Crypto card access doesn’t match global demand, Tangem says

More than 40% of Tangem Pay payments come from Latin America and over 30% from the US, while physical card availability remains restricted in some markets, the Swiss crypto wallet provider told Cointelegraph.

“It is not simply a question of where people want crypto cards,” Andrey Ilinskiy, head of Tangem Pay, told Cointelegraph, adding: “It is where demand, regulation, banking infrastructure and card-issuing requirements happen to line up — and today, those maps do not always overlap.”

On Wednesday, Tangem announced its first physical Visa card for in-store and online purchases and ATM withdrawals, with an initial release limited to 5,000 cards.

The company said users can fund the card directly from their self-custodial wallet and move funds back to the wallet if the card is suspended or closed.

“Self-custody removes one major boundary: there is no custodian standing between the user and their assets. But when those assets enter a regulated payment network, another set of boundaries appears,” Tangem said.

Tangem can’t ship its card to about 20 countries

Tangem said it cannot currently deliver physical Tangem Pay cards to roughly 20 countries, including China, Russia, North Korea and Palestine.