Crypto Payments in September 2026: What Actually Changed

In September 2026 the card networks went from settling in stablecoins to co-founding one: Open USD (OUSD) went live on September 30 with Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase and Shopify behind it, a week after SoFi moved its whole card program to stablecoin settlement on Mastercard. In Washington the CLARITY Act failed its first Senate vote 49-50, while the Federal Reserve added two more GENIUS Act proposals. Solana's Alpenglow upgrade reached testnet but not mainnet, and September was the worst month for hacks in 2026.

This is the second edition of our monthly roundup: card networks, regulation, Solana, stablecoin supply, security, then what we launched and what our users did with their cards. Every external figure links to a primary or top-tier source; first-party data is shares and growth rates only. The August edition covers the month before.

Visa's stablecoin settlement passed a $20 billion annualized run rate on September 8, up more than 15x year over year, per The Block. Visa also counted more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs. That is the back-office half of a crypto card: the issuer settles with Visa in stablecoins instead of wiring dollars, which we explain in how card networks settle in stablecoins.

SoFi went live with stablecoin settlement across its debit and credit cards on September 22. It is the first national bank to settle a card program this way on Mastercard's network, using SoFiUSD, a stablecoin issued by SoFi Bank, and expects more than $25 billion in annualized volume, per SoFi's release. SoFi notes that SoFiUSD is not FDIC-insured.

Open USD (OUSD) launched on September 30. The dollar stablecoin is issued by Bridge, Stripe's stablecoin unit, and backed by a consortium whose founding partners include Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa, with more than $1 billion in committed seed liquidity, per CoinDesk. It launched on Ethereum, Solana, Base and Tempo, and businesses can mint and redeem it through BVNK, Stripe and the Visa Stablecoin Platform, per Yahoo Finance. Both card networks now have a direct stake in a stablecoin, not just in moving one.

Two more pieces of plumbing went live. Circle launched its Arc mainnet on September 16, with Visa and Mastercard among the founding validators, per Circle. On September 30, Lloyds and Visa finished a seven-day live pilot that settled $750,000 of cross-border obligations in stablecoins, with funds reaching Visa in under an hour, per PYMNTS.

We found no major new consumer crypto card launch in September.

The CLARITY Act failed its cloture vote on September 15. The motion to proceed to the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the market-structure bill splitting oversight between the SEC and the CFTC, failed 49-50 against the 60 votes it needed, per the Senate floor log. Republicans Collins, Hawley, Moran and Tillis voted no, Tillis to preserve a motion to reconsider. CoinDesk reported that disputes over ethics provisions covering senior officials' crypto ties were the breaking point, and that the result likely ends Senate market-structure work for 2026 unless it is revived after the November midterms.

The Federal Reserve proposed two GENIUS Act rules on September 24. One sets reserve, capital and risk-management requirements for stablecoin issuers the Fed supervises; the other sets the application process for banks that want to issue, per the Fed's release. Comments run for 60 days after Federal Register publication. They sit alongside Treasury's August proposal on who may issue, whose comment period closes October 19. Our GENIUS Act explainer covers what the law means if you hold USDC or USDT.

The SEC granted a temporary "innovation exemption" for tokenized stocks on September 17, letting permissioned on-chain venues trade tokenized equities, including against payment stablecoins, per Chairman Atkins' statement. It does not touch card payments, but it is another use for the same stablecoins.

In Europe, the USDT question moved to a deadline. We found no new MiCA-driven USDT removal dated September. On October 8, ESMA told authorized platforms to stop serving stablecoins that are not authorized under MiCA by January 8, 2027, naming USDT and PYUSD as examples, per CoinDesk.

Alpenglow did not activate on mainnet in September. The consensus upgrade, which targets roughly 150ms finality, migrated on testnet on September 24 and devnet on September 25. On October 13 Anza set mainnet activation for October 21 at about 14:50 UTC, per Solana Compass.

