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At the beginning of June, the founder of Infini was still promoting the U Card in an interview, but just a few days later, they suddenly issued a shutdown announcement, sparking a huge discussion:

On June 17th at noon, Infini suddenly announced that we have decided to stop the service of the infini card. Effective immediately, Global cards, Lite cards, and Tech cards will all be suspended from use and new applications. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may cause. Core functions such as top-up, withdrawal, and Earn rewards are not affected, and your asset security is controllable. To properly handle this change, we will automatically refund the actual card opening fee paid by all users who have applied for the affected cards (deducting any form of discount) to your Infini account balance. The card opening fee will be credited within 10 working days without any manual operation required from you. Refunds in transit will be returned to your Infini account, expected to be completed within 5 to 21 working days. Your fund security is not affected.

Infini co-founder Junzhu explained: Infini is no longer engaged in to C card business. The reason is that compliance costs are extremely high, profits are very thin, and operations are extremely heavy. Currently, the to C card business occupies 99% of the time and costs, contributing 0 revenue. Wealth management and asset management businesses have become the focus. The current path for the crypto card is still to offramp USDT and USDC and then achieve stable to fiat payment paths through traditional payment networks. It is too tortuous, too long, and too expensive. Without subsidies, it is difficult to match web2 rates and cashback. The U card is not the ultimate solution for web3 pay with stablecoin. Currently, Infini is a centralized product, and in the future, we will fully embrace decentralization. We need to think about embracing decentralized payment solutions. We will absolutely not follow the old path of centralization.

The princess also mentioned that when making the U card, she consulted OneKey, but didn’t expect that the final outcome would be the same as OneKey. The hardware wallet OneKey also launched the U card, but then suddenly shut down its services.

Regarding the recent service shutdown, there are speculations that it is related to the recent bewildcard incident. WildCard is a platform focused on providing virtual credit card services, allowing users to easily register and subscribe to overseas services. The platform has specifically optimized the usage experience of OpenAI, including automatic registration and upgrading of ChatGPT Plus features. The platform is rumored to be under investigation.

In the latest space, Christian, the founder of Infini, introduced the features of the Infini Card, including: The Infini Card is always focused on serving the general public and retail investors. This is also the original intention of our establishment. Unlike the VIP user-oriented Crypto cards launched by exchanges, our card is aimed at ordinary users, making it more friendly and practical. The Crypto card itself is actually a “thankless” product, but we always insist on enhancing the experience from the user’s perspective. The fees are transparent and highly competitive. Especially in terms of USD-denominated transactions, our current card swipe fee is 0.1%, which is among the lowest in the market. We also plan to further reduce costs through more optimization measures in the future, maintaining a long-term price advantage. The most special part is that we provide a yield function for the balance within the card. This is not common in the market. Many users keep some USDT in the card for daily use, and we offer a savings yield to hedge against the wear and tear during the consumption process. These yields come from the strategies we are building, which have shown excellent performance in real tests. Some strategies are even unique solutions that are hard to find on other DeFi platforms, and we are also willing to open these up for users to share.

@knowyourself518In a tweet, it was stated that for the U card business, an internal report leading to an investigation could result in fines far exceeding the cost of the license, and a heavy penalty could be fatal; if the ambiguity of on-chain fund flows (such as proving the source of funds) is added, compliance costs rise exponentially. Cases of U cards being abused by fraud groups are emerging one after another, but the platform lacks the “contract transaction fee” generating ability of an exchange, and is forced to directly bear the risks from retail investors, which can easily lead to problems in long-term operations.

The harsher reality is that card organizations / upstream banks will pass on all fines for AML loopholes to the issuing entities, which can result in the forfeiture of deposits at best, or the revocation of licenses at worst — while intermediary institutions only care about collecting fees. Buying a bank is useless; if card organizations are unhappy, the fine liability falls on the bank, and if fines are not paid, they will be kicked out of Visa / Mastercard, so buying a bank does not solve the fundamental issue. The actual cost borne by users is far beyond the 1–2% transaction fee: card issuance fees, exchange losses, deposit friction… without subsidies, the average real rate in the industry is 3–5%. Compared to the fee advantages of traditional credit card giants (Visa/MC) under massive transaction volumes, U Card has no competitive edge in small transaction scenarios. Without significant subsidies, ordinary users simply will not pay. Crypto Card is a low-margin project that requires substantial transaction volume and asset accumulation to be profitable, and it is also very resource-intensive. However, as business scale expands, compliance costs and operational costs will rise significantly, so overall, the ability to scale up is key, ideally in a way that can create synergies with the main business.

