While the market debates whether the 'bear has arrived' after Trump's new tariffs on Europe, a quiet shift of much larger scale is occurring: stablecoins are becoming the payment standard, and crypto cards are their main conduit into everyday life.
The Artemis report shows a simple reality: crypto cards have stopped being a 'toy for traders'. They have become the payment infrastructure.
1️⃣ Numbers that cannot be ignored
According to Artemis:
the monthly volume of payments by crypto cards has increased from about $100 million at the beginning of 2023
to $1.5 billion by the end of 2025
this is 106% CAGR since 2023
annualized run rate — over $18 billion
And most importantly: this volume has almost caught up with P2P transfers of stablecoins (~$19 billion), which showed minimal growth during the same period.
2️⃣ Why cards are taking off while P2P is growing slowly
Because cards solved the main problem of crypto payments:
👉 businesses do not want to integrate crypto.
Merchants do not need a new POS, new legal, new risks.
They need one thing: for the customer to pay as usual.
And crypto cards do just that:
payment for the store looks like a regular card transaction
on the user side — these are costs of stablecoins
That is, this is a bridge that does not require the world to “become crypto-native.”
3️⃣ This is more important than whether Amazon will accept USDT or not
Because mass adoption rarely looks like a revolution.
More often it looks like:
💳 old rails (Visa/Mastercard)
vs.
💵 new money (stablecoins) = ✅ normal life without fanaticism
Thus, crypto becomes part of the economy: not through ideology, but through convenience.
4️⃣ What does this mean for the crypto market
This is a signal that stablecoins:
are coming out of the exchange “waiting mode”
are becoming a consumer payment instrument
are creating real demand for digital liquidity
And this perfectly aligns with what institutions are already recognizing: stablecoins are a bridge between traditional finance and the digital world.
Conclusion from @MoonMan567
Crypto cards are not “another product.”
This is proof that the integration of crypto into the real economy is already happening — just without the fireworks.
And if someone is still waiting for adoption to look like “a mass transition of stores to USDT,” the market responded more simply:
💳 First — the card.
Then — the habit.
Then — a new financial system.
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