4E Labs｜Infini Exits, Exchanges Double Down: Strategic Value Analysis of U Card

Author: 0xElora

In 2025, the crypto payment card industry saw an interesting divergence:

• Infini announced a complete exit from the U card business, citing high compliance costs, low profits, and significant operational pressure;
• Meanwhile, platforms like Coinbase, Bybit, Bitget, Gate, and KuCoin have launched or upgraded card products, competing for user payment entry;
• 4E Labs, on the other hand, is doubling down, continuing to push the U card business and emphasizing a new model of "payment as investment."

Why is this happening? Why are some exiting while more exchanges are rushing in?

This is not a paradox: for many exchanges, U cards are not a profit center, but an ecological entry point. They are linked to high-frequency reach, asset accumulation (AUM), cross-selling, brand, and data, making it "feasible and worthwhile."

1. Why the industry "can do it": Supply Side

1) Lower technical barriers

From Coinbase's early Visa debit card to various branded cards today, providers like Marqeta offer "card issuing as a service" with building blocks for accounts, clearing and settlement, real-time authorization, and compliance modules, allowing project teams to assemble a card through APIs. This enables non-bank entities to enter the "card product" issuance and operation at reasonable costs.

2) Gradual mainstreaming of compliance

Regulations for stablecoins and crypto payments in Europe and the U.S. are becoming clearer, and card organizations are opening interfaces, making compliance risks less ambiguous than in earlier years.

3) Natural advantages of exchanges

Mainstream platforms have established KYC/AML, risk control, and clearing and settlement connections along with a large user pool, allowing them to integrate card services into existing compliance and risk control systems, with marginal integration costs far lower than starting from scratch with independent teams. Therefore, U cards are more suitable for exchanges/wallets, serving as an "added value" for user binding and AUM accumulation, making it "worth it" even if it doesn't generate profits in the short term.

2. Why platforms "are willing to do it": Demand Side

1) High-frequency reach: From "low-frequency trading" to "daily payments" mindset shift

Trading behavior is infrequent, while payments are frequent. Cards transform platforms from "you come back when you think of me" to "always in your pocket," directly reducing churn rates and increasing revisit rates, and opening frequency entry points for subsequent financial products.

2) Asset accumulation (AUM): Payments drive traffic, traffic retains

Card usage inherently brings fund retention and asset turnover, enhancing deposit and withdrawal stickiness and fund stay duration; after pathways like broker deposits, CEX deposits and withdrawals, and cross-border payments are connected, AUM and GMV form a positive cycle (both wallet and exchange players manage this as an "added value" for long-term odds).

3) Cross-selling: From "cashback" to "asset management" differential returns

The moat of pure "cashback cards" is thin; the real value lies in integrating cards with wealth management, staking, exchange, lending, subscriptions, and cross-border e-commerce, achieving multi-dimensional growth in fees, spreads, and returns. Leading CEXs are packaging cards, apps, and yield accounts, moving towards "trading as life."

4) Brand and data: First-party assets of identity and consumption profiles

Payment data is high-value first-party data. Under compliance, platforms can better understand consumer preferences, traffic directions, and risk profiles, optimizing recommendations and risk control models in reverse, thereby long-term boosting LTV/CAC.

3. Why did Infini exit?

Infini's dilemma lies in:

• The business is entirely consumer-facing (to-C), leading to huge resource consumption;
• The profit model is singular, relying solely on cashback and fees, with marginal profits extremely low;
• Lack of ecological linkage, making the card business unable to support the platform.

Thus, Infini's issue is not that "cards have no value," but rather treating cards as an independent business line instead of an entry point.

4. Why is everyone "rushing for card positions"?

• Coinbase: Partnering with American Express to launch the Coinbase One Card, offering members 2%-4% BTC cashback, merging "credit card network benefits" with "crypto rewards," a typical ecological bundling strategy.
• Bybit: Issuing Mastercard debit cards in markets like Europe and Australia, promoting 2%-10% cashback during the promotional period, supporting Apple Pay / Google Pay, covering multiple regional consumption scenarios.
• Bitget: Dual-line layout --- a co-branded Mastercard debit card and Visa credit card (VIP) running in parallel, targeting cross-border consumption and high-net-worth users, emphasizing high limits and member benefits.
• SafePal × Fiat24: Following a "accounts first" compliance path, providing a combination of IBAN + Mastercard + SEPA for a "account + card" solution, highlighting deposit and withdrawal closed-loop capabilities.
• 4E Labs U card: Unlike the above platforms, 4E's highlight is not in "cashback intensity" or "compliance account binding," but in pioneering the "payment as investment (Portfolio-as-Payment)" model:
• Wealth management balance as payment: Users do not need to pre-load; the card directly draws from the liquid earnings balance in the asset account, allowing them to earn while spending;
• Maximizing fund efficiency: Consumption behavior no longer severs the earnings link, with funds continuously working during payments;
• Ecological linkage: Payment is just the entry point, with trading, wealth management, and asset management forming an integrated closed loop behind it.

5. 4E's differentiated approach: Payment as investment

4E has chosen not to follow the old path of "attracting new users through cashback," but rather a new path of "payment as investment (Portfolio-as-Payment)": liquid wealth management balances/holding earnings can be directly used for payments, keeping "every expenditure" in a state where "funds are still working." Its value anchor is not in subsidies, but in fund efficiency and account experience itself:

• Payment as investment: User balances can continue to earn interest, and funds still generate returns during consumption. Every payment allows users to feel "earning while spending."
• Account as payment: No need for pre-loading or redemption; the wealth management balance is the consumption balance, reducing friction in fund circulation.
• Ecological linkage: The U card connects trading, wealth management, asset management, and cross-border payments, allowing funds to circulate within the ecosystem.
• Mindset upgrade: The card is no longer just a "spending tool," but an "asset management terminal."

Compared to Infini's "cashback approach," 4E resembles a fund efficiency revolution.

6. Value review: Why "exchanges can and should do cards," and why 4E's approach is more sustainable

1) Business engine: The direct profit from cards is limited, but the combination of high-frequency reach + AUM + cross-selling + brand data significantly amplifies LTV; for ecological players with trading, wealth management, deposit and withdrawal, and account systems, this is a naturally positive-sum game.

2) Supply availability: CaaS industrializes issuance and operation, card organizations/compliance banks are more open in their interfaces, and compliance and networks are gradually being integrated into the main channel, significantly enhancing feasibility.

3) Differentiated strategies:

• Cashback card/prepaid card type: Short-term effectiveness, but long-term homogenization is severe;
• Account type (card + account): More stable structure (SafePal × Fiat24);
• 4E's Portfolio-as-Payment: Using fund efficiency to replace subsidy intensity as the core value anchor, transforming the card from an "end point" to an "entry point."

Conclusion: The card is not the end, but the entry point

The U card was once seen as a marketing tool for "cashback customer acquisition," but it is now becoming the entry point of the ecosystem, the terminal interface for assets. Exchanges "can do it" because the supply side has been industrialized; "are willing to do it" because it can illuminate four long-term growth curves. On this path, 4E's key is not the intensity of subsidies, but fund efficiency: making "wealth management balance as payment" a daily occurrence, allowing "consumption to happen within earnings." When users swipe their cards, they are truly engaging with their "assets," and the value of the card is re-evaluated.