Sources: Visa and Mastercard pause plans for partnerships with crypto companies and some product launches until markets and the regulatory environment improve
U.S. payment giants Visa (V.N) and Mastercard (MA.N) are slamming the brakes on plans to forge new partnerships with crypto firms …
Context & Ripple Effects
This pause is the second retreat, not the first. In 2018, [[a:926402|JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Citigroup halted credit card transactions with crypto exchanges]]; by 2023 the networks themselves were unwinding issuer deals, with Mastercard and Binance ending their card partnership in Latin America and the Middle East after Visa stopped issuing Binance cards in Europe that July.
First-order effects
- Crypto firms lose their clearest route to mainstream card rails: new Visa and Mastercard partnerships and some planned product launches are frozen until market and regulatory conditions improve.
Second-order effects
- Existing card programs sit on borrowed time — the Binance wind-downs in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East show that once regulatory doubt sets in, the networks exit live partnerships, not just new ones.
Third-order effects
- The same regulatory-uncertainty logic is now hitting adjacent fintech bets: Visa shut its US open-banking business in 2025, and Chinese firms including Ant Group and JD.com paused Hong Kong stablecoin plans on regulator instruction — suggesting payment incumbents treat crypto exposure as contingent on regulators, not strategy.
The trend: Card networks and major fintechs are cycling crypto engagement up and down with the regulatory weather, keeping stablecoin ambitions alive only where regulators signal approval.