Visa has told payment processors to stop coding meme coin purchases as digital media, closing a route that let card holders earn ordinary rewards on them.
The instruction covers merchant category code 5815, the classification used for e-books, films and music. Visa told processors, including Checkout.com, that the code is no longer appropriate for meme coin purchases, according to correspondence reviewed by Crypto In America, which first reported it citing a single source familiar with the matter. A grace period is expected to run out in the week of 26 September.
Buying meme coins with a card does not stop. Those transactions get processed as cryptocurrency instead, which puts them under Visa’s existing crypto rules and restrictions, and that is what decides whether they earn anything.
How the Coding Worked
Payment systems powered by Crossmint and built into apps including Robinhood Wallet and Fomo let users buy meme coins with a Visa or Mastercard credit card through Apple Pay or Google Pay.
Those purchases were coded as digital goods media rather than as crypto. Card networks and issuers treat crypto purchases differently, often excluding them from rewards and applying extra restrictions, so the classification decided whether a buyer collected points or cash back on a meme coin trade.
An investigation published on 1 September documented the practice. Chase said it considered the category inappropriate and referred the matter to Visa, having identified a transaction that was not flagged as a cryptocurrency purchase, carried the wrong merchant category code and should not have earned rewards.
Crossmint Is Not Conceding
The company at the centre of it has not accepted the characterisation.
“Crossmint maintains good standing with Visa, Mastercard, and all of our payment and card network partners,” a spokesperson said. “Our position and procedures on how we process digital goods through our platform has not changed.”
Crossmint has defended the coding by pointing at a 2025 SEC staff statement describing some meme coins as closer to collectibles than securities. That argument is about what a meme coin is under securities law. Visa’s position is about what it is for payment processing, and the two questions do not have to give the same answer.
The Rewards Are the Small Part
Losing cash back on a meme coin purchase is a minor inconvenience. What sits behind it is not.
New York attorney general Letitia James’ office has said it is aware of Crossmint’s product and is looking into the matter. A state regulator examining how crypto transactions are coded is a different order of problem from an issuer withdrawing points.
Merchant category codes are how card networks decide what a business is and which rules apply to it. Getting them wrong is the kind of finding that costs a company its processing, not just its rewards eligibility. The industry picked up a few points per transaction and put its access to card rails on the table to do it, at a moment when JP Morgan and Chase were already pulling back crypto card benefits.
