Opera’s MiniPay launches Visa debit card for stablecoin spending
Opera’s MiniPay launched a Visa debit card this week for users in parts of Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Simple idea, useful product: people spend stablecoins from the wallet, and merchants still get paid in local currency. Why does this matter? Because in markets where dollars matter, card access is patchy, and bank transfers can still take too long, the boring checkout layer is the whole game.
The card runs on Gnosis Pay’s infrastructure and uses Visa’s network at checkout. MiniPay is Opera’s stablecoin wallet, built on Celo. Since its 2023 launch, it has activated more than 16 million wallets across 65 countries, with Africa among its main markets. Users can add the card to Apple Pay and Google Pay. Eligible users get cashback in USDt, $USDC, and Tether Gold. I’ll be honest: that last bit feels slightly absurd, but it is also exactly the kind of perk that makes a crypto debit card feel native to its audience.
This is part of a pattern that is getting hard to wave away. In 2025, Bitso said dollar-backed stablecoins had passed Bitcoin as the most purchased crypto asset among its Latin American users, and $USDC and USDT together made up 40% of purchases. Institutions are shifting too. Bitso reported an 81% year over year increase in stablecoin transaction volume among institutional clients in the first half of 2026. Banks and licensed payment providers accounted for more than 60% of new business customers in that period. Not fringe. Payment plumbing.
Africa is seeing the same pressure, although I would not overstate it as one clean regional story. Circle partnered with African fintech Sasai in March to add $USDC to cross border payments. Last week, Ripple acquired a stake in Flutterwave, the $3.3 billion fintech operating in 35 African countries, with plans to add RLUSD and other blockchain payment tools. Most crypto guides say stablecoins are about speculation leaving exchanges. That is only half right. Where bank wires are expensive, slow, or clumsy, stablecoins can do boring but useful things: send money. Hold dollars. Pay someone. The total value of stablecoins in circulation is now about $315 billion, up from roughly $250 billion a year ago, according to DefiLlama.
My read: this is less about crypto hype than distribution. A Nasdaq-listed browser company is putting a Visa card on top of a stablecoin wallet, which gives stablecoins a path into regular spending instead of leaving them stuck on trading screens. It also says plenty about dollar demand in countries dealing with currency swings. People do not need a decentralization speech when rent is due. They need money that holds value and works at checkout. Counter to the usual advice, the exciting part here is not the chain. It is the card.
What this means
Stablecoins are moving out of the crypto exchange role and into something closer to everyday money, at least for some users. That could raise demand for USDT and $USDC if MiniPay and similar cards turn wallet balances into real spending. Is this overkill for a wallet product? No, because the card changes what a balance can do. It also gives investors better numbers to track: users and card transactions first, then payment volume and retention. Fewer vibes. More receipts.
Investors should watch how quickly these cards move beyond the first supported markets. MiniPay’s 16 million wallets across 65 countries matters, but transaction volume matters more. A wallet that never spends is just a headline. Regulation is the other big piece. The Bank of England recently eased stablecoin rules with a 40 billion pound issuance cap, and other regulators could tighten or loosen their own rules. Yes, this slightly contradicts the distribution-first point above, but only slightly: cards can create usage, while regulators decide how large that usage is allowed to get. The next useful numbers should come from Opera and Bitso’s Q3 2024 reports, assuming they give enough detail to show whether people are using these products day to day.