Visa to close memecoin rewards loophole after The Block report

Credit card rewards programs are built on a simple premise: spend in the right category, earn points or cash back. For a brief window, memecoin buyers discovered they could game that system, earning rewards on crypto purchases that Visa explicitly prohibits. That window is closing. Visa is directing payment processors to stop classifying memecoin transactions under merchant category code 5815, a code reserved for digital goods and media, following a report by The Block published September 1, 2026. The grace period for compliance runs out next week, after which any memecoin purchase through the affected channels must be coded under crypto-specific transaction rules that come with Visa’s standard restrictions on rewards. How the loophole worked The mechanism was straightforward. Crossmint, a platform that facilitates secondary sales of memecoins classified as collectibles rather than securities, integrated with both Robinhood Wallet and an app called Fomo. When users bought memecoins through these apps using a Visa credit card, the transaction hit the payment network labeled as a digital goods purchase under MCC 5815. That single four-digit code made all the difference. Crypto purcha...