Tangem Pay Crypto Card: 40% of Demand from Latin America Amid Geographic Gaps

Swiss self-custodial wallet provider Tangem has launched its first physical Visa card through Tangem Pay, but the company says access to crypto-linked payment cards still falls short of global demand. On Wednesday, Tangem announced an initial release limited to 5,000 cards, enabling in-store and online purchases plus ATM withdrawals funded directly from a self-custodial wallet. Users can also move funds back to their wallet if the card is suspended or closed. The card introduces USDC cashback of 1% for Basic users and 2% for Plus users on eligible purchases, and the company plans to showcase the first physical units at Token2049 in Singapore.

Geographic data reveals a stark mismatch between where demand is strongest and where cards are actually available. According to Andrey Ilinskiy, head of Tangem Pay, more than 40% of Tangem Pay payments originate in Latin America and over 30% in the United States. Yet Tangem cannot currently ship its cards to roughly 20 countries, including China, Russia, North Korea, and Palestine. Ilinskiy told Cointelegraph that "it is where demand, regulation, banking infrastructure and card-issuing requirements happen to line up — and today, those maps do not always overlap."

Tangem attributes the geographic restrictions to a combination of Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, sanctions, local banking rules, and card-issuing compliance, rather than crypto-specific regulations. The company argues that the same conditions driving demand for crypto as an alternative financial rail can simultaneously make regulated card issuance more difficult. "Self-custody removes one major boundary: there is no custodian standing between the user and their assets. But when those assets enter a regulated payment network, another set of boundaries appears," Tangem said. The expansion comes as US stablecoin adoption could accelerate with bank-like safeguards, per a separate Visa survey, underscoring growing mainstream payment interest in digital assets.