Marqeta partners with zerohash for stablecoin cards: here's what it means for card programs

Fiat and crypto have run on separate tracks for years. Stablecoin-backed cards are where they finally converge.

For card programs, this isn't just another feature to add to your product suite. It's a chance to build the bridge between two financial worlds, and shape what card issuing looks like next.

The concept is simple: the cardholder sees a spendable balance on their digital wallet and can use their card as any other card. That balance is funded against USDC or another stablecoin currency rather than dollars, but nothing about how they spend it changes. When the cardholder swipes, the merchant gets paid in ordinary fiat, and the transaction clears exactly like any other card transaction. The cardholder never has to think about it.

The part that matters most is that the cardholder doesn’t need a crypto wallet. A stablecoin-backed card works like any other card in their wallet, spending stablecoin balances without any extra steps.

A few real-world examples bring this to life:

In a country where the local currency can lose value fast, holding onto what you earn is a real challenge. Inflation or currency swings can quietly erode a paycheck before it's even spent.  A stablecoin-backed card lets people hold their earnings in a stable, fiat-backed balance and spend it like any normal card, no matter where they are. Plus, when money comes in from abroad, it doesn't sit for days working its way through correspondent banks that only run during business hours. It's ready to spend in near real-time.

Paying someone in another country usually means slow wires, steep fees, or setting up a whole new banking relationship. Multiply that across a marketplace paying workers in dozens of countries, and the friction compounds fast. A stablecoin-linked card flips the model. The business pays the same way for all geographies and each worker or vendor spends what they receive like a typical card, without a crypto wallet or crypto knowledge required. The same applies when a business pays its own bills. With money held as a digital dollar balance, payment can go out right when it's due, instead of being sent days early to allow for bank transfer clearing

Across both examples, legacy friction of conversion delays, FX fees, waiting on local banking infrastructure or the challenges posed by non stable currency gets replaced by instant, stable spending power. That's not a small tweak. It's a real shift in how money moves, for businesses and consumers alike.     

Getting stablecoin-backed cards into the hands of many is exactly what we’re trying to do with our newly announced partnership with zerohash, a leading infrastructure platform for crypto, stablecoin, and tokenized asset capabilities.

Under the partnership, zerohash's stablecoin infrastructure, including custody, compliance, and liquidity for on-chain money movement, integrates directly into Marqeta's card issuing platform. Marqeta continues to handle what we do best, such as card issuance, network and bank relationships, risk & compliance, and a comprehensive suite of program management and value added services. Together, that means our customers can embed stablecoin spending into new or existing card programs without rebuilding their core systems or taking on stablecoin complexity themselves.

Our customers are building the next generation of financial products, and that requires new ways to manage and move money. This integration gives a full solution for multinational, stablecoin-backed card programs that is compliant and ready for global scale from day one.

In February 2026, for the first time ever, monthly stablecoin transaction volume hit $7.2 trillion, surpassing the U.S. ACH network's $6.8 trillion over the same period.¹ This shift is a clear signal that the way money moves is changing, and card issuing is one of the clearest ways to let people take advantage of that shift without changing how they actually spend.  

It's easy to assume that shift only matters for crypto companies. It doesn't. The beauty of our partnership with zerohash is that it brings the value of stablecoins to a more consumable model for crypto and non-crypto companies alike. 

Whether you're a trading platform whose users already live in digital dollars, or a traditional issuer that's never touched crypto but wants to offer it, the on-ramp is the same: no new infrastructure to build and no need to become a blockchain company to offer a blockchain-powered product.

The infrastructure now exists. What’s left is deciding whether to use it or watch a competitor do it instead.