Article Author: Lesley, MetaEra

Princess Christine

On June 17, the crypto startup Infini announced the shutdown of all card services. The news sparked significant industry attention and regret from loyal users.

"What about the renewal of ChatGPT and Twitter blue check?"

"Is there a possibility of restarting this business in the future?"

……

The more satisfied the users are, the more the company loses—this is the cruel paradox faced by U card startups.

Infini's shutdown of the U card business is not an isolated case. In the past two years, at least two well-known U card service providers have quietly exited the market, first OneKey, now Infini—they both attempted to bridge the gap between stablecoin payments and real-world consumption but ultimately ceased operations due to high compliance costs and unsustainable business models.

A Rational Strategic Retreat

One hour after Infini officially announced the shutdown of the U card business, co-founder Christine further explained the reasons for this decision on the X platform. She pointed out that the decision to shut down the U card business was mainly due to high compliance costs, thin profits, and significant operational pressure. The company will now focus on wealth management and asset management. Christine also emphasized that the company will fully embrace decentralization and explore decentralized payment solutions, resolutely avoiding the old centralized path.

Source: X (Princess Christine @0xsexybanana)

In an interview with MetaEra, Infini co-founder Christine shared her thoughts on making this decision.

"I definitely hesitated internally." Christine candidly told reporters. This team, which grew from an unknown small company, has already accumulated a considerable user base in the Chinese-speaking region. Many community users on Twitter expressed their hope for Infini to stay, which deeply touched the team—"What everyone hopes for is a usable U card, not for us to refund and close the card business."

However, the decision was not made hastily. Christine revealed that the team had in-depth discussions early on about whether to continue the card business, "This is a process of repeated reflection." The company carefully considered its future strategic adjustments to ensure that every step aligns with long-term development goals.

In the official announcement of the shutdown, Infini detailed its compensation plan for users: automatic refunds of card opening fees, ensuring the safety of funds in transit, and a commitment to complete all refunds within 21 working days. This "good start and good finish" attitude reflects the team's sense of responsibility and highlights a rare adherence to business ethics in this industry.

Two Core Resistances: Out-of-Control Costs and Dysfunctional Models

Infini U Card

In the interview, Christine deeply analyzed the two main reasons for shutting down the U card business, each pointing directly to the core pain points of the U card industry.

Heavy Cost Structure

When asked which part of the card issuance industry chain captures most of the profits, Christine's answer was unexpected: "Actually, we shouldn't be asking about profits; we should first talk about costs. We have no profits in the U card business, only costs." This statement reveals the fundamental issue in the U card industry.

Christine detailed the cost chain of the card issuance business through Infini's actual case.

KYT and KYC Costs

KYT (Know Your Transaction) and KYC (Know Your Customer) are crucial in the crypto payment industry.

KYT identifies and monitors transaction risks to prevent money laundering and fraud, thereby ensuring fund safety and compliance with financial integrity. To prevent illicit funds from flowing in, Infini collaborates with Cobo, requiring every recharge transaction to go through KYT.

KYC is an effective means to prevent identity theft, money laundering, and other illegal financial activities, ensuring the transparency and security of the financial system. Infini also introduced Sumsub's services in the KYC process.

This means that every time KYT and KYC are conducted, regardless of the outcome, Infini must pay the corresponding fees.

Card Group and Bank Fees

The upstream card group fees of card issuance services cannot be ignored. "Card groups" typically refer to organizations or networks that provide card payment solutions, such as Visa and Mastercard, which manage the issuance, payment, and transaction clearing processes of bank cards. The APIs provided by card groups require fixed monthly fees, and other costs such as exchange rate conversion fees and recharge service fees also impact the business's costs.

"We chose a user-friendly route, and many costs are borne by us. For example, each card has a fixed fee of $0.1 per month, which we do not charge users separately." Nevertheless, costs remain high, and profits are nearly zero. Christine revealed, "Generally, the exchange rate conversion fee is about 1% to 1.5%, which is not charged by us but by upstream banks and card groups. However, users feel unhappy, thinking they are losing out on the exchange rate."

