According to insiders, Visa is fixing a loophole that allowed users to earn regular points or cashback when purchasing meme tokens with credit cards via crossmint. These transactions were categorized under merchant category code 5815, which is for digital media such as e-books, movies, and music, instead of the 6012 or 6051 codes that should be used for crypto assets, thus being recorded as regular consumer spending by issuing banks.

The loophole was first tested by The Block: users of Robinhood Wallet and FOMO could buy tokens like WIF using Visa or Mastercard through Apple Pay or Google Pay without separate identity verification at checkout, still earning points. JPMorgan Chase complained to Visa about the misclassification, asserting that points should not be awarded; after review, Visa confirmed at least one misclassified transaction. The New York Attorney General's office is also examining this pathway.

Crossmint treats meme coins as "digital collectibles" and claims the classification is reasonable; its checkout product distinguishes meme coins from stablecoins and security tokens, only allowing approved secondary meme coins. Visa's rules specify that the sale of quasi-cash and crypto assets must use codes 6012 or 6051 and include special conditions for crypto, which typically do not earn regular consumer points.

After the fix, meme coin purchases via crossmint will be treated as crypto transactions, subject to Visa's restrictions on crypto. Reports indicate that Visa has informed processors that this category does not apply to meme coins, and channels including checkout.com will stop accepting this coding, with a grace period expected to end this week.

This means for users: using cards to buy meme coins will lose the same cashback as buying movies and may trigger issuing banks to refuse payments for crypto transactions, impose high fees, or outright reject them. For wallets and checkout intermediaries, the window to package tokens as digital goods to bypass quasi-cash rules is tightening.

Mechanically, this is a withdrawal of subsidies by issuing banks: selling points for "turning volatile assets into e-book purchases" is arbitrage, while buying is the real refusal and fees after compliant classification. Funds are flowing back from reward points to the cost items of issuing banks; the beneficiaries are banks unwilling to subsidize high-volatility tokens, while the pressured parties are meme coin gateways relying on KYC-free card channels and cashback to attract new users.

The closure of the points loophole does not change the on-chain transactions themselves, only how fiat deposits are accounted for.

Source: Public Information