis processes payments for a massive share of Korean e-commerce and physical retail, so this is not a small integration.
Second, Apple Pay went live for Crypto.com Visa cardholders in Singapore. If you are holding a Crypto.com card in Singapore, you can now tap to pay with your phone instead of carrying the physical card. Small quality-of-life improvement, but it matters for daily usability.
MetaMask Integrates Polymarket
MetaMask launched prediction market trading powered by Polymarket directly inside the wallet. The announcement pulled over 500,000 views on X.
This is not directly a card feature, but it tells you where MetaMask is heading. They are turning the wallet into a financial operating system - swap, bridge, stake, predict, and now spend with the MetaMask card. Every new feature they add inside the wallet is another reason for users to keep funds there instead of moving them to an exchange.
The more people keep in their MetaMask wallet, the more they will spend from it.
Tria Shows Actual Numbers
Most vendor tweets this week were memes, giveaways, and "GM" posts. Tria did something different - they posted real metrics:
- $380M+ in futures trading volume on Hyperliquid
- $3.9M+ in card spending in a single week
- $10M+ sitting in Earn Vaults
The card spending number is the one that matters here. $3.9M per week means their cardholders are actively using the product for real purchases, not just signing up and forgetting about it. For a relatively young card program, that is meaningful traction.
xPlace Ships a Major Update
xPlace pushed a significant Android update with features that change how their cashback works:
- Repeatable cashback challenges: Make 5 purchases of $25+ in a week and your cashback doubles (up to 4%) for the next 3 days
- Savings milestones: Hold $1,000 and earn 5,000 XP per month. Hold $100,000 and earn 400,000 XP per month
- All of this feeds into their upcoming xpSOL airdrop
The gamification angle is getting more sophisticated. Instead of a flat cashback rate, xPlace is rewarding spending velocity and deposit size with multipliers. It is a different model than most cards, and worth watching to see if it drives real engagement.
Quick Hits
- Ready celebrated one year since launch by announcing they have paid $1.5M in total STRK cashback to cardholders. Not bad for an EEA/UK-only card on Starknet.
- Gnosis Pay partnered with GreenCart to bring cashback and gift card rewards to cardholders.
- Uphold launched Flexible Staking with weekly rewards and no lock-ups. US only for now.
- COCA is running a tier upgrade promotion - upgrade to Premium+ or Elite by March 31 for a $120-$200 bonus credited in July.
Overview
The theme this week is infrastructure getting real. Mastercard coordinating 85 companies. RedotPay collecting licenses. Crypto.com plugging into Korea's payment backbone. All of it already live, not an announcement of an announcement.
On the product side, Tria and Ready both shared actual spending and cashback data, which is refreshing in a space where most vendors prefer to talk about what is coming rather than what is working. And xPlace is experimenting with cashback mechanics that go beyond the standard flat percentage.
If a vendor you follow shipped something we missed, let us know.
