Introduction
Despite Bitcoin's ideal of decentralized peer-to-peer payments, crypto-based P2P payment has not become part of everyday consumption. Beyond settlement speed and volatility, it has struggled to replace the institutional foundations accumulated by existing payment systems, including consumer protection, tax treatment, and merchant acceptance infrastructure.
Crypto cards are taking a different route. Instead of building a new payment network, they use the existing Visa and Mastercard rails. Users spend on-chain assets while merchants settle in local fiat currency, with full-stack issuance infrastructure and stablecoin-based on-chain settlement supporting rapid growth.
This convenient bridge creates a new information gap between borderless on-chain capital and financial and tax systems organized by national borders. Overseas-issued cards and collateralized borrowing models can make it difficult to identify who spent which assets and income, raising questions about the effectiveness and fairness of Korea's virtual-asset taxation scheduled for 2027.
The report examines the crypto-card market, issuance and settlement infrastructure, and the cases of RedotPay and ether.fi. It then proposes clearer stage-by-stage tax rules, links between cross-border reporting and domestic payment data, and controlled trials through the regulatory sandbox.
Read the full report (Korean PDF)