A correction to our August edition. We wrote that Alpenglow targeted a September 28 mainnet activation. The September 28 entry in Anza's Agave 4.3 schedule resumed feature activation in general, and Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko and Anza's Roger Wattenhofer publicly pushed back on Alpenglow rumors for that date, per Crypto Economy via KuCoin. We should have read the schedule more carefully.

We found no network halt in September. The slot-time cut from 400ms to 200ms, which began with Agave 4.2, completed its final step on October 9, per the same Solana Compass report. Solana Alpenglow explained covers what faster finality means at a checkout.

Total stablecoin supply ended September at about $306.3 billion, up 1.4% from about $302.1 billion at the end of August, per DefiLlama's stablecoin series. Our August edition put the end-of-August figure at about $309 billion; DefiLlama's series now reads $302.1 billion for that date, and we use the current series for both months here.

USDT ended the month at about $183.8 billion, nearly flat, and USDC at about $74.6 billion, per DefiLlama's USDT and USDC series. Stablecoins on Solana rose about 2.8% to $16.2 billion, per DefiLlama's Solana series, with USDC on Solana at about $7.2 billion. The biggest issuer news was OUSD, covered above. If you want to understand what keeps a stablecoin at $1, see stablecoin depeg risk for card spenders.

September was the costliest month for crypto hacks this year. PeckShield counted 55 major incidents and about $766.5 million in losses; CertiK counted 97 incidents and $768.4 million, per crypto.news. By PeckShield's count, that is more than five times August's $136.3 million.

Two incidents made up most of it:

• Liquid Network, September 6, about $320 million. A bug let an attacker mint roughly 4,000 unbacked L-BTC and withdraw real bitcoin. The attacker returned 3,400 BTC the next day, per crypto.news.
• Bitget, September 24, about $387.5 million from hot and warm wallets. Bitget suspects North Korean actors and says its user protection fund holds more than $464 million, per Fortune.

Neither touched card rails. The Bitget loss is a reminder that a balance on an exchange is a claim on that exchange. Crypto security basics for card users covers what you can control.

September was a busy launch month. Most of it widened what you can top up with:

• SolCard Pay: send money from your card balance to another SolCard user by their @tag. No wallet address, no network to pick.
• USDT on Tron, USDG on Robinhood Chain and EURC on Solana: three more stablecoins, including the network that carries the most USDT.
• wBTC and wETH on Solana: the Portal (Wormhole) versions of wrapped bitcoin and ether.
• Native coins on nine networks: ETH on Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism and Robinhood Chain, plus BNB, POL, AVAX and HYPE, converted to dollars automatically.
• Bitcoin and Litecoin: a permanent BTC and LTC deposit address on every card, no wrapping or bridging.
• Clearer activity feed: pending deposits now show as "Confirming" until the network finalizes them, and purchases carry a spending category.

Method: aggregated, anonymized SolCard data, settled and authorized purchases plus paid deposits, September 1-30 versus August 1-31; shares, medians and growth rates only, and any cell with fewer than 25 observations is left out.

Purchases grew 6% month over month (August grew 13%) and deposits grew 6% (August: 17%). Solana carried 66% of deposits (64% in August), Ethereum 16%, BSC 11%, and Arbitrum, Polygon, Base, Tron, HyperEVM, Avalanche and Robinhood Chain the rest. By asset, stablecoins were 56% of deposits -- USDT 30%, USDC 26% -- SOL was 43%, and everything else under 1%. The top pairs held their order: SOL on Solana 43%, USDC on Solana 14%, USDT on BSC 10%.

Most of September's new deposit options arrived in the last ten days of the month. USDT on Tron already took 0.5% of deposits; the others are too new to report on.

• Advertising nearly doubled. Ad transactions rose 93% while the average ticket fell 34%, spread across many cards rather than a few large spenders: more, smaller top-ups of ad accounts.
• Work tools grew. Software and cloud transactions rose 47% with a 68% larger average ticket. AI tools rose 33%, with the growth concentrated among a small number of heavy users.
• Purchases got smaller. The median purchase fell 19% to about $20, in US-dollar transactions. Last month's discretionary jump cooled: shopping grew 3% and gaming fell 15%.

