Tangem Pay lets users spend USDC directly from their self-custodial Tangem wallets, settling all transactions on Polygon.
Switzerland-headquartered hardware wallet company Tangem today announced the global rollout of its retail payments product, Tangem Pay, per a press release shared exclusively with The Defiant.
The new feature lets Tangem wallet users spend stablecoin USDC anywhere where Visa is accepted, using virtual Visa cards that can be added to Apple Pay and Google Pay.
The wallet manufacturer also announced today that it is partnering with Polygon for the new product, with the blockchain providing on-chain settlement for all transactions.
As of today, Tangem Pay is available to users in the U.S. (excluding some states), Latin America, and select countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The global rollout follows an early-access phase for waitlisted users that began in November, the press release notes.
Tangem is a self-custodial hardware wallet founded in 2017. Unlike crypto hardware wallet giants Trezor and Ledger, Tangem only offers NFC-powered devices for crypto storage, which come in two forms: a card that’s about the size and shape of a bank card, as well as a wearable ring.
How It Works
To pay with Tangem Pay, users need to convert funds they want to spend into USDC first, before transacting, the firm clarifed to The Defiant. “Over time, we will expand supported assets and settlement options,” Tangem Pay CEO Marcos Nunes told The Defiant.
Currently, the wallet only lets users create virtual Visa cards that they can add to payment services like Apple Pay. But the firm plans to launch physical cards as well.
“A large part of the world still relies on physical cards, and we want to support that fully,” said Nunes. Tangem Pay’s CEO told The Defiant that the physical Visa card launch is expected this year.
Why Polygon?
Tangem said that the firm selected Polygon for its transaction speed, predictable fees, and ability to handle the high transaction volumes required for global payments. “Payments are a scale game, not a theory exercise,” Nunes told The Defiant, continuing, “You need near-zero fees, fast finality, and reliability under load. Polygon delivers that today in a way that supports real daily spending.”
Nunes also added, “We are not dogmatic about chains. This is an infrastructure decision. If something better emerges, we will adapt.”
Per the press release, Polygon will cover gas fees for users, at least for the initial rollout period. There are no fees from Tangem’s side, Nunes clarified to The Defiant. “It should feel like using money in a regular account.”
Aishwary Gupta, head of global business development at Polygon Labs, said in a statement: “With Polygon as the settlement layer, Tangem Pay makes self-custody practical for real-world spending, combining the transparency of blockchain with the speed and reliability users expect.”
Polygon is an Ethereum sidechain with $1.27 billion in total value locked in DeFi across 775 protocols, per DefiLlama. That makes it the 11th-largest chain in DeFi by TVL, while it’s currently the 4th-largest chain by 24-hour active addresses.
In January, Polygon Labs announced its acquisition of two U.S. regulated crypto companies, Coinme and Sequence, adopting their licenses and enabling Polygon’s operations as a regulated payments platform across 48 U.S. states.
