Your crypto vault is now your payment card. TapCards is a self-custody card built in Argentina: the keys are made inside the card's chip and never leave it. Tap it to pay at a shop or scan a QR code in your phone, and the chip signs the payment on its own.
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Solana devnet address our card used on Oct 3. The payments linked here were signed by its chip, on chain, in about a third of a second.
Inside the card
Apps that pay at shops hold your money or keep your keys on a phone. TapCards seals them in the chip.
A sealed, certified part of the chip (EAL6+). The keys are created inside it and never leave, not even to your phone.
Solana-style keys for Solana, and for Sui, Aptos and others that use the same kind. Ethereum-style keys for every EVM chain.
Tangem's 20 accounts all come from one key and one backup. Each TapCards profile gets its own keys, made on the chip. One profile today; more are next.
Our card signs a Solana payment in ~0.3 s. Tangem quotes under 2 s from tap to signature; open-source card applets take ~1.4 s.
Sources: our card (NXP JCOP 4.5), Solana devnet transfers on Oct 3 2026 and free memory measured on Oct 4 2026 · tangem.com help center and learning hub (Multi-Accounts; "from tap to signed transaction: under 2 seconds") · github.com/autumn8/tapioca-javacard-applet
How it works
No second card. No moving money between apps. The chip is what approves the payment.
A shop's QR code or a bank alias, in your phone.
Your key signs inside the chip. It never moves, never gets photographed, never touches the phone.
In pesos, through a licensed partner. The identity checks happen on that last step only.
Where it pays
Argentina's QR codes and bank transfers today, through Cachin. Card terminals everywhere next, through a BIN issuer.
Any shop's QR code. Every bank and wallet in Argentina can read every QR since 2021.
Live via Cachin (beta)Pay or send to any bank account or alias, instantly.
Live via Cachin (beta)Brazil's instant payments, used by 91% of Brazilians.
NextAny card terminal. We're already integrating with a BIN issuer; we can't name it yet.
In progressA business plugs its own payment rail into the TapCards SDK. The card signs, and the business settles on its rail.
In our SDKWhy now
Self-custodied stablecoins in Latin America grew 66% in a year. Spending them is still the hard part.
Since 2021, any wallet can pay any QR in Argentina, on the EMV QR standard. No new merchant hardware.
Since April 2026, apps can offer payment accounts through a licensed provider, with central bank approval.
Our card signs in ~0.3 s, in hardware. Open-source alternatives take ~1.4 s in software.
Cachin, a Solana wallet for local QR payments that one of us also builds, already runs TapCards as its card. More businesses are testing it now.
Sources: Chainalysis, Latin America 2026 (Sep 2026) · Argentina's central bank: Transferencias 3.0 (Nov 2021), Communications "A" 6425 and "A" 8432 (Apr 2026) · github.com/autumn8/tapioca-javacard-applet · cachin.app
Where we are
Early stage. Here is the honest list.
Who is building
Why us: Argentines pay with debit and credit cards every day, but crypto still feels foreign. A self-custody card makes it familiar, and no one here offers one. Building it takes cryptography and real hardware together, and we're both electronic technicians.
We wrote the card's applet, the SDK and both apps ourselves, in Buenos Aires. Joaquín Graña also builds Cachin, a Solana wallet for paying QR codes in Argentina.