Operational Costs

Infini's U card business also faces enormous operational pressure. Christine pointed out, "The operational complexity of the U card is comparable to that of a cryptocurrency exchange." The operation of the U card requires ensuring the security of each transaction and providing real-time customer support, but it does not bring in profits at the level of an exchange. To maintain a good user experience and efficient customer service, the Infini team bears substantial operational costs.

Compliance Costs

When asked which part of the U card costs burns the most money, Christine responded without hesitation: "If you must ask me which part burns the most money, it must be the payment license." She further explained, "Payment businesses need to obtain the corresponding payment licenses in different regions, such as the MSO (Money Service Operator) in Hong Kong and the EMI (Electronic Money Institution) in Europe. These license applications take a long time and are expensive." She added, "Especially in the KYC and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) processes, each user verification incurs fees." The high costs of payment licenses and compliance services make it difficult for startups to progress in this industry.

Misalignment of Crypto Vision and Reality

Compared to the ideal "bridge from the crypto world to real-world payments," the reality of U cards reveals structural limitations. For Infini, this is not a path that can be sustained long-term.

"If we want to profit from U cards, we can only raise the service fees." Christine admitted that the U card lacks a more effective profit model, and raising service fees is not a good solution. Increasing service fees contradicts the team's original intention of being user-friendly and low-cost, and it may provoke user dissatisfaction. In fact, in many regions, users can conveniently exchange stablecoins like USDT for fiat currency through exchange channels, and the U card does not provide decisive value overflow.

A more realistic issue is that the U card user experience is far inferior to Web 2.0 products. "We often receive complaints from users that using the card in places like Hong Kong and Singapore incurs exchange rate conversion fees." She explained that these fees are not set by Infini but are charged by upstream card groups. However, from the user's perspective, these costs ultimately fall on them, "Users think we are charging them and feel we are making a lot of money, but we haven't taken a penny." While bearing the burdens of complex compliance and customer service, Infini has not received returns or understanding from users that match its efforts, leading Christine to believe that this model is not a sustainable long-term development path.

Coinbase U Card

Currently, leading platforms like Coinbase and Bybit are still actively promoting U card services. Earlier this year, Coinbase announced it would launch the Coinbase One Card in the fall of 2025, offering users up to 4% Bitcoin cashback on each purchase.

However, these U cards backed by crypto exchanges may serve different purposes for businesses compared to Infini. Christine analyzed that these platforms are more likely to view U cards as "fund retention tools" rather than primary revenue sources. For example, Bybit users can enjoy fee reductions after depositing large amounts of funds. U cards can effectively help exchanges enhance fund retention and user loyalty by providing benefits and fee reductions. In this context, U cards are more like a part of the platform ecosystem, aimed at improving user retention and fund retention rather than being direct profit tools. She explained that these platforms already have well-established customer service, KYC, and compliance systems, making their operational structure inherently suitable for U card business.

For Infini, without a large trading business as support, the U card has instead become a high-burden, low-return energy consumer. The lack of a long-term profit logic also makes this path difficult to sustain.

The Future of Crypto Payments: U Cards Are Not the Endpoint of Crypto Payments

Infini remains committed to the Crypto Native philosophy, aiming to provide users with savings, wealth management, and payment services. Christine believes that the current crypto payment field has not progressed along the crypto trend.

Bitcoin was originally conceived as an innovative payment tool. Stablecoins, in particular, have advantages of speed, low cost, and censorship resistance. U cards convert stablecoins (such as USDT and USDC) into fiat currency, which is then deposited into bank accounts, allowing users to spend through traditional Visa or Mastercard networks. This method of U cards essentially bypasses these advantages, converting stablecoins back into fiat currency and returning to traditional payment networks, which goes against the original intention of crypto payments. Christine believes that the practice of converting stablecoins into fiat currency through U cards not only fails to unleash the potential of crypto payments but also represents a "regression" for the industry.

Christine emphasized: "The ultimate goal of crypto payments is to allow every user to directly use stablecoins for payments, rather than relying on fiat payment channels. What we want is 'Pay with crypto, pay with stablecoins,' not to revert to traditional fiat payment systems." She further added that she envisions a moment when an ordinary user can directly use USDT and USDC to pay and purchase things without going through traditional Visa and Mastercard, which would be the "iPhone" moment for crypto payments.

