Who can freeze your crypto card money? 8 cards checked against their own terms

A crypto card feels like any debit card until something goes wrong. Then one question decides how your week goes: who actually controls the money behind the card? Kseilas, who runs the Card Map directory, put that question well in a post on X. We took the same question further. We read each provider's own terms, docs and help centre on 17 October 2026, added Avici, checked where refunds land and what happens during a shutdown or exploit, and wrote down only what the providers themselves say.

The short answer: it depends on where the balance sits

Every card on this page fits one of three setups.

1. You hold it. The money stays in a wallet or smart account you own until you spend. The card company can block the card, but it can't freeze or move the balance, apart from settling purchases you've made. MetaMask Card, Gnosis Pay, Avici and ether.fi Cash work this way.

2. A smart contract in between. Your money sits in a separate smart contract account that the card program uses, linked to your own wallet. Tangem Pay works this way. You're not handing coins to a company account, but you also rely on one app to move them out.

3. The company holds it. You send crypto to the company and see a balance in its app. That's Bybit, RedotPay and KAST. It's convenient, but the company's terms decide when you can withdraw.

Across our whole database, custody is mostly in the company's hands: of the 76 live cards we track, 43 (57%) are custodial and 21 (28%) are self-custody. The other 12 are hybrid, a top-up balance, or don't say. You can filter our comparison to self-custody cards to see them all.

8 cards checked against their own terms

Here's what each provider's own documents say. "Not stated" means we couldn't find an answer in the provider's public terms, docs or help centre, so we didn't guess.

What each provider actually says

MetaMask Card

The card spends straight from your MetaMask wallet. You approve a spending limit for each token, and the funds stay in your wallet until a purchase settles. MetaMask says you can revoke that limit at any time, and refunds go to a credit balance you can withdraw back to your wallet (MetaMask funding guide, card FAQs).

One catch: the "Full access" option lets the card draw your whole balance of that token. Setting a fixed limit keeps the exposure smaller. Also note that MetaMask isn't taking new US sign-ups right now; it lists 48 other countries as open (What is MetaMask Card?).

Gnosis Pay

Each user gets their own Safe smart account on Gnosis Chain, with a Delay Module and a Roles Module that let the card spend within limits (Gnosis Pay docs). Moving money out passes through a security delay. Gnosis Pay's docs also show that deposits under an anti-money-laundering review can be marked unspendable, so the card won't use them, even though they stay in your Safe.

Gnosis Pay is closing its own consumer card: it stops working on 20 December 2026 at 23:59 UTC, and the web app then stays open only for withdrawals. Funds in Safes have no withdrawal deadline (Crypto Briefing). That's self-custody doing its job. The flip side came on 1 June 2026, when a bug in the Zodiac Delay Module let an attacker move about $1.8 million out of 5,281 Safes. Gnosis paused cards and covered every loss (CoinGape).

Avici

Avici's card is a secured credit card. You deposit USDC into an escrow contract that your wallet owns, and Avici says it can only withdraw funds linked to your card charges. Only your wallet can take out the rest (Avici docs).

Two details matter here. Your Avici wallet is a passkey smart wallet built on ZeroDev, so there's no EVM private key to export, though the Solana wallet's key can be exported (Avici wallet). And refunds land on the card and "can only be spent", not withdrawn to your wallet (spending and transactions).

ether.fi Cash

Your ether.fi Cash Vault is a Safe smart account. Its owner is a Turnkey signer created when you sign up, with the key kept in secure enclaves. ether.fi says neither it nor Turnkey can access your keys or move your funds. But private key export is "not yet" available, so for now you sign through ether.fi's own login (ether.fi help). That's still self-custody on paper, with a practical dependency on one app until export ships.

Tangem Pay

Tangem Pay keeps your USDC or USDT in smart contract accounts that are separate from your Tangem Wallet. Tangem says it doesn't hold, custody or control user assets, and a partner, Paera, runs verification and card support (Tangem Pay overview). You can withdraw available funds to your wallet in the app at any time, but if you lose access to the linked wallet you also lose access to the Tangem Pay account (getting started). Refunds go back to the card balance and can't be withdrawn (spending and transactions).

