π¨ JUST IN: @Marqeta partners with @zerohashx for stablecoin-linked cards
Marqeta is bringing stablecoins into everyday card spending, with zerohash providing the stablecoin infrastructure. Stablecoin-linked cards will be usable at tens of millions of merchants worldwide.
Any Marqeta customer can now embed stablecoin payments into new and existing card programs without rebuilding core systems or taking on new regulatory burden.
I like this because, Marqeta has a lot of existing scaled customers who might want this feature. Think about Square, Western Union, DoorDash, Uber, Affirm Klarna and Ramp. Some of them already have stablecoin products.
The timing makes complete sense.
Visa ran 130+ stablecoin-linked card programs across 50+ countries last year and expects that number to roughly double in 2026. Volume grew 319% to ~$5.2bn.
Tiny next to Visa's $14 trillion, but growing faster than anything else on the network. Consistently.
And the demand is genuinely there. Companies like Kast let people in Argentina, Nigeria or the Philippines receive dollars and spend them directly. Netflix, Claude, flights. No currency switch, no local bank account required.
What I wonder about is whether Marqeta can compete on the economics.
The breakout player in this category is Rain. $1.95bn valuation, reportedly ~38x volume growth in 2025, and a structural edge: it's a Visa principal member operating from Puerto Rico, so it issues directly and keeps interchange the traditional stack splits three ways (sponsor bank, program manager, processor).
Marqeta in the US requires a bank underneath. That bank takes a cut.
So the fight in stablecoin cards comes down to this.
Marqeta has distribution: thousands of live card programs that can switch this on tomorrow.
Rain has economics: more interchange per swipe to fund rewards and win issuers.
Classic innovators dilemma.
Marqeta is bringing stablecoins into everyday card spending, with zerohash providing the stablecoin infrastructure. Stablecoin-linked cards will be usable at tens of millions of merchants worldwide.
Any Marqeta customer can now embed stablecoin payments into new and existing card programs without rebuilding core systems or taking on new regulatory burden.
I like this because, Marqeta has a lot of existing scaled customers who might want this feature. Think about Square, Western Union, DoorDash, Uber, Affirm Klarna and Ramp. Some of them already have stablecoin products.
The timing makes complete sense.
Visa ran 130+ stablecoin-linked card programs across 50+ countries last year and expects that number to roughly double in 2026. Volume grew 319% to ~$5.2bn.
Tiny next to Visa's $14 trillion, but growing faster than anything else on the network. Consistently.
And the demand is genuinely there. Companies like Kast let people in Argentina, Nigeria or the Philippines receive dollars and spend them directly. Netflix, Claude, flights. No currency switch, no local bank account required.
What I wonder about is whether Marqeta can compete on the economics.
The breakout player in this category is Rain. $1.95bn valuation, reportedly ~38x volume growth in 2025, and a structural edge: it's a Visa principal member operating from Puerto Rico, so it issues directly and keeps interchange the traditional stack splits three ways (sponsor bank, program manager, processor).
Marqeta in the US requires a bank underneath. That bank takes a cut.
So the fight in stablecoin cards comes down to this.
Marqeta has distribution: thousands of live card programs that can switch this on tomorrow.
Rain has economics: more interchange per swipe to fund rewards and win issuers.
Classic innovators dilemma.
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