Lemon Launches Argentina’s First Bitcoin-Backed Visa Cards—Spend Your BTC Without Selling
Argentina just got a new way to spend crypto—without ever letting go of it. Fintech platform Lemon is rolling out Visa credit cards backed by Bitcoin holdings, letting users tap their BTC for everyday purchases while the asset stays on their balance sheet.
How It Cuts Through Traditional Finance
Forget selling your Bitcoin for volatile local currency. The card automatically uses your BTC as collateral for a credit line in Argentine pesos. You spend the pesos; your Bitcoin stays put—still exposed to potential upside. It bypasses the usual sell-to-spend friction that keeps crypto locked away from real-world commerce.
Why Argentina First?
The move targets a market ripe for crypto innovation. Sky-high inflation and strict capital controls have pushed Argentines toward digital assets as a store of value. Lemon’s card offers a workaround—a way to leverage that stored value without converting it back into a rapidly depreciating fiat currency. It’s a pragmatic solution for a local economy where traditional banking often fails to keep pace.
The Bigger Picture: Crypto’s Creep Into Daily Life
This isn’t just a new payment product—it’s another step toward normalizing crypto in daily finance. By partnering with Visa, Lemon gains instant merchant acceptance worldwide. The model hints at a future where your cryptocurrency isn’t just an investment, but active collateral for your spending power. Other regions with volatile currencies or limited banking access could be next.
One cynical take? The finance world loves creating new debt products—even when the collateral is an asset originally designed to escape the traditional debt system. Sometimes innovation just means finding a new way to borrow against what you already own.
Lemon Visa credit card offers commission-free purchases of digital dollars
The launch includes a series of exclusive benefits for those who apply for the Lemon Visa credit card, including commission-free purchases of digital dollars, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more than 30 cryptocurrencies. However, it is only applicable to purchases, and not to exchanges or sales.
Users will also get early access to new products and app features, as well as individual support through Telegram, a newsletter with market news, and a portfolio overview with P&L.
For the first three months after launch, Rootstock, the protocol that enables users to build applications on the Bitcoin network, will waive the card’s maintenance fee. After that period, the maintenance fee will be approximately $7,500 per month and will be waived for users who purchase more than $150 worth of crypto per month.
Meanwhile, users can buy Bitcoin starting at $100 by depositing pesos via CBU or CVU and accessing the “Exchange” section in the app. It’s also possible to deposit BTC from other wallets through the Lightning Network, Bitcoin’s native network, Rootstock, and BNB Chain (BEP-20).
Existing Lemon users can spend pesos on everyday purchases using QR codes or the Lemon Visa card and receive Bitcoin for each transaction.
The company announced that it will later adjust its own backup amounts and credit limits. They stated that they are working on a solution that will allow purchases in dollars to be paid for directly in digital dollars, using stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC.
Lemon declares Bitcoin as the most held asset for savings
Argentines have a long-running distrust of banks, rooted in repeated devaluations and the “corralito” deposit freeze in December 2001, which wiped out savings. This pushed many households to keep wealth in dollars rather than in peso accounts.
According to reports, citing official data used in Argentina’s International Monetary Fund program, Argentines hold about $271 billion in undeclared dollars stashed “in mattresses and overseas bank accounts,” far outside the formal financial system.
Previously, President Javier Milei’s “Fiscal Innocence” tax amnesty initiative pushed close to 300,000 savers to declare more than $20 billion. However, some citizens managed to keep hiding their savings elsewhere. To that end, Lemon is trying to turn a favored savings asset into day-to-day spending power, without forcing savers to unwind their BTC.
The company highlighted that, in Argentina, Bitcoin is the most ” held ” asset, used as savings by Lemon users, surpassing both the dollar and the peso. Marcelo Cavazzoli, founder and CEO of Lemon, stated, “Bitcoin is the best store of value ever created and the cornerstone of the new digital economy.”
Besides Argentina, several platforms in the US, Europe, and Brazil allow users to borrow against Bitcoin or stablecoin positions. However, Lemon’s offer is unique because it clearly positions itself as a Bitcoin-guaranteed, peso-denominated revolving credit product that is released into a highly dollarized but still fragile banking environment.
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