Latin America has one of the highest levels of crypto adoption globally. According to Chainalysis, the region received $593.8 billion in crypto between July 2025 and June 2026, growing 9.8% year-over-year. By June 2026, stablecoins accounted for nearly a third (32.1%) of cross-border value.
With high inflation, and 20 different currencies across the region, stablecoins allow everyday people to access fiat-pegged assets and reduce the cost of sending money across borders.
Amulets' Founder and CEO, Vinicius Frias, and CTO, Samuel Camilo, are both Brazilian and have lived with these difficulties first-hand. They built Amulets, a stablecoin financial app specifically tailored towards the Latin American market, to solve them. Before founding Amulets, Vinicius served as CEO of Alterbank, a Brazilian crypto fintech acquired by Méliuz.
Whilst other stablecoin fintechs exist in the region, Vinicius said: "There's no clear winner in Latin America yet, and most players aren't built for the region. We're a small Latin American team building for people like us; we know the pain points because we live with them."
Since launching in late 2025, Amulets has grown to over 7,000 users, mostly across Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Mexico. It offers a crypto wallet linked to a card, and off-ramp services in certain regions, so customers can spend their balance in everyday life without going through the traditional banking system.
Why didn't Amulets build its own card?
Amulets' strength is DeFi. The team built its wallet and blockchain integrations in-house, but card issuing is a different ball game: it needs card network membership, a sponsor bank relationship, local licences, and compliance infrastructure.
"So many people in Latin America have been asking for a card that lets them spend in dollars and euros, so we knew the demand was there," said Vinicius. "Card issuing comes with significant capital and regulatory requirements. For Amulets, partnering with a specialist made more sense than building that infrastructure ourselves. It lets us focus on the product and our customers."
The answer was to integrate with a stablecoin infrastructure provider, and Amulets isn't alone. Monthly stablecoin card volumes reached a new all-time high in September 2026, as more businesses add stablecoin financial services without building them in-house.
Why did Amulets move its card programme from Rain to Wirex?
Amulets first launched its card through Rain, a stablecoin card issuer, in December 2025. When the team made contact in April 2025, there were few established options offering these services, and Wirex's infrastructure was not yet open to third-party integrations (which it did in November 2025).
"We launched our cards with Rain, but the pricing model didn't work for us. Their charge per transaction and fee for every new card customer made our margins incredibly thin, particularly for small purchases and during onboarding. We're focused on profitable growth, and the pricing model needed to support that," said Vinicius.
Why did Amulets choose Wirex?
Wirex works with businesses of all sizes, from early-stage start-ups to established companies with hundreds of thousands of customers. Partners can integrate with the full financial services stack - accounts, cards, push-to-card, yield, cashback, travel, global payouts, and non-custodial wallets - through a single API\*. Wirex is one of the only stablecoin infrastructure provider that combines principal membership of both Visa and Mastercard with USDC and EURC dual settlement.
Vinicius explained: "Being able to settle in multiple currencies was a huge pull factor for us to use Wirex. Rain only offered USD settlement, but many of our customers want exposure to EUR and USD without converting first and losing money on exchange fees. With Wirex, the pricing model is simple, with no traditional card programme management fees, authorisation fees or accruing fees. Wirex's pricing allows customer small purchases to generate a positive transaction margin, helping us monetise the card sustainably."
Applying Wirex's pricing to a 30-day sample of its pre-migration activity, Amulets estimates its average variable issuer fees per card transaction are around 51%\\ lower than with Rain. Removing separate issuer charges for KYC and virtual card issuance also cut its direct onboarding cost by approximately 52%\\.
What was the process of Amulets' integration with Wirex?
Amulets signed with Wirex two weeks after initial conversations, working through the commercial agreement and sandbox access, and had cards in production three weeks later in August 2026.
