🔎 Best crypto cards
Today’s newsletter is going to be a little different.
Everyone talks about taking profits, but no one talks about how to actually withdraw them and spend them in real life.
Off-ramping has historically been tricky.
Sure, there are a lot of ways in which you can theoretically withdraw money from crypto, but the problem is that most banks aren’t crypto-friendly at all.
Many people have had their bank accounts closed because of their crypto exposure.
So over the past few months, I spent some time testing several crypto cards that let you spend your crypto seamlessly without needing to interact with a bank.
I thought it would be valuable to share my experience with you.
Here are the best crypto cards I’ve tried so far👇
1. Mantle’s UR card
UR is an on-chain neobank built by Mantle, a popular DeFi project.
I’ve been testing it over the past few weeks, and overall, I had a great experience. One of the things I like the most about UR is that none of my transactions have failed.
With other crypto cards, my payments failed from time to time for no clear reason.
UR is currently in an invite-only phase, but if you wanna give it a try, you can use one of my invite codes - each code can be used once (so first come, first served):
c87v23 kdkg3m f7ff9u kf8jf9 3vpehb xpvqds awqfw2 f7ff9u kf8jf9 pw5299 9cwc9s
jkxmkg r5f4ed 3vpehb 5vt94j 9yvauv cxq4mb 23sc8b 4ysecx sw54xq e6h6a8 2rt7vm
✅ Pros:
Multiple fiat balances - Most crypto cards support one or two currencies, while UR supports four: EUR, US, Swiss francs (CHF), and Chinese Renminbi (RMB)
Google Pay and Apple Pay integration
Fast onboarding - I was able to start using UR and complete the onboarding process in just a few minutes
Low fees - Account creation is free, and there are only two types of fees for now: foreign exchange (1%) and crypto conversion to fiat (0.5%)
Clean UX - In terms of user interface, UR is, without a doubt, the best crypto card I've tried so far, and it’s also very easy to use
Incentive program - If you spend money in certain categories (subscriptions, food delivery, etc.) and complete other tasks, you’ll earn lottery tickets, which will give you a chance to win up to $3,000 in weekly rewards
Multichain USDC deposits - You can deposit USDC and start spending it from Base, Arbitrum, Ethereum, and Mantle
❌Cons:
There is no physical card (it’s a virtual-only card for now)
Bank transfers aren’t supported - For now, I was not able to send or receive bank transfers using UR, but this will be enabled soon, according to the team
With that being said, UR has a lot of exciting items on the roadmap.
This includes launching several investment products, enabling borrowing against your assets, adding on and off-ramping functionality, and much more.
2. EtherFi Cash card
Another crypto card that has been getting attention recently is EtherFi Cash - a product developed by EtherFi, the largest ETH liquid restaking solution.
I signed up for it several months ago, and here’s my review:
✅ Pros:
Multichain deposits - You can deposit crypto and start spending it from Ethereum, Base, and Scroll
Earn program - If you deposit USDC in the vault product in your EtherFi Cash account, you will earn 9.3% APY until you spend it
Decent onboarding - It took 2 days for my KYC data to be verified, but from what I heard, for most people, it takes a few minutes
Google Pay and Apple Pay integration
A borrow mode is available - If you hold ETH or BTC, you can borrow against them to make purchases without selling your coins
Cashback incentives - Until July 31, every cardholder gets 3% cashback and ETHFI tokens when they spend crypto using it
Business cards are supported
❌Cons:
The user interface can still be improved - I wouldn’t necessarily say that the UI is bad, but it seemed complicated to me to use EtherFi Cash at the beginning
Bank transfers aren’t supported - Although the team plans to support them in the future
A physical card can’t be ordered (it’s a virtual-only card at this moment)
I have to say though that I really like that you can borrow and spend against your collateral using it.
3. Gnosis Pay card
One of the first crypto cards I ever used was the Gnosis Pay card.
It’s the first fully self-custodial DeFi card solution, which means it allows users to remain in control of their money.
✅ Pros:
No FX fees - There’s a 2% ATM withdrawal fee for withdrawals over $200 per month, but besides this, there are no foreign exchange fees/transaction fees
Has a great mobile app - You can install Zeal, an app built on top of Gnosis Pay, to deposit, send, swap, track your card spending, or interact with DeFi
Bank transfers are supported for onrampping & offrampping
Apple Pay and Google Pay integration
Multichain deposits - You can deposit from all major chains via deBridge or LiFi, which are directly integrated into Gnosis Pay
Clean user interface - Both its website and Zeal (the mobile app) are easy to use
Both a physical and a virtual card are available
You can access external DeFi apps and yield opportunities via Zeal
❌Cons:
Some of my transactions failed when using it
The onboarding process isn’t fast - For some reason, it took almost a week until my KYC data was verified
The customer service is generally slow - It took me several days to get a reply to my tickets whenever I had a problem
However, given that the Gnosis Pay card has zero foreign exchange fees, I can’t really complain much. Overall, it’s a good product.
Those are the best crypto cards I’ve used so far.
There are plenty of others, but based on my research, most of them have significantly higher fees. For now, those are my top three choices.
It’s great to see that crypto cards are gaining more traction.
Banks have been trying to kill the crypto industry for years. Now you can finally spend your crypto profits without needing any banker's permission.
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Nice list, for EU folks, Holy Held is a great card too. Full custody and cashback. SEPA payments too.