By Reynand Wu 
The disclosure comes on the heels of Tangem’s official announcement introducing its very first physical Visa card, designed to facilitate seamless in-store and online purchases as well as ATM withdrawals. The initial rollout of the new payment card is strictly limited to an exclusive batch of 5,000 cards, serving as a pilot phase for the company as it bridges the gap between decentralized digital assets and traditional financial rails.
According to the company, users will be able to fund the physical Visa card directly from their self-custodial wallets. Furthermore, Tangem has engineered the system to allow users to move their funds safely back to their self-custodial wallet should the physical card ever be suspended, lost, or permanently closed.
Andrey Ilinskiy, the head of Tangem Pay, shed light on the complex geopolitical and regulatory landscape surrounding the deployment of crypto-linked payment cards. He explained to Cointelegraph that the availability of these financial products is governed by a delicate intersection of multiple factors rather than simple consumer desire.
"It is not simply a question of where people want crypto cards," Ilinskiy told Cointelegraph, adding that "it is where demand, regulation, banking infrastructure and card-issuing requirements happen to line up — and today, those maps do not always overlap."
The intersection of self-custody and traditional finance presents a unique paradox for modern fintech innovators. While self-custody eliminates traditional third-party intermediaries—ensuring that there is no corporate custodian standing between the user and their hard-earned assets—introducing those same digital assets into a heavily regulated global payment network inevitably triggers an entirely new set of boundaries, compliance mandates, and operational hurdles.
Tangem delivers the cards in nearly 200 countries, excluding only 20
Despite the complex regulatory environment, Tangem has managed to establish a massive global footprint. The company confirmed that it is currently capable of delivering physical Tangem Pay cards to nearly 200 countries around the world. However, logistical, regulatory, and geopolitical barriers prevent the firm from shipping the cards to roughly 20 countries. Among the excluded jurisdictions are major nations and territories such as China, Russia, North Korea, and Palestine.
The company clarified that these regional restrictions do not necessarily mirror the domestic legal frameworks or rules governing cryptocurrency itself within those nations. Instead, a complex array of factors dictates market access. Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations, international sanctions regimes, local banking laws, and rigorous card-issuing compliance standards all play a definitive role in determining precisely where a crypto-linked payment card can be legally and operationally made available.
In many developing or economically unstable regions, the exact socioeconomic and political conditions that spark intense local demand for cryptocurrency as an alternative financial rail can simultaneously create a hostile or overly complex environment for regulated traditional card issuance. The juxtaposition of these two realities underscores the ongoing friction between borderless digital currencies and sovereign fiat banking infrastructure.
As part of its broader push to incentivize user adoption and reward cardholders, Tangem is also introducing an aggressive cashback program denominated in Circle’s USDC stablecoin. Under the structure of the rewards program, eligible purchases will yield a 1% cashback rate for Basic users, while Plus users will enjoy an enhanced 2% cashback rate paid directly in the widely trusted stablecoin.
Looking ahead, Tangem plans to showcase its pioneering physical Tangem Pay cards to the global fintech and blockchain community at the upcoming Token2049 conference in Singapore, marking a significant milestone for the firm as it transitions deeper into the mainstream payments ecosystem.
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