Visa Moves to Close Meme Coin Credit Card Rewards Loophole

Visa has instructed payment processors to stop allowing certain meme coin purchases made with Visa credit cards to be processed under a merchant category code reserved for digital media, according to people familiar with the matter. The change targets a Crossmint-powered checkout flow that, per a The Block investigation, enabled purchases of meme coins via Apple Pay or Google Pay without a separate KYC step and coded the transactions as "digital goods media" rather than as crypto sales. The misclassification allowed cardholders to earn ordinary credit card rewards such as points or cash back on meme coin purchases. Chase told The Block it identified at least one Visa transaction that was not flagged as a cryptocurrency purchase and had been assigned the wrong merchant category code; the bank opened a case with Visa challenging that classification. The New York attorney general's office is also reviewing the issue. Visa has informed processors, including Checkout.com, that the digital-goods-media code should not be used for meme coin purchases and has given processors a grace period to wind down the practice, with the period expected to end next week. Going forward, these purchases will need to be routed and labeled as crypto transactions and will be subject to Visa's crypto-specific rules and restrictions, according to a source familiar with the matter. Crossmint defended its approach by citing a 2025 SEC staff statement characterizing certain meme coins as akin to collectibles rather than securities. Visa's communications, however, indicate the company does not consider the digital-media merchant code appropriate for processing such purchases. Visa and Crossmint did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the actions described.