• October 19: comments close on Treasury's GENIUS Act issuer proposal.
• October 21: Alpenglow mainnet activation, per Anza's schedule.
• Late November: comment deadlines on the Fed's two GENIUS proposals.
• After the November 3 midterms: whether the CLARITY Act gets a lame-duck revival.
• January 8, 2027: ESMA's deadline for EU platforms to stop serving non-MiCA stablecoins such as USDT.
• OUSD adoption: how quickly issuers and merchants beyond the founding partners start using it.

September's network news is about how card programs settle behind the merchant, and none of it changes what happens at a terminal. When you pay with a SolCard, the balance is already in dollars, so the purchase never waits on a blockchain, and an Alpenglow delay or a hack at an exchange does not affect a card that is already loaded.

What changed for SolCard users is the funding side. You can now top up with BTC, LTC, native ETH and five other native coins, three more stablecoins and two wrapped assets, and move a balance to a friend by @tag without touching a chain at all. If ESMA's January deadline pushes USDT off European platforms, the stablecoin you deposit is still a funding-time choice: once it is loaded, it is dollars. How to pay with crypto walks through the basics.

No. Alpenglow migrated on testnet on September 24 and devnet on September 25. Anza has scheduled mainnet activation for October 21 at about 14:50 UTC, per Solana Compass.

Open USD is a dollar stablecoin issued by Bridge and launched on September 30 by a consortium whose founding partners include Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa. It runs on Ethereum, Solana, Base and Tempo, per CoinDesk.

Not formally, but it failed its September 15 cloture vote 49-50 against the 60 needed, per the Senate floor log. CoinDesk reported that a revival this year would need a lame-duck push after the November midterms. The GENIUS Act, which covers payment stablecoins, is already law and is unaffected.

About $767 million, the highest month of 2026: PeckShield counted 55 major incidents and $766.5 million, CertiK 97 incidents and $768.4 million, per crypto.news. Bitget (about $387.5 million) and Liquid Network (about $320 million) made up most of it.

Yes. As of September 30, every SolCard has a permanent Bitcoin and Litecoin deposit address; deposits are converted to dollars after network confirmation. Our Bitcoin and Litecoin guide has the minimums and wait times.

In September the card networks stopped being only users of stablecoins and became backers of one, while SoFi showed a bank card program can run on stablecoin settlement today. The CLARITY Act's 49-50 failure leaves US market structure for next year, but the GENIUS rulebook kept growing. Alpenglow is a month later than we reported, and hacks hit a 2026 high. On our side, we shipped SolCard Pay and four batches of new deposit options, and purchases and deposits each grew 6%. October's edition follows the same structure.

• The Block -- Visa stablecoin settlement tops $20 billion annualized run rate
• SoFi -- SoFi Becomes First National Bank to Go Live with Stablecoin Settlement across Mastercard's Global Payments Network
• CoinDesk -- Open USD takes on Tether, Circle with a different stablecoin model
• Yahoo Finance -- OUSD stablecoin goes live
• Circle -- Circle Launches Arc Mainnet
• PYMNTS -- Lloyds and Visa speed up cross-border payments with stablecoin settlement
• U.S. Senate Daily Press -- Tuesday, September 15, 2026
• CoinDesk -- Clarity Act fails to clear a crucial procedural vote
• Federal Reserve -- GENIUS Act proposals, September 24, 2026
• SEC -- Chairman Atkins on the innovation exemption
• CoinDesk -- EU securities regulator gives crypto platforms 3 months to remove unauthorized stablecoins
• Solana Compass -- Anza sets Alpenglow mainnet date for October 21
• Crypto Economy via KuCoin -- Solana developers deny Alpenglow mainnet activation on September 28
• DefiLlama -- Stablecoins market cap
• crypto.news -- Crypto loses $768M in worst hack month of 2026
• Fortune -- North Korea suspected in $387 million Bitget attack