When Dmitry Lazarichev co-founded Wirex in 2014, cryptocurrency was still largely the preserve of technologists, libertarians and early Bitcoin believers. Setting up a crypto wallet was cumbersome, digital assets were volatile and the idea of spending cryptocurrency in everyday life seemed remote.
More than a decade later, Wirex has processed over $20 billion in transactions, built direct relationships with both Visa and Mastercard and quietly become one of the most influential infrastructure companies in digital payments.
Now Lazarichev believes the next transformation is already underway — and this time it is not Bitcoin leading the charge. It is stablecoins and artificial intelligence.
“We realised very early that crypto adoption would only happen if ordinary people could use it in a familiar way,” Lazarichev says. “That was the thinking behind connecting digital assets to a payment card. People already understood cards. They did not need to understand blockchain infrastructure.”
That simple idea helped Wirex launch what became the world’s first production-ready crypto payment card, allowing users to spend digital assets as easily as traditional currency. While other companies explored similar concepts, Wirex was first to market with a functioning product rather than a promise.
The timing proved significant. The company emerged alongside a new generation of fintech disruptors including Revolut, Monzo and N26, but while those firms focused on reinventing banking, Wirex focused on bridging traditional finance with blockchain technology.
In the early years, users primarily spent Bitcoin and Ethereum through the platform. But Lazarichev says behaviour began changing around three years ago as stablecoins increasingly became the preferred form of digital payment.
- “The original vision of Bitcoin was electronic cash,” he says. “But volatility made it difficult to use for everyday payments. Stablecoins solved that problem.”
Today, most of Wirex’s card settlement infrastructure operates through stablecoins, with more than $100 million per month already being settled on-chain.
For Lazarichev, stablecoins are no longer simply crypto products. They are becoming financial infrastructure.
That shift has opened a much larger opportunity for Wirex beyond retail users. Over the years the company built complex infrastructure connecting blockchain networks, banking rails, payment cards and fiat settlement systems. Increasingly, other businesses began asking to use that infrastructure themselves.
A year ago Wirex decided to commercialise those capabilities through APIs and SDKs that allow other companies to integrate crypto-enabled payments directly into their own applications.
The result is a new business model positioning Wirex as a financial infrastructure provider rather than simply a crypto payments app.
“We are seeing demand from companies that want blockchain functionality without having to build the infrastructure themselves,” Lazarichev explains. “Self-custody wallets are one example, but it can also be sports clubs, fintech apps or loyalty ecosystems.”
One example already in development involves football clubs seeking to launch branded financial products for supporters. Fans could hold digital wallets, access payment cards, receive membership benefits and interact with both traditional banking systems and blockchain assets within a single ecosystem.
It is a vision that moves crypto further away from speculation and closer to mainstream financial utility.
Yet the next phase may be even more ambitious.
Artificial intelligence is now rapidly reshaping Wirex’s strategy as the company explores what Lazarichev describes as “agentic payments” — autonomous AI systems capable of researching, selecting and paying for services on behalf of users.
The concept sounds futuristic but Lazarichev believes the technology is arriving far faster than many realise.
He describes a simple travel booking example. An AI agent could search flights and hotels, compare reviews, optimise pricing, complete booking forms and ultimately make payments using stablecoins through a self-custody wallet.
“You tell the AI where you want to travel, the dates and your preferences,” he says. “The agent does the research, narrows the options, fills in the details and eventually can complete the payment itself.”
The idea emerged partly from real-world frustrations. During the interview, discussion turned to misleading airline booking sites and hidden service charges that frequently trap hurried consumers online. Lazarichev argues AI agents could eventually protect users from many of these manipulative practices by analysing terms and identifying unnecessary fees before purchases are completed.
For businesses, the implications are potentially enormous. Autonomous payment systems could streamline procurement, automate API access and allow software systems to transact directly with each other using stablecoins.
The infrastructure is already beginning to emerge.
Wirex is currently developing tools allowing AI agents to operate within tightly controlled spending limits and user-defined guardrails. Users may eventually permit agents to purchase flights, subscribe to software services or manage recurring transactions within predefined parameters.
“There still has to be trust and security,” Lazarichev says. “Users will define what the agent is allowed to do and where it can spend. But blockchain infrastructure makes these systems much easier to build than traditional banking rails.”
The convergence of AI and stablecoins is increasingly attracting attention across the financial sector as major payment companies, banks and technology firms explore how autonomous digital commerce could evolve.
For Wirex, it represents a natural extension of the company’s original mission — simplifying access to emerging financial technologies before they become mainstream.
Lazarichev will discuss many of these themes when he appears at House of Block founder Korby Hayre’s upcoming London fintech and Web3 gathering, regarded as one of the leading networking events for decision-makers across the crypto and digital finance sectors.
More than a decade after Wirex launched its first crypto card, Lazarichev believes the industry is finally moving beyond experimentation and towards practical adoption.
“The technology is becoming invisible,” he says. “That is when real adoption happens.”
