Mercuryo and Mastercard launch new crypto payment card

Mastercard can now count on a new partner in the cryptoasset payment market, Mercuryo. This provider of crypto payment infrastructures in Europe has just announced the launch of Spend, a payment solution in the form of a Mastercard debit card. It enables crypto payments to be made in the physical world, helping to democratize this market.

FACTS

• Spend is presented by Mercuryo and MasterCard as a debit card payment solution enabling its holders to spend their crypto-currencies directly from their wallet, in physical stores.
• In this way, Spend works like a conventional payment card, but is attached to a crypto wallet rather than a conventional deposit account.
• In addition to its physical form, Spend can also be integrated with Apple Pay and Google Pay services.
• In terms of fees, there are charges for using Spend:
• 1.60 euro for issuance,
• 1 euro for monthly maintenance,
• 0.95% exit fee for conversions.
• The new card is available to the more than 7 million users of Mercuryo's crypto-currency purchase services.
• After Europe, Mercuryo plans to roll out Spend in other regions of the world at a later date.

CHALLENGES

• Democratize crypto payments: The launch of Spend should help to democratize cryptocurrency payments, as the new MasterCard card can be used across the network of over 100 million MasterCard-accepting merchants.
• Making crypto-assets more convenient: Relying on a traditional means of payment to re-enter the physical world represents a practical way of breaking down the barriers to using this type of dematerialized currency for everyday purchases.
• Meeting a growing need: More than 500 million people now own crypto-currencies, and this number could double by the end of 2025. In Europe, around 49.2 million people were crypto-currency holders in 2024, up 60% on the previous year

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• The deployment of this new payment solution on the European market underlines a fundamental trend in the transition of cryptocurrencies from the purely virtual world to physical commerce.
• One initiative after another is giving substance to crypto-assets, enabling them to be used to pay for purchases in the real world. The latest examples include the Lyzi and GardenLab initiative in France.
• The fact that MasterCard is now positioning itself on the European market underlines the importance of this trend. This is not the payment giant's first initiative on the subject, as it has also just signed a partnership around its crypto-card program with Wirex, a British crypto-currency platform.
• Visa, for its part, is already a partner of Wirex as well as Coinbase on the same market.