- Crypto card users increased their spending by 33% during Black Friday, with average transactions increasing by 11% — from €48 to €53.
- Jewelry, clothing, and home-improving categories led Black Friday shopping, showing triple-digit increase in transaction volume during the sales period.
- Day-to-day items like groceries and transportation continued to maintain the largest share in spending, proving crypto cards primarily used for everyday payments, not opportunistic shopping.
According to CEX.IO’s internal data, transaction volumes among crypto card users rose by 33% during Black Friday period, while the total number of transactions grew by 20%, demonstrating that Black Friday drove both higher spending and more frequent card usage. The average transaction value increased by 11% — from €48 to €53, with a spending expansion across most major retail categories.
At the same time, day-to-day expenses such as groceries, transport, and everyday retail held steady, indicating that seasonal shopping didn’t affect regular spending habits.
Typical Black Friday Categories: Fashion and Department Stores Lead the Charge
Further analysis of merchant category codes (MCC) reveals that crypto card users largely mirrored traditional consumer behavior during Black Friday, with categories that typically perform well among bank card holders showing similarly strong results.
Fashion Spikes Across the Board
Clothing retailers showed one of the strongest Black Friday reactions, recording 210% surge in transaction volume and 35% increase in transaction count. Shoe Stores followed a different pattern: volumes declined by 17%, but the number of transactions jumped 13%, indicating that users hunted for deeply discounted footwear rather than making larger purchases.
Overall, fashion-related merchants captured more than 7% of all Black Friday period spending — up from roughly 5% average in the previous weeks.
Department Stores Behave “By the Book”
Department Stores showed a 128% increase in transaction volume and a 17% rise in transaction count. Average transaction values nearly doubled, suggesting users gravitated toward bundled deals and multi-item purchases that department stores traditionally promote during seasonal sales.
Hobby Supplies and Gift Shops Remain Strong
Miscellaneous and Specialty Retail Stores, covering art materials, hobby supplies, and niche products, unsurprisingly experienced strong performance during Black Friday period, with a 216% volume increase and an 18% rise in transaction count. Gift, Card, Novelty, and Souvenir Shops saw similarly robust growth, posting a 228% jump in volume and 38% increase in transaction count.
These patterns suggest that users leveraged Black Friday to secure unique or personalized items ahead of the holiday season.
Electronics Saw Smaller-Scale Purchases
Electronics Stores presented a more complex picture, with total transaction volume fell by 13%, yet the number of transactions increased by 17%. This suggests that users primarily purchased lower-priced accessories rather than larger hardware.
In addition, electronics stores’ relative share might have declined because other categories expanded far more aggressively, reducing its weight in the overall spending mix.
Surprising Categories: Jewelry, Cosmetics, Home Upgrades, and Books Outperform Expectations
Beyond the traditional Black Friday leaders, several categories delivered unexpectedly strong results, revealing more diverse spending behavior than crypto users might be associated with.
Jewelry Surges Beyond Seasonal Norms
Jewelry, Watch, Clock, and Silverware Stores recorded one of the highest jumps among observed MCC codes, with transaction volume rising over 450% and transaction count increasing nearly 125%. This pushed jewelry’s share of total spending up to 0.53%.
While jewelry is often a holiday-adjacent purchase, the magnitude of the increase suggests that users capitalized heavily on Black Friday discounts for higher-value gifts and accessories.
Digital Apps Surge on Sales
Digital Goods – Applications posted a 199% increase in transaction volume and a 54% rise in transaction count during Black Friday. This indicates that crypto adopters leveraged seasonal promotions to purchase premium app subscriptions, software bundles, and digital services.
Home Upgrades See Momentum
Home-focused categories, including Lumber and Building Materials Stores and Furniture, Home Furnishings, and Equipment Stores, registered a 190% transaction volume increase during the Black Friday period, respectively. This suggests crypto card users appear to treat this Black Friday more as an opportunity to invest in home upgrades, with the share of home-upgrade purchases exceeding 1.5% of total spendings.
Books Make a Quiet but Strong Showing
Book Stores experienced meaningful increases, with 73% increase in transaction volume and 67% increase in transaction count, pointing out that physical and digital books are relatively popular among crypto enthusiasts as a gift or for personal consumption.
Day-to-Day Items: Relatively Steady Despite Increased Black Friday Spending
Even with the surge in promotional shopping, everyday categories continued to anchor crypto card activity, showing that these cards are firmly integrated into daily routines.
Groceries, convenience items, and general retail continued to represent the largest share of transactions, although the share of day-to-day items in spendings slightly decreased during Black Friday period — from 50.5% to 46.6%.
For instance, Grocery Stores and Supermarkets represent over 18% of total transactions, and 9% in total volume. They grew 8% throughout the Black Friday period, indicating that they remained almost unaffected by increased spending during Black Friday period.
Transportation, pharmacies, and money transfers also ticked upward, with volumes rising between up to 40% across these subcategories. The consistency of these everyday transactions shows that crypto cards are not used only for opportunistic Black Friday deals. Crypto users continue to rely on their cards for the same functional, day-to-day needs that bank cardholders do.
Conclusion
The Black Friday data demonstrates that crypto card users have successfully integrated digital payment rails into mainstream consumer behavior. They become more aligned with mainstream European shopping habits and actively respond to seasonal promotions. They also engage more heavily online — around 40% of all transactions during Black Friday period have taken place using e-commerce platforms.
As crypto payment tools continue to grow in adoption, these behaviors suggest a future where spending with digital assets feels indistinguishable from using any conventional card, particularly during high-intensity shopping events.
Methodology
The data used for this research consists of CEX.IO Card transaction records from users across the European Economic Area, where this card is exclusively available. The analysis compares a two-week Black Friday period (November 16-30) with an average of two week periods from early November and previous months. The Black Friday period was defined as November 16-30 to capture the extended sales period, as many European merchants introduced promotional pricing before the traditional Black Friday week as part of their seasonal campaigns.
Transactions were categorized using Merchant Category Codes (MCC), with each four-digit code representing a specific merchant type or industry. For analytical clarity, some MCC codes were grouped into broader categories such as clothing, transportation, etc.
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