Adam Lowe, Chief Product and Innovation Officer at CompoSecure and Arculus laid out an ambitious vision for the future of payments: a world where any digital store of value (crypto, stablecoins, securities, or tokenized cash) can be spent anywhere, instantly and permissionlessly, using nothing more than a single metal card and cryptographic proof of ownership.

Lowe calls this end-state the “Global Johnnie Walker” (named after the iconic striding-man logo that symbolizes borderless travel).

In his words:

“I have stores of value whether that be securities, cash, crypto, digital assets, whatever… I want to travel the globe and seamlessly be able to spend those stores of value instead of all these silos of asset classes… Here’s cryptographic proof I own these things. Let the computer figure out the most efficient way to route that and go.”

Arculus, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NASDAQ-listed CompoSecure (NASD: CMPO), is building what its Chief Product & Innovation Officer Adam Lowe calls “the most secure three-in-one device on the planet”: a single cold-storage hardware wallet, FIDO2 passkey, and fully functional Visa/Mastercard/Amex payment card — all in the same piece of metal you keep in your wallet.

From Metal Cards to Self-Custody Hardware Wallets

Lowe has spent 12 years at CompoSecure, the world’s leading manufacturer of premium metal payment cards. Four years ago, he convinced CEO John Hersker to fund an internal moonshot: turning the secure chip already inside billions of payment cards into a full-fledged hardware wallet and passkey device.

The result is Arculus: a cold-storage metal card that is simultaneously:

• A standard Visa/Mastercard/Amex payment card
• A complete hierarchical-deterministic (HD) hardware wallet (keys generated and stored offline on the card)
• A FIDO2/passkey authenticator (replacing passwords or Yubikeys)

Users simply tap the card to their phone to sign transactions or logins; no seed phrases, no USB dongles, no batteries, and no cloud storage of private keys.

The Quiet Giant Behind Most Crypto Debit/Credit Cards

While the consumer Arculus card has a loyal following (especially among XRP holders and self-custody purists), Lowe revealed that the real growth engine has become B2B.

“We do basically all of [the major crypto cards]. Coinbase card, MetaMask card, Gemini; you name a metal crypto card out there, we’re doing them.”

Arculus now licenses its secure-element technology, wallet software, passkey infrastructure, and on-chain smart-contract integrations to virtually every major player issuing crypto-linked cards. Partners can pick and choose modules à la carte: payment credentialing, passkeys, non-custodial wallets, backend blockchain connectivity, or all of the above.

Why Everyone Outsources the Hard Parts to CompoSecure

Building a card that bridges traditional rails (Visa/Mastercard) and blockchain rails is brutally difficult. Lowe highlighted three major moats:

Regulatory & certification hell — Every applet on a payment card must be certified by EMVCo, Visa, Mastercard, etc. Most startups simply can’t afford the time or money.Hundreds of patents — CompoSecure aggressively protects its IP around metal cards, secure elements, and Web3-enabled chips.Manufacturing scale — CompoSecure already produces tens of millions of payment cards annually with code injected at the silicon fab level under strict Common Criteria and FIPS standards.

Stablecoins: The Bridge Everyone Is Crossing

Lowe is bullish that stablecoin payment cards are only in early innings, especially in non-dollarized and emerging markets.

“The U.S.’s most important export is the U.S. dollar… We should have been promoting access to the dollar via stablecoins years ago. Now we finally are.”

He also emphasized the massive capital-efficiency gains stablecoins deliver to issuers by eliminating the need to pre-fund collateral for weekends, holidays, and T+1/T+2 settlement.

According to Lowe, the biggest remaining hurdle is not technology; it’s legacy financial infrastructure.

“There’s a lot of duct tape and baling wire in the back-end of payments… I can’t tell you how many times I’ve drawn a real-time settlement flow and the bank says, ‘Whoa, we can’t settle that fast. Our internal ledger can’t handle it.’”

He believes the tipping point will come when either (a) traditional banks fully become blockchain-native, or (b) blockchain-native companies become banks; whichever happens first.

Final Call to the Industry

Lowe closed with a direct message to stablecoin issuers, neobanks, and Web3 payment companies:

“If you’re trying to serve Web2, Web2.5, and Web3 at the same time, it’s really, really hard. We’ve already lost years of our lives solving it. Come build with us; or if we don’t have 100% of what you need, we’ll introduce you to the partners who do. Let’s form a coalition and actually change global payments.”

With major institutions from American Express to JPMorgan now openly embracing stablecoins, and with Arculus quietly powering most of the high-end cards in the space, Adam Lowe’s “Global Johnnie Walker” vision may arrive sooner than many expect.

One metal card. Any asset. Anywhere in the world.