Crypto payments firm Mesh announced a partnership with Visa on Oct. 19 that is meant to let people pay at Visa merchants directly from the crypto and stablecoin balances held in their wallet apps, without signing up for a dedicated crypto card.
The companies have not said when the service will go live. Mesh said the first participating platforms, the supported devices and the launch timing will be disclosed once rollout plans are final.
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How the Payments Work
According to Mesh, a Visa credential is set up in the background for users of a participating wallet. A shopper can then tap a contactless terminal in a store or check out online, and Mesh funds and converts the payment from that user’s balance at the moment of purchase. Users don’t need to sell their coins, move funds or load a card ahead of time, the company said, and the merchant gets an ordinary Visa payment with no new hardware.
Wallets, exchanges and other platforms would plug in through a single Mesh integration instead of running their own card program. Mesh acts as program manager, taking on user onboarding and know-your-customer checks. Its named partners include prediction market Kalshi, payments app KAST, Majority, Félix Pago and Tools for Humanity, and Mesh says more than 200 enterprises use its network.
Crypto has “a last-mile problem,” Bam Azizi, Mesh’s CEO and co-founder, said in the release. “Mesh handles the funding and conversion, so a balance becomes purchasing power at the moment of payment, with nothing for the user to move and nothing for the merchant to change.”
Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s global head of growth, said that “working with Mesh helps expand how digital asset balances can connect to the trusted payment experiences consumers and merchants rely on every day.”
Crypto’s Spending Gap
Mesh framed the deal around how little crypto gets spent. It cited Crypto.com research counting 774 million crypto owners worldwide as of June 2026, and an American Banker figure of roughly $1.5 billion a month in crypto card volume by late 2025. Holders today generally have to cash out to a bank account or get a card tied to one platform, the company said.
In January, Mesh, which was founded in 2020, closed a $75 million Series C round led by Dragonfly at a $1 billion valuation. Over the past year it also joined Paxos’s Global Dollar Network and released a wallet that lets AI agents pay with stablecoins. Visa has struck other crypto spending deals, including an April 2025 partnership with Bridge, a Stripe company, through which developers can offer stablecoin-linked Visa cards via a single API integration.
Related Listen: Stripe Bid $53B for PayPal: Who Actually Wins Stablecoin Payments?
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