Stablecoin-funded card payments are on track to reach an annual volume of about $50 billion by 2028, according to a projection issued on Monday by stablecoin payments firm RedotPay. If borne out, the estimate would mark its transition from a niche crypto off-ramp into a measurable retail payment channel, particularly across emerging markets where dollar access remains constrained.
The figure was disclosed in a Reuters report and sits against a market that has already outpaced most consensus estimates set at the start of the year.
Current State of the Crypto Card Market
Monthly crypto card volume reached roughly $759 million in July, up about 2.5 times from $306 million a year earlier and off a base of less than $1 million when tracking began in October 2023, according to on-chain data compiled by PaymentsScan and published by venture firm a16z crypto.
A parallel dataset from PaymentsScan, cited by The Kobeissi Letter, put July spending at $1.03 billion across more than 10 million purchases, a 16% month-on-month increase and roughly 200% higher year on year. Average ticket size rose to about $86, from $59 in July 2025.
Dollar-backed stablecoins now dominate the segment. USDC accounts for around 58% of tracked card spending and USDT about 26%, up from roughly 48% and 7%, respectively, a year earlier. The euro-linked EURe token, which processed close to 88% of card volume in early 2024, has since fallen to about 2%.
Market Concentration and Data Caveats
The tracked market remains highly concentrated. Three programs, RedotPay, Ether.fi, and KAST, produced about 77% of the July total, generating $395.1 million, $100.3 million and $89.6 million, respectively.
Two data caveats accompany the headline figures:
- RedotPay’s contribution to the Paymentscan dataset is self-reported by the issuer rather than observed on-chain, meaning the single largest input into the sector’s monthly print is not independently verified.
- Ether.fi CEO Mike Silagadze also said that his firm’s $100.3 million figure represents card purchases and excludes roughly $30 million of fiat transfers.
- Both points underline that the segment still lacks standardized reporting, a gap that could affect the reliability of any forward projection.
Growth Drivers Behind the 2028 Forecast
Three structural tailwinds sit behind the projected growth path.
Issuer expansion. Visa disclosed in June that more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs are live or in development globally, spanning over 50 countries. Its own stablecoin settlement pilot reached a $7 billion annualized run rate in the most recent quarter, up 50% sequentially.
StraitsX, a Visa partner that helps crypto firms launch cards, said transaction volume on its infrastructure grew 40-fold between the fourth quarters of 2024 and 2025, with a 600% surge in lower-GDP markets. Card program expansions such as the March rollout, under which Visa and Bridge extended their stablecoin-linked card program to more than 100 countries, have widened distribution further.
Regulation. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in mid-2025, established the first federal framework for dollar-backed payment stablecoins and mandated 1:1 liquid reserves. One year in, the stablecoin market has grown from about $250 billion to more than $304 billion, with USDT and USDC together controlling close to 83% of supply, according to the GENIUS Act anniversary analysis published by The Crypto Times.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the US stablecoin market alone could exceed $2 trillion in capitalization by the end of 2028, a view echoed by Standard Chartered analysts.
Product surface area. Card spending is no longer the only monetization path. Visa laid out a full-stack stablecoin strategy on its Q3 fiscal 2026 earnings call, covering OpenUSD issuance, tokenized deposits and AI-driven agentic commerce. Several issuers have also moved into merchant acquiring, expanding the addressable revenue pool beyond interchange.
Risks and Constraints on the Projection
Alongside the growth drivers, several structural constraints could slow the runway to $50 billion.
Concentration risk. With three issuers producing roughly 77% of tracked volume, a single regulatory action, custody incident or product outage at the top of the market could distort the entire growth series.
Legal and regulatory overhang for top issuers. RedotPay confirmed earlier in August that its planned $1 billion US initial public offering has been postponed and is unlikely to take place before 2027, as it addresses a roughly $470 million lawsuit filed in Hong Kong by Binance affiliates, alongside a parallel action in Singapore. The company has said it recently obtained a US money transmitter license and is preparing a US product launch.
Scale versus incumbents. Even at $50 billion in 2028, stablecoin card spending would remain a small share of the roughly $16 trillion Visa alone processes annually, and would sit inside the broader stablecoin transaction total, which Chainalysis pegged at $28 trillion in 2025.
What the Forecast Signals for the Sector
For analysts covering digital payments, the projection is best read as a directional marker rather than a market-sizing exercise. Publishing a specific 2028 figure, midway through active litigation and after a postponed listing, sets a public benchmark against which future quarterly prints can be measured.
The commercial question is one of capture rather than displacement. If dollar-linked stablecoin supply continues expanding on the trajectory implied by GENIUS Act reserve requirements and by Standard Chartered’s forecasts, the segment’s ceiling will be determined less by consumer demand and more by how a small set of vertically integrated issuers, spanning issuance, program management and settlement, share the resulting interchange, FX spread and reserve yield.
The trajectory will also depend on whether US, EU and Asian regulatory frameworks continue to converge, or begin to fragment around jurisdictional stablecoin licensing.
For now, the data confirms a clear trend: stablecoins are increasingly moving from wallets into point-of-sale environments, and the volume growth curve remains steep. Whether it steepens further, enough to validate a $50 billion print by 2028, will be determined by monthly volume, issuer diversification, and the pace at which the sector’s reporting standards mature.
Also Read: Blockchain Association Says Proposed Stablecoin ID Rules Go Beyond the GENIUS Act
