Marqeta Coinbase Stablecoin Cards: Base Handles The Settlement

Marqeta will let its business customers issue cards backed by stablecoins, with Coinbase handling the crypto side. The two companies announced the deal on October 16 at 8:00 AM Eastern, in a Business Wire release. The Marqeta Coinbase stablecoin cards plan covers both crypto-native firms and ordinary companies.

The headline and news highlights of the release. Source: Business Wire.

Who does what in the Marqeta Coinbase stablecoin cards plan

The release splits the work in three. Coinbase takes custody of stablecoin balances and manages the conversion between digital assets and cash. Base, the blockchain Coinbase runs, provides the onchain infrastructure for settlement, which the release describes as fast, secure and low cost.

Marqeta supplies the card issuing and the payment processing. It also manages the bank and network relationships that any card program needs. That last piece is why a card can be spent at ordinary shops.

According to the release, businesses will be able to issue the cards and fund their programs around the clock. Cardholders will spend from a stablecoin balance at millions of merchants that accept cards worldwide.

An existing relationship gets bigger

Marqeta already issues crypto-backed cards for Coinbase, the release says. The new collaboration expands that relationship to Marqeta's enterprise customers. It does not say which of them will use it, and it names no launch date.

Marqeta calls the deal one piece of a bigger plan. In its words, it wants to offer stablecoin-backed cards through a set of partners, because demand for digital-asset-backed payments is speeding up. Coinbase gets billed as a regulated exchange. The text never says whether other partners have signed on.

The deal also does not name a specific stablecoin. It speaks of stablecoin balances in general, and it gives no fee schedule or country list for the cards.

The paragraph describing custody, conversion and settlement. Source: Business Wire.

What each side said

Alec Lovett, Head of Infrastructure Products at Coinbase, said Coinbase is enabling businesses to move money with the speed and efficiency they require. He added that the collaboration combines Coinbase's stablecoin payment rails with Marqeta's issuing and processing for real-time global transactions.

Anthony Peculic, Marqeta's Chief Strategy Officer, called expanding the Coinbase relationship a natural next step in building the complete stack for stablecoin-backed cards. He said Coinbase brings scale and breadth of infrastructure for the needs of enterprise customers.

Marqeta's scale and what is not stated

A note on scale from the company's own description of itself. Marqeta trades on Nasdaq as MQ, and it says roughly $400 billion of payments moved through its platform in 2025. It also says it can operate in more than 40 countries. All of that covers the whole business and are not specific to stablecoin cards.

The stablecoin side of card payments has other moving parts. Circle's own numbers on how USDC revenue is shared with distribution partners are in USDC revenue split: $819M to partners and costs in H1.

This article reports what the two companies announced. The release gives no volumes, launch customers or timing, so TOCE cannot say how large the Marqeta Coinbase stablecoin cards program will become.