The numbers are growing, and so are refund complaints. This alone tells us: the payment scale is indeed expanding fast, but the infrastructure to support it hasn't caught up. Users are paying with real money for this lag.
You can look at this from two angles.
First, the scale of growth—payment flows are already moving fast
How big the volume has become determines whether 'refund issues increase' is a subjective bias or a structural problem.
How to check: Look at the monthly transaction volume and number of transactions for the card program or industry. Goal: Confirm whether the payment scale is doubling or expanding moderately.
According to a16z data, monthly transaction volume for crypto payment cards grew from less than $1 million in October 2023 to $759 million in July 2026, an increase of nearly 7,600 times. In July alone, there were nearly 9 million card swipes, averaging about $86 per transaction. Visa data also shows that total card transactions linked to stablecoins reached about $5.2 billion in 2025, up 319% year-over-year.
The number of transactions grew about 73% in a year, from 5.2 million to 9 million. With a larger base, the same complaint rate results in a bigger absolute number.
What's causing the rise in refund problems?
As payment volume goes up, why are refunds especially prone to issues?
Reason 1: The refund path has an extra conversion layer compared to traditional cards
Stablecoin card refunds go through a back-and-forth: stablecoin → fiat → merchant → fiat → stablecoin. OKX's official statement also notes that because settlement is in fiat, while payment funds come from stablecoins, the refund amount may be affected by the original transaction currency, network exchange rates, and conversion mechanism, differing from traditional bank cards.
Reason 2: Refund processing time exceeds user expectations
OKX card documentation states that reversals/cancellations typically take same-day to a few days, refunds usually take several working days, and chargebacks can take weeks. Users accustomed to instant on-chain settlement naturally have less tolerance for refunds that drag on for days or even weeks.
Reason 3: Refund amounts may not match
If the original purchase involved a non-euro currency, exchange rate changes between the purchase date and refund date (using Mastercard exchange rates) could cause the refund amount to differ from the original charge.
Risk note: Industry insiders point out that in the crypto card business, card networks shift all AML violation fines to the issuers, ranging from wiping out deposits to revoking licenses. This means under pressure of compliance and operational costs, issuers have little room to improve refunds and disputes—those 'unprofitable but tedious' after-sales processes. If a card can be swiped but refunds don't work, in the long run it's more like a 'demo card' than a real payment tool.
Is the growth rate 'too fast'?
Whether it's too fast depends on whether it can hold up.
The current reality is: the stablecoin card business has extremely high compliance costs, razor-thin margins, and heavy operations. Some industry entrepreneurs have described it as 'not a good business.' Given these margins, processes that require human input—like refund procedures, dispute handling, and customer service—are usually optimized last. When transaction volumes surge, the after-sales system breaking down is only a matter of time.
How to verify
If you already use a stablecoin card, do a small refund test (e.g., buy a returnable item and return it). Record the actual days from initiating the refund to the funds arriving back on the card balance, and the amount received. If it exceeds the platform's promised time, or the refund amount differs from the charge by more than reasonable exchange rate fluctuations, it means the card's after-sales pipeline isn't running smoothly yet. In that case, your daily large purchases should not go through this card—if you encounter a transaction that needs a refund, the cost of dealing with the after-sales may outweigh any cashback rewards.
