Whop Enters Stablecoin Payments With New Card Launch

Whop’s new card: Yesterday, U.S. online marketplace Whop announced the launch of Whop Cards. Powered by leading stablecoin-linked card issuer Rain, the cards give businesses and freelancers on Whop 5% cashback on selected purchases and let them pay globally wherever Visa is accepted using their Whop balances.

Why it matters: With more than 40,000 businesses across 145 countries generating $4 billion in annualized earnings, Whop is one of the world’s largest online platforms for creators and developers selling digital products. With the launch of Whop Cards, Whop becomes one of the first non-crypto-native companies to offer a stablecoin-linked card, a category that has seen tremendous growth over the past 12 months.

• "Crypto exchanges and stablecoin-native apps were the early adopters, as you'd expect, but the faster-growing segment today is traditional businesses launching their first stablecoin solution. Companies that had no prior exposure to blockchain infrastructure are coming to us because they want the efficiency, not because they're making a philosophical bet on the technology," Farooq Malik, Co-founder and CEO of Rain, told Blockstories.

Monthly crypto card volumes grew 150% in the last 12 months, now sitting at $670 million. Source: Paymentscan

Crypto-powered everything app: The card launch also fits into Whop’s broader push to become a full-fledged fintech platform powered by crypto. In February, Whop raised $200 million from Tether and integrated the stablecoin issuer’s Wallet Development Kit, enabling stablecoin payments for its more than 18 million users. A month later, it launched Whop Treasury, allowing users to earn passive yield on their Whop balances through Aave. Now, Whop Cards extend that strategy into global payments.

Stablecoin-linked vs. fiat: The core difference between stablecoin-linked and traditional fiat card programs is settlement. In a traditional setup, companies usually need to maintain a pre-funded balance with their issuing bank, while card network settlement typically takes two business days. Because of that lag, companies often keep three to five days of projected spending volume in reserve, tying up capital that could otherwise be deployed elsewhere.

A better settlement model: Providers such as Rain allow card issuers to fund their card programs with stablecoin balances and settle with the underlying card networks on a daily basis, including on weekends and holidays. As funds move every day, partners no longer need to pre-fund several days of expected spending, resulting in lower idle capital and faster reconciliation.

• "That daily settlement cycle means our partners can operate with reserve requirements up to 60% lower than a traditional program. That's real capital efficiency, and for a scaling company, it matters," Malik added.

Global from day one: Another benefit of this structure is that platforms do not need to hold funds across different correspondent banks in every jurisdiction where they want to run a card program. That creates a more scalable way for fintechs and digital platforms to launch card programs across markets.

• "Historically, global card issuance meant a multi-year buildout with country-by-country compliance, pre-funded balances scattered across the correspondent banking system, and high reserve requirements. With Rain, a company can launch a global program from day one," Malik noted.

Outlook: These benefits suggest Whop is unlikely to remain a non-crypto-native outlier for long. As Malik told Blockstories, Rain is already seeing interest from traditional fintechs around the world, each looking to use stablecoin-linked cards for different parts of their payment stack:

• "The segments we're most excited about right now are traditional fintechs in the US, LATAM, and the EU that are rewiring their underlying payment pipes, remittance platforms that want to cut costs on cross-border flows, marketplaces that need to pay out creators and contractors around the world, and B2B neobanks that are building spending products for their business customers."

Chuk Okpalugo is Editor & Podcast host at This Week in Fintech and former Product Lead at stablecoin issuer Paxos.

How are stablecoin-linked cards reshaping the role of payment networks like Visa and Mastercard, and how could that role evolve as adoption grows?

Visa and Mastercard are often reduced to “money movement,” but their role is much broader. They provide global acceptance, network rules, governance, fraud controls, dispute frameworks, incentives, and trust mediation between issuers, acquirers, merchants, processors, and consumers. When a merchant accepts a card payment, they know that funds are guaranteed. When a consumer has a problem, there is a defined dispute process. Stablecoins do not automatically recreate these functions.

That is why I expect the card networks to remain important for the foreseeable future. Their acceptance, trust, and incentive layers continue to matter. What is already starting to change, however, is the settlement and funding layer beneath them.

Stablecoin-linked card programs show how this shift can play out. Card payments can still run through Visa and Mastercard at the point of sale, while stablecoins are used in the background to reduce prefunding needs and speed up settlement. As adoption grows, stablecoins are unlikely to replace the network functions that make card payments work at scale. Instead, they are likely to become a larger part of the settlement infrastructure underneath those networks.