Stablecoin card spend is growing 100% year over year, Rain exec says
Stablecoin-based cards could soon account for double-digit percentages of all cards in some Latin American markets, John Timoney, head of strategic partnerships at Rain, a payments infrastructure platform, said.
Retail stablecoin card spend grew about 105% to 106% over the past year, Timoney said during a panel at Consensus Miami 2026. Cards are physical or virtual, allowing users to spend stablecoins such as tether , developed with Mastercard and Baanx, lets users spend from a self-custodial wallet while assets are converted into fiat at the time of purchase.
“If all we’re doing is replicating the Apple Pay experience, I think it’s going to be okay, but I don’t think we’re going to overtake,” Hernandez said.
Paying in crypto
That view drew a challenge from GoMining CEO Mark Zalan, who argued that stablecoins and card infrastructure add unnecessary intermediaries to crypto payments.
Zalan said users want to hold bitcoin in self-custody and spend it without converting into stablecoins or relying on off-ramps. He described conversion layers and payment intermediaries as “little helpers” taking small fees from each transaction.
“Protection is another word for rent-seeking,” Zalan said, referring to the consumer protections embedded in card transactions.
Timoney pushed back, saying payments are not only money movement. Card networks also handle chargebacks, merchant risk and other protections consumers and merchants expect.
Rau made a similar point. Most consumers were “socialized with deposit insurance” and chargeback protection, he said.
“Payment is more than moving money from A to B,” Rau said. “From a consumer perspective, the experience of payment is interoperability, safety and security.”