It depends on the charter. Issuers may sit with a state banking regulator – most often New York’s DFS — with the OCC under a national trust charter, or outside the US entirely. Pending federal legislation would set reserve, audit and redemption requirements at the national level.

For cross-border settlement, usually yes – the saving comes from removing correspondent banking hops and pre-funded accounts, not from the card transaction itself. For domestic consumer payments the interchange economics are largely unchanged, which is why most card programs still depend on interchange revenue.

Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, at roughly $189bn and $75bn – together about 86% of all supply. PayPal’s PYUSD, First Digital’s FDUSD and a set of bank-issued tokens make up most of the remainder.

A payment card that draws on a stablecoin balance instead of a bank account. The card itself runs on existing Visa or Mastercard rails; what changes is the funding source and, increasingly, the settlement currency between the issuer and the network.

Yes. Programs from Coinbase, Crypto.com and a growing set of fintechs convert USDC to local currency at the point of sale, so the merchant is paid in euro or dollars and the balance is drawn from your stablecoin holdings. The conversion happens inside the issuer’s stack, which is why the merchant sees an ordinary Visa or Mastercard transaction.