In fact, stablecoin payments have significant potential. According to on-chain data, as of May 31, the global stablecoin market cap has surpassed $250 billion, indicating a huge demand for stablecoins as payment tools. Christine believes that the "crypto payment" market still has vast development space.

From Trial and Error to Reconstruction: Infini's Experience Accumulation and Future Choices

Reflecting on the past year, Christine jokingly said, "Looking back at these things, I might not have done the U card from the beginning." She recalled her experience last year seeking advice from OneKey founder Yishi. Yishi was very candid and sincerely explained the various difficulties and pressures of the U card to Christine. At that time, OneKey had just shut down its U card business due to regulatory pressure.

However, Christine initially underestimated the complexity of compliance. "I thought if I didn't touch the 'gray market,' it would be fine," she laughed, "but the reality is far from that." After a year of practice, she personally experienced that the compliance pressure faced by payment-related businesses far exceeds that of traditional pure crypto projects, which is a significant challenge that cannot be avoided in crypto payment entrepreneurship.

Despite the challenges on the entrepreneurial path, the past year's experiences have also provided her with valuable insights.

She firmly believes: "If you want to succeed in entrepreneurship, timing, location, and human connections are all essential, and 'human connections' are the most important. A good team is crucial; if the team has enough vitality and combat effectiveness, many new businesses can succeed." Over the past year, Christine and her team have continuously overcome technical challenges while also forming a more efficient collaborative management model.

In addition to the team, Christine particularly emphasized the importance of reputation. In the crypto industry, both personal and brand reputation are crucial. "In this industry, reputation is the most core asset. If the reputation is bad, it will be very difficult for future businesses to sustain." She cited the example that despite Infini experiencing a theft incident in February this year, the team still decided to fully compensate users for their losses with their own funds, ensuring that no user suffered a loss. Such actions not only won users' trust but also laid the foundation for Infini's long-term development.

Looking ahead, Infini has clearly focused its development on two directions: first, to support the company's daily operations with robust wealth management products, establishing a sustainable revenue base; second, to continue exploring truly decentralized crypto payment paths, enhancing their feasibility in real-world applications.

Infini Earn

First, Infini will continue to strengthen its wealth management product line, which is an important source of revenue for the company. "Because many income-generating products are on-chain now, we will open some CeFi-type products in the future, which can provide stronger risk resistance." She stated: "The market is highly volatile; if a bear market comes, lending and wealth management returns often decline, so we need to provide users with more diversified and safer wealth management products to help them maintain returns in different market environments."

To meet the needs of different users, Infini also plans to segment its wealth management products. For example, she mentioned some arbitrage products or medium-to-high-frequency quantitative products suitable for users willing to accept a certain lock-up period; while for users who need to access funds at any time, they can still choose more flexible lending products. She emphasized that future wealth management products will be differentiated based on risk levels to better match users' liquidity and return needs.

On the other hand, Christine remains confident about the future of crypto payments and hopes to continue exploring truly decentralized crypto payment paths, especially in stablecoin payments. She clearly stated that traditional card payment solutions are a temporary transitional solution, while the real solution should be decentralized stablecoin payments. Stablecoin payments can achieve instant settlement and extremely low costs, which is the advantage of decentralized payments. "We have spent so much time and operational costs on a temporary transitional solution; why not think about a more long-term solution?" She revealed that Infini will increase its research and development efforts on decentralized payment solutions, aiming to allow users to directly use stablecoins for payments, breaking free from traditional fiat payment channels. "We already have some product ideas and concepts in this area, but we also need some time for research and testing."

Conclusion: Finding Long-Termism in Reality

When discussing the future, Christine stated that Infini will always move forward with the posture of long-term entrepreneurs, firmly optimistic about the development prospects of crypto payments. Regarding the future, she expressed the hope that the company can maintain stable revenue and achieve substantial progress in the field of crypto payments.

From facing compliance challenges to exploring the grand vision of decentralized crypto payments, Infini is accumulating valuable experiences and steadily advancing technological innovation and business expansion. As the team continues to grow, Infini is tirelessly working to create more efficient and convenient payment solutions. Although the future is full of uncertainties, the direction Infini adheres to and the experiences it accumulates are gradually building a more sustainable innovation path, which may have a profound and lasting impact on the crypto payment industry.