Who we serve › Crypto (MCC 6051)
Card acquiring for crypto exchanges and on-ramps (MCC 6051)
TL;DR. This is about crypto businesses accepting cards and bank transfers from customers buying crypto, not about shops accepting crypto. MCC 6051 is treated like cash by issuers, so approval is decided country by country by issuer policy, not by the acquirer's sales deck. The platforms that work run a different acquirer or method per corridor under one stack. We map and place those, and a multi-licensed platform runs around $500M a year through a structure we built this way.
Who this is for. Registered or licensed exchanges, on-ramps, brokers and wallets processing $100K+ a month in fiat purchases, operating in or entering more than one country.
Issuers see cash. Acquirers price cash.
MCC 6051 is the scheme category for quasi-cash: crypto, foreign currency, money orders. Issuers apply cash-advance logic to it: some decline it outright in certain countries, most score it higher for fraud. Add first-party disputes (buy crypto, move it, dispute the card) and regulatory variance by country, and the list of acquirers that will board a 6051 file with real corridor coverage is short. Knowing which acquirer is strong for which issuing market is most of the work.
Issuer policy
Decided per country and per bank. No acquirer can promise around an issuer that blocks crypto.
Disputes
Buy, withdraw, dispute. Priced into reserves and caps; controlled by KYC and 3DS before the first purchase.
Corridors
An acquirer strong for EU cards can be weak for LATAM or APAC. Coverage is per corridor, not per platform.
Four failure modes we see repeatedly.
01
An approval promise made before seeing the corridors.
A PSP promised 95% to a crypto merchant without asking where its customers were. The main corridors were ones that PSP had no issuer relationships in. Approval landed far below the pitch.
02
One acquirer for every country.
Boarded on the acquirer that said yes first, then expanded into markets it never covered well. Declines by country are read as “crypto is hard” instead of “wrong acquirer for this corridor”.
03
A new integration per country.
Each market gets its own PSP and its own integration. Reconciliation, payouts and support fragment, and the platform cannot move volume between providers when one tightens.
04
First purchase without controls.
No KYC before the first card purchase, no 3DS, no velocity limit. The dispute ratio crosses a scheme threshold within months and the acquirer exits.
Diagnose. Improve. Prove.
Diagnose
Licenses and registrations per jurisdiction. Current acquirer(s), corridors covered, reserve and cap terms. Approval by country, card type and issuer. Dispute reasons and first-purchase controls. Local methods in use versus what customers in each market actually use.
Improve
Map the right acquirer and local methods per corridor, under the platform's existing stack rather than a new integration per country. Negotiate reserve and cap on history. Add open-banking or local bank-transfer methods where issuers block cards. Tighten first-purchase controls where the ratio needs it.
Prove
Move a bounded share of a corridor to the new path. Measure approval by issuer, dispute ratio, settlement timing. Expand corridor by corridor as the data earns it. Keep the incumbent until the new path has carried real traffic.
~$500M a year, one stack, many countries.
A crypto platform holding several licenses was expanding country by country and needed to know which local acquirers and payment methods would actually work in each new market. We mapped the options per jurisdiction and brought them under the platform's existing system, so each new market was a routing decision rather than a new integration. The platform processes around $500M a year through that structure today.
Figures rounded. The platform is not identified.
The underwriting file.
Every acquirer that boards 6051 knowingly asks for the same things. Having them ready is the biggest single accelerator.
- Licenses and registrations per jurisdiction, and the entity each one covers
- Product list per market: spot purchase, custody, trading, staking, cards, and which are offered where
- AML / KYC program, including when KYC triggers relative to the first purchase
- Fraud controls: 3DS policy, velocity limits for new accounts, device and chargeback tooling
- Group structure chart with the contracting entity and UBOs
- Processing history: six months of volume, approval, chargeback and fraud ratios by month and by country
- Current acquirer agreements: reserve, cap, release schedule, corridor exclusions
- Customer withdrawal flows and how fiat refunds are handled
Where the volume is and what carries it.
EU / EEA
Cards with 3DS, plus open-banking and local instant transfers that bypass issuer crypto blocks. Acquirer appetite varies by issuing country more than by platform.
UK
Issuer policy on crypto is bank-specific and changes; open banking is the reliable second rail. Registration status is checked at boarding.
Other markets
Mapped one by one: which acquirers have issuer coverage for that country, which local methods customers actually use, and what the registration there requires. The method is the same; the answer is never the same twice.
Is this page about accepting crypto as payment?
No. This is about the other direction: a crypto business (exchange, on-ramp, broker, wallet) that needs to accept cards and bank transfers from customers buying crypto. That is MCC 6051 acquiring, and it is a different problem from adding a crypto checkout button to an online shop. If you are a merchant who wants to accept crypto, we are not the right page.
Why is MCC 6051 so hard to get boarded for?
6051 (quasi-cash: crypto, money orders, foreign currency) sits in the same scheme category as cash advances. Issuers treat it like cash: higher decline rates by default, hard blocks in some countries, and extra scrutiny on every transaction. Acquirers price that in with higher reserves, lower caps, and a short list of corridors they will actually support. The license helps; the corridor list decides.
A PSP promised us 95% approval. Is that real?
Not before seeing your corridor data. A PSP promised a crypto merchant 95% without asking which countries its customers were in. The merchant's main corridors were ones where that PSP had no issuer relationships, and approval landed far below the pitch. In 6051, approval is set by the issuer's policy on crypto in each country, and no acquirer can promise around that. We look at where the declines are before anyone quotes a number.
Does one acquirer cover all our countries?
Almost never. 6051 appetite is country by country: an acquirer that is strong for EU cards may be weak or blocked for LATAM or APAC issuers. A licensed crypto platform expanding market by market came to us for exactly this; we mapped the local acquirers and methods per jurisdiction and brought them under the platform's existing system instead of a new integration per country. It processes around $500M a year through that structure.
Which payment methods convert for buying crypto?
Cards remain the first rail for new customers. Open-banking and local instant bank transfers (where available) convert well for repeat buyers, carry no card chargeback exposure, and are not subject to issuer crypto blocks. The right mix is per corridor, and it should come from your decline data by country and issuer, not a provider's catalogue.
Do we need to be licensed to get card acquiring?
In practice, yes: acquirers that board 6051 want a registration or license in a recognised jurisdiction (VASP registration, an EU CASP authorisation, a state MTL, or equivalent), a documented AML program, and a clear description of which products are offered where. Unregistered platforms do not get boarded by acquirers worth having.
What about chargebacks and first-party fraud in crypto?
The classic 6051 dispute is a customer who bought crypto, moved it, and then disputed the card charge. Acquirers know this pattern and price it. The defences are strong KYC before the first purchase, 3DS on card purchases, velocity limits for new accounts, and clear descriptors. A well-run exchange keeps its ratio within scheme thresholds; the ones that get terminated usually skipped the first-purchase controls.
How is Milestone paid for this?
By the acquirer or PSP you end up using, as a commission on volume. No fee to the platform for a review. We place with whichever of ~30 providers fits your corridors and license, so we have no reason to push one.
iGaming by license
The same corridor logic applied to gaming licenses.
Multi-rail
A second viable path without ripping out the primary.
True-cost calculator
What a cheaper acquirer with worse corridor coverage actually costs.
Tell us your corridors.
Licenses, countries, current acquirer, monthly fiat volume, and where the declines are. We reply within one business day. No fee for the review.