TL;DR:
- OKX Card data from the EEA shows groceries and supermarkets led transactions at 26%, while restaurants and fast food represented 18%.
- National patterns varied, with French bakery spending, German online marketplaces, Dutch supermarkets and Polish convenience stores reflecting local habits.
- Broader European data points to low-value crypto card use, online spending and EURC retail payments, suggesting crypto payments are becoming routine rather than luxury-focused across everyday European consumer contexts now.
OKX Card data from Europe is making crypto spending look less like a luxury experiment and more like ordinary payment behavior. In the product’s first month across the European Economic Area, grocery stores and supermarkets represented 26% of all transactions, while restaurants and fast food accounted for 18%. The dataset covered settled purchases between Jan. 28 and Feb. 26 across the top 20 merchant types by transaction count, volume or users. The striking takeaway is crypto showing up in weekly routines, not only travel splurges, online speculation or high-value one-off purchases.
Everyday Spending Becomes Crypto’s Practical Test
The country-level patterns make the shift feel less abstract. In France, bakeries represented 5% of transactions, compared with 2% across the wider EEA, reflecting local café and boulangerie habits. In Germany, online marketplaces accounted for 30% of activity, more than double the EEA average of 13%. The Netherlands showed the highest supermarket concentration at 37%, while Poland stood out for small in-person payments, with convenience stores at 16% and fuel stations near 9%. In practical terms, crypto card use is mirroring local consumer behavior, rather than forming a separate speculative spending culture across Europe.
That detail matters because crypto cards have often been framed around novelty, rewards or occasional large purchases. OKX’s data points in a different direction: stablecoin-funded card payments are beginning to compete with traditional cards in routines. The company said the snapshot covered EEA markets where the card is live, included daily spending behavior and high-value outliers such as utilities, and excluded peer-to-peer transfers. The key signal is stablecoins acting like spendable cash, with users apparently converting digital balances into coffee, food, fuel and marketplace purchases without treating each transaction as a crypto event.
The broader European context reinforces that reading. A 2025 Cex.io report found about 45% of crypto card transactions in Europe were under 10 euros, or $11.75, while roughly 40% of card spending happened online, almost double the euro-area online card payment average of 21%. Separate Brighty data showed Spain accounted for 36% of retail transactions and 25% of total volume in EURC between 2025 and Q1 2026, with an average payment around 49 euros, or $58. For now, crypto’s payments story is becoming smaller and more frequent, which may be exactly why it matters.