Bybit Card

The Bybit Card has no balance of its own. It spends from your Bybit Funding Account. If your Bybit account is suspended, card payments fail, and if your Funding Account goes negative, Bybit suspends the card and restricts withdrawals until you repay (card transaction FAQ, general FAQ). Refunds are normally credited within 2 business days.

RedotPay

RedotPay's main balance is held by its custodian, Red Dot Trust. Its general terms let the group "terminate, suspend or limit" your use at any time without notice, "including freezing or closing your Custodian Account(s), Smart Contract Vault and/or Virtual Account". Its liability is capped at your wallet balance (RedotPay terms). Even the optional Smart Contract Vault, which locks tokens from your own wallet, lets RedotPay freeze, convert and deduct locked tokens for settlement and decline release requests (vault terms). Refunds reach your RedotPay account 2 to 15 days after the merchant pays (RedotPay help).

KAST

KAST's terms, effective 7 July 2026, are the clearest on this. Sending crypto to KAST "constitutes a transfer of ownership of such assets to KAST", and in return KAST owes you a USD balance you can redeem, subject to its checks and fees. KAST can freeze or close your account and custodian wallet without notice, withdrawals from a suspended account may need extra verification, and its total liability is capped at $500 (KAST terms). The wording drew criticism in July after a public spat with ether.fi's CEO (Crypto Briefing).

Four bad days, and how each setup handles them

Self-custody isn't the same as risk-free

Holding your own balance removes one big risk, the company. It doesn't remove all of them.

• Smart contract bugs. The Gnosis Pay exploit in June 2026 and the Rain contract exploit that hit Avici and Tria in August both drained balances from self-custody setups. Users were repaid both times, but that was a choice, not a guarantee.
• Keys you can't export. If the only way to sign is the provider's login (ether.fi's Turnkey signer for now, Avici's passkey wallet on EVM), you depend on that login working.
• Losing your wallet. On Tangem Pay, losing the linked wallet means losing the card account too.
• Approvals. A card allowance is a standing permission. Keep it to what you plan to spend.

Custodial isn't automatically a bad choice

Custodial cards are often easier to start with. You can recover a forgotten login, support can see your transactions, and some use licensed custodians. Plenty of people use them without trouble. The trade is that the terms, not you, decide what happens in a dispute, a compliance review or a shutdown. If you go custodial, treat the balance like cash in a wallet you could lose for a while.

Ask these 6 questions before you top up

1. Who holds the balance: me, a smart contract or the company?
2. If the app vanished tomorrow, how would I move my money? Name the exact tool.
3. Can I export the key, or is signing locked inside their login?
4. What do the terms say about freezing the account, not just the card? Search the terms for "suspend", "freeze" and "without notice".
5. Where do refunds land, and can I withdraw them?
6. Is there a liability cap, and how much would I lose if the company failed?

Then keep no more than a few weeks of spending on the card, and keep a backup card from a different provider. Our safety guide covers the other risks, and self-custody vs custodial explains the trade-offs in more depth.

How we checked

We read each provider's terms of service, developer docs and help centre on 17 October 2026, and quoted them directly where the wording matters. Where a provider doesn't publish an answer, we wrote "Not stated" rather than assume. News reports are used only for events, such as the Gnosis Pay exploit and shutdown date. Terms change often, so we re-check these cards each month and log changes on our news page. This guide is general information, not financial or legal advice. If something here is out of date, tell us and we'll check it.

The infographic and the table above are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. Please credit Crypto Cards Guide and link to this page.

Sources

• Kseilas on X: Who can freeze your crypto card money?, the post that prompted this check
• MetaMask: What is MetaMask Card?, Fund your card and Card FAQs
• Gnosis Pay docs: GP Safe account and Gnosis Pay: The Next Era
• Crypto Briefing: Gnosis Pay to shut down consumer cards by Dec. 20, 2026
• CoinGape: Gnosis Pay refunds 100% of user funds after the June 2026 exploit and crypto.news on the Zodiac Delay Module bug
• Avici docs: secured credit cards, spending and transactions and Avici wallet
• ether.fi help: What is my ether.fi Cash Vault?
• Tangem: What is Tangem Pay, Getting started and KYC and Spending and transactions
• Bybit: Card transaction FAQ and General inquiries FAQ
• RedotPay General Terms of Service, Self-custody wallet and vault terms and How are refunds handled?
• KAST Terms and Conditions of Service and Crypto Briefing on the KAST terms backlash