It is worth noting that card organizations, upstream banks, and payment channel providers collect fees and fines, while all operational risks (such as asset management failures, regulatory penalties, and losses from fraud) are borne entirely by startups. This essentially turns into a gamble where compliance arbitrageurs harvest Web3 VCs. Therefore, U cards are not a good business; the payment itself is not very profitable, and the strong compliance attributes of C-end finance are not something that startup teams can easily tackle.

Although Infini eventually announced its withdrawal, the U-card track is still very popular. On March 14, 2025, RedotPay announced the successful completion of a $40 million Series A financing round, led by Lightspeed. Following the commitments made in December 2024, HSG and Galaxy Ventures also provided substantial investments. DST Global Partners, Accel, Vertex Ventures (the venture capital firm supported by Temasek), and other investors also participated in this financing round.

At the State of Crypto conference in June, Coinbase announced a partnership with American Express to launch the “Coinbase One Card” credit card, offering Bitcoin cashback and staking rewards. The company is also collaborating with Shopify and Stripe to expand the USDC payment landscape, bringing stablecoins from on-chain to physical consumption.

@portal_kayThe birth of a U Card has been dissected, including card organizations, BIN providers, issuing institutions, card program management entities, fiat - cryptocurrency exchanges, and card production & technology integration service providers. In the U Card (virtual credit card or payment tool) ecosystem, the upstream and downstream cooperation relationships are clearly defined, covering the following roles: Card organizations (such as Visa, MasterCard) as the top upstream, set rules, build global payment clearing networks, and allocate Bank Identification Numbers (BIN) (the first 6 digits of the card number) to licensed financial institutions. BIN providers (such as Evolve Bank, Railsr) are licensed banks or payment institutions responsible for applying for and managing BINs, reviewing collaboration qualifications, allowing project parties to issue cards, and assisting with regulation and settlement. Issuing institutions (such as REAP, Airwallex) create user card accounts, execute KYC/KYT compliance, hold fiat currency and process transaction settlements, usually without directly handling cryptocurrency. Card program management entities (such as Bybit Card, Bitget Card) are at the core of the U Card project, responsible for product design, user operations, API development, risk control strategies, coordinating with issuing institutions for KYC, and marketing coordination with card organizations. Fiat - cryptocurrency exchanges (such as MoonPay, Circle) handle the exchange of on-chain assets for fiat currency, such as converting user USDT deposits into USD stored in custodial accounts. Finally, card production and technology integration service providers (such as IDEMIA, G+D) provide physical card manufacturing or virtual card API integration, supporting wallet bindings like Google Pay and Apple Pay, while modern BaaS companies offer SDK integration solutions. Each role collaborates closely to jointly support the operation and Compliance of U Card business.

Compliance risks remain the biggest obstacle for the U Card. FinTax points out that using the U Card requires attention to several legal risks. For example, in some countries with strict foreign exchange management, although the U Card does not set a limit on individual withdrawals of U, transferring funds exceeding the foreign exchange quota abroad may also touch upon foreign exchange management regulations. If discovered by foreign exchange management authorities, administrative fines may be imposed, and it could even involve criminal charges. Additionally, the legal status of cryptocurrency is still unclear in certain countries, with some countries completely prohibiting the use of cryptocurrency. In such cases, using the cryptocurrency U Card for transactions may also be deemed illegal. Therefore, before using the U Card, users should understand the basic compliance requirements of their country or region. Furthermore, users should not use the U Card as a tool for illegal activities. For instance, if users engage in frequent, large transactions with the U Card, or assist others in cashing out, it may also be regarded as illegal operation or money laundering activities, leading to criminal penalties.

Due to the support for anonymity or fewer real-name system requirements, some users hope to evade taxes through U cards, such as using U cards to conceal the source of income, thereby reducing the amount of tax payable. However, this behavior of tax evasion through U cards is actually not feasible. Firstly, although U cards have a certain degree of anonymity, most U cards still rely on international payment networks (Visa, Mastercard, etc.). These payment networks record detailed data for each transaction, including transaction amounts, merchant information, transaction times, and so on. Therefore, tax authorities can still trace the flow of related funds through these transaction records. Secondly, for cross-border transactions, tax authorities can also track cross-border fund flows through foreign exchange monitoring systems, bank information exchanges, and other means. Many countries have signed agreements on automatic exchange of tax information (CRS, Common Reporting Standard), making cross-border fund flows relatively transparent. In this way, tax authorities can also obtain transaction information related to U cards. Finally, in actual use, payment platforms may also conduct strict real-name reviews for large transactions. If users are involved in frequent large fund flows, platforms may require additional information such as proof of the legality of the source of funds. Therefore, the behavior of evading taxes through U cards is actually not feasible and may also lead to tax audits and penalties.

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