How crypto cards work, from your wallet to the shop's till

Tap a crypto card at a coffee shop and nothing looks different. The terminal beeps, the barista gets paid in local money, and you walk off with a flat white. Behind that beep, though, there are a few moving parts, and they decide what the card costs you and how safe your money is.

The four players behind every card

1. You, with crypto or stablecoins somewhere.
2. The app or brand you signed up with, like KAST, MetaMask or RedotPay. This is often called the program manager.
3. The issuer, a regulated bank or e-money institution that legally issues the Visa or Mastercard. Third National, Lead Bank, Monavate and DCS are common ones. Read our guide to crypto card issuers for who's behind which card.
4. The card network (Visa or Mastercard), which moves money between the issuer and the shop's bank.

The shop only ever deals with the network. It never touches crypto.

Where your money sits before you pay

This is the biggest difference between cards, and it falls into three models.

Custodial balance. You send crypto or stablecoins to the company, and it holds them for you. RedotPay, Crypto.com, Kolo and most exchange cards work this way. It's simple and easy to recover if you lose your phone, but the company controls the balance, so you rely on it staying solvent and honest.

Self-custody wallet. The money stays in a wallet you control until the moment you pay. The card company has permission to pull exactly the amount of each purchase. The MetaMask Card, Bleap, Solid and ether.fi Cash work like this. If the company has problems, it can stop the card, but it can't move funds out of your wallet.

Collateral or credit. You lock crypto as collateral and spend against it, like a secured credit card. Avici, ether.fi's borrow mode and Nexo's credit mode are examples. You don't sell your crypto to pay, which can help with taxes, but you carry liquidation risk if prices fall.

Our self-custody vs custodial guide goes deeper on the trade-offs.

When your crypto turns into money

Some cards convert when you top up. You load USDT, it becomes a dollar or euro balance, and the card spends that. ARQ, ZEN and Shakepay work this way. You know your balance in advance, but you've already sold your crypto.

Other cards convert when you pay. The card holds crypto until checkout, then sells exactly what's needed. Revolut's crypto card, Bitpanda and most exchange cards do this. It's convenient, but each payment is a separate sale, which matters for fees and for tax.

Stablecoin cards sit in between. If you hold USDC and pay in dollars, there's often nothing to convert at all, which is why stablecoins are the cheapest thing to spend.

Where the fees come from

Each step can carry a cost. A purchase abroad from a crypto balance can involve:

• a conversion fee or spread when crypto becomes money (0% on stablecoins with many cards, 1% to 2% on others),
• an FX fee when your balance currency differs from the shop's currency (0% to 3%),
• sometimes a per-payment fee, like Kolo's 1% or Pionex's 1% on every purchase,
• and the network's own exchange rate, which applies to every card.

Our fees guide breaks these down, and the cost calculator adds them up for your own spending.

Where cashback comes from

Card networks pay issuers a small interchange fee on every purchase, usually well under 1% in Europe and higher in the US. Cashback above that is paid by the program from its own pocket, a token treasury or a paid membership. That's why high rates usually come with caps, token payouts or subscriptions. See cashback traps before you chase a big number.

What this means when you pick a card

• If you want the simplest experience, a custodial card is fine for small spending money.
• If you hold larger amounts, a self-custody card limits what a company failure can cost you.
• If you spend a lot abroad, look at the FX fee before the cashback.
• If you care about tax, stablecoins in your own currency keep things simplest.