The integration process was smooth, completing it without needing any technical calls, with Vinicius explaining: "We were immediately given a dedicated Account Manager, and the team took an active interest in helping resolve internal dependencies throughout. Migrating customers from Rain to Wirex was seamless for the customer and required minimal effort, as we were able to reuse existing KYC verifications with customers' consent. Wirex's acceptance of Sumsub shared tokens was particularly helpful."
Amulets has closed its Rain card programme, and, during soft-launch, are gradually rolling out Wirex-issued cards to existing users, free of charge. By the end of 5th October 2026, it had issued over 1000 Wirex cards, ahead of full rollout to its remaining customers later this month.
Daniel Rowlands, Wirex's CCO, said: "Our infrastructure was designed for teams like Amulets: a focused product for a specific market, without the overhead of building card issuing from scratch. They're using stablecoins to solve real-world problems for everyday people in Latin America.
Our priority is offering a white-glove service and competitive pricing, with our team aiming to respond to partner queries within one working day. Going from first conversation to live cards in five weeks shows what that looks like in practice."
As Amulets moves to full rollout, they are looking for ways to improve the experience for their customers. Amulets' team uses Wirex's AI-powered support portal to handle straightforward card queries, such as KYC status, limit increases and chargeback requests, with more complex cases escalated to Wirex's Support team. That gives the team a direct way to clarify issues, and means faster answers for users
How do Amulets customers use stablecoin cards in Latin America?
Amulets integrated with Wirex's infrastructure to offer the full suite of financial products on stablecoin rails, including cards, named IBAN accounts, USD and EUR on and off-ramps, and Sumsub token sharing. Its customers use its services in three main ways:
- Protecting savings from inflation: users earning in stablecoins, often from remote work abroad, hold dollars or euros and spend them without converting and losing money on exchange fees
- Living across borders: digital nomads and expats moving between Latin America, the US and Europe who don't want several bank accounts
- Earning in DeFi: crypto-native users earning from protocols such as Aave, who value ownership and privacy
What's next for Amulets and Wirex?
Before the migration, Amulets' active card users spent approximately US$490 a month on average in April 2026, reaching approximately US$630 in June as usage grew. Based on its previous card volumes, Amulets expects to process more than 500,000 USD in stablecoin card spend each month with Wirex by the end of the year.
Amulets is currently exploring a non-custodial model for certain regions, plus SEPA for EUR and ACH for USD through the same Wirex API, to build a more complete global account for customers who need to use money across borders.
Vinicius said: "Our expansion plans are driven by the unmet needs we see in Latin America. We want to build the best possible solution for customers in the region, keeping customer acquisition costs under control and growing profitably. Our first major milestone is 100,000 users, and based on my experience leading businesses in Brazil, I believe that scale is achievable in a relatively short period, even as a bootstrapped company. Wirex supports that plan by giving us a clearer route to sustainable card monetisation."
Looking to integrate stablecoin financial products into your platform? Talk to the team about integrating with Wirex.
Important information: This case study is intended for businesses and is for information only. It is not financial, investment, legal or tax advice, or an offer or solicitation to buy or use any product or service. Figures, estimates and quotes are provided by Amulets, reflect its own experience and have not been independently verified; results for other businesses may vary. Forward-looking statements reflect Amulets' current expectations and are not guarantees of future performance. Stablecoins and other cryptoassets involve risk, including loss of value and loss of peg; they are not bank deposits and are generally not covered by deposit protection or investor compensation schemes. Wirex products and services are provided by [WIREX ENTITY AND REGULATORY STATUS], are subject to eligibility, regional availability and applicable terms, and are not available in all jurisdictions. Amulets is an independent company and is not a bank. Visa, Mastercard, USDC, EURC, Rain, Sumsub and Aave are trademarks of their respective owners; their mention does not imply endorsement of Wirex.
\ Products and services depend on regional availability and eligibility*
\\ Based on Amulets' 30-day pre-migration sample. Savings depend on transaction mix and volumes, and results for other partners may vary