Self-Custody Card, Geofenced Planet: Tangem's Visa Lands in 5,000 Wallets, 20 Countries Left Out 🌍

Swiss crypto wallet provider Tangem announced its first physical Visa card on Wednesday, an initial release limited to 5,000 units and intended for in-store and online purchases plus ATM withdrawals. The company said users can fund the card directly from their self-custodial wallet and move funds back to the wallet if the card is suspended or closed. The company plans to showcase the first physical Tangem Pay cards at Token2049 in Singapore.

Tangem told Cointelegraph that it cannot currently deliver physical Tangem Pay cards to roughly 20 countries, including China, Russia, North Korea and Palestine. The restrictions do not necessarily mirror rules governing crypto itself, according to the company, as Know Your Customer requirements, sanctions, local banking rules and card-issuing compliance can all determine where a crypto-linked card is available. "The same conditions that can create demand for crypto as an alternative financial rail can make regulated card issuance more difficult," Tangem said.

More than 40% of Tangem Pay payments come from Latin America and over 30% from the US, while physical card availability remains restricted in some markets, the company said. "It is not simply a question of where people want crypto cards," Andrey Ilinskiy, head of Tangem Pay, told Cointelegraph, adding: "It is where demand, regulation, banking infrastructure and card-issuing requirements happen to line up — and today, those maps do not always overlap." "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," the company added.

Tangem is also introducing cashback in Circle's USDC stablecoin, at rates of 1% for Basic users and 2% for Plus users on eligible purchases. The rollout comes against a broader backdrop in which US stablecoin adoption could surge with bank-like protections, according to a separate Visa survey. For Tangem, the next checkpoint is the Token2049 Singapore floor, where the first cardholders are expected to put plastic to merchant.