How Stablecoin Payment Cards Actually Work: Security + Payment Rails

In this episode of Stableminded, Drew sits down with Adam Lowe, Chief Product and Innovation Officer at Arculus, to explore how they built hardware security infrastructure for the stablecoin payment card market.

Adam takes us through Arculus' evolution from a consumer hardware wallet to becoming a B2B infrastructure provider in what he calls "grown-up crypto."The company pioneered the first payment card with elliptic curve cryptography, creating a 3-in-1 card that functions as a Visa/Mastercard payment card, a full HD hardware wallet, and a hardware passkey—all on a single secure element chip. Adam confirms they power cards for Coinbase, Metamask, and others in the crypto card space, explaining why stablecoin payment cards have become one of the most explosive use cases over the past six months.

The conversation reveals why legacy infrastructure—not crypto technology—remains the biggest bottleneck to mainstream adoption. Adam shares stories of traditional financial institutions that literally can't accept real-time settlement because their internal systems weren't built for it, and why capital efficiency gains from instant settlement could unlock billions in dead money currently locked up covering T+n settlement periods. He also unveils his "Global Johnnie Walker"vision for the future of payments: a world where you can cryptographically prove ownership of any digital asset and spend it anywhere, with computers routing transactions through the most efficient rails automatically.

Adam makes the case for why Arculus chose to build inside CompoSecure rather than raise venture capital, how their modular approach serves everyone from consumers to enterprise banks, and why the US dollar remains America's most important export—one that stablecoins are finally making accessible globally.


Whether you're building payment infrastructure, exploring stablecoin card programs, or interested in how hardware security enables the convergence of traditional finance and blockchain, this episode delivers crucial insights from someone powering the cards in millions of wallets.

Learn more at getarculus.com
Follow Arculus on X: @thisisarculus

Season 6 of Stableminded is supported by Rain. Rain helps financial teams build and manage stablecoin-powered card programs with a single API, enabling users to move, store, and spend stablecoins instantly and compliantly in over 150 countries.

Learn more at rain.xyz.

*The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment or legal advice.