A crypto payment provider shut down overnight — and the architecture decided who lost money
On July 29, 2026, Paris-based stablecoin card issuer Kulipa stopped operating over solvency problems. Around 120,000 cards died mid-checkout across roughly 20 client platforms, four months after a $6.2M seed round. No wind-down email, no grace period. And yet not a single user balance was lost — because the cards spent straight from self-custodied wallets, so there was no pooled float to freeze. Analysis of what a crypto payment provider shutdown actually costs, and why custody is the only question that changes the answer for a merchant.