Visa-issued cryptocurrency cards experienced a monumental surge in usage throughout 2025, with net spending skyrocketing 525% from $14.6 million in January to a record $91.3 million by December, according to data from Dune Analytics. The tracked cards include offerings from GnosisPay, Cypher, EtherFi, Avici Money, Exa App, and Moonwell, with EtherFi dominating the landscape by processing $55.4 million in transactions. Cypher followed with $20.5 million.
Polygon researcher @obchakevich_ highlighted on X that this explosive growth underscores both rapid user adoption and the strategic importance of crypto and stablecoins for Visa's global payment ecosystem. The data confirms cryptocurrency's evolution from experimental technology to a tool for everyday financial transactions. In a strategic move to capitalize on this trend, Visa expanded its stablecoin infrastructure in mid-December 2025 by launching a dedicated advisory team to assist banks, merchants, and fintechs in launching and managing stablecoin products. The firm now supports stablecoins across four blockchains.
In a parallel development signaling massive institutional validation, investment bank Morgan Stanley filed S-1 forms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on January 6, 2026, to launch two new exchange-traded funds: the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust and the Morgan Stanley Solana Trust. These passive investment vehicles are designed to hold and track the performance of BTC and SOL. This move is significant as Morgan Stanley's wealth management division serves over 19 million clients, potentially unlocking billions in fresh capital into the crypto market. This filing follows a strong start to 2026 for Bitcoin ETFs, which attracted $1.1 billion in inflows in the first two trading days of the year.
The news articles also highlight several presale projects capitalizing on this bullish momentum. DeepSnitch AI (DSNT) has raised over $1.09 million in its presale, with the token price at $0.03269, marking a 115-117% gain from its initial $0.01510 offering. The project, which features live AI agents for trading analytics and security, is slated for a launch in January 2026. Bitcoin Hyper, a Bitcoin Layer-2 solution utilizing Solana's Virtual Machine, has raised over $28-$30 million in its presale, with tokens priced at $0.013535 and a mainnet launch targeted for Q1 2026. Another project, Pepe Dollar, has raised over $4.9 million, positioning itself as a Layer-2 payment infrastructure for the meme economy.
