What is a crypto card?
A crypto card is a Visa or Mastercard you can use anywhere those networks are accepted. The difference: instead of being funded by your regular bank, it's funded by your crypto. When you tap it at a coffee shop, the card converts your crypto to local currency in real time, the merchant gets paid in dollars or euros, and you get the equivalent crypto deducted. To them, it's just a normal card payment. To you, it's spending crypto.
Custody: where your crypto sits
The biggest difference between cards is where your crypto lives while you wait to spend it. Custodial cards (Crypto.com, Coinbase, Binance, Bybit) hold your crypto for you, like a bank holding your money. Convenient, but you don't control the keys. Self-custody cards (MetaMask, Gnosis Pay, EtherFi, KAST) spend directly from a wallet you control. More secure, but you're responsible for the wallet. Credit cards (Gemini) work like normal credit cards but pay rewards in crypto.
"Cashback" isn't always cash
Most crypto cards advertise high cashback rates: 5%, 8%, even 35%. The number rarely matches what you actually earn. Caps, lockups, and rewards paid in the issuer's own token (which can drop in value) all reduce the effective rate. Where our editorial estimate of effective earn rate differs significantly from the headline, we publish it as "Realistic: X%" on the card. Pay attention to this number, not the headline one.
Airdrops: free tokens for early users
Several newer card programs distribute free tokens to early users; these are called "airdrops." The card programs marked "Airdrop likely" or "Airdrop possible" on this site have signals that suggest a future token distribution: they have points programs, no token yet, and VC backing typical of pre-token projects. None of this is guaranteed. We score the likelihood, but we don't promise outcomes.