A crypto-collateral Visa for people who already keep their own keys

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

The Exa Card is unusual among crypto payment cards because the crypto never leaves your own wallet. You keep your assets in the self-custody Exa app, the app lends against that collateral, and a virtual Visa is paid out of the credit line. There is no physical card, no monthly fee on the official page, and a single 1.5% fee on every non-USD purchase. That setup is the reason the card exists, and it is also where most of the small print lives. I went through the official pages, the help center and the third-party sites that track crypto cards so I could put the trade-offs in one place. The card is live as of this writing, and the conditions below are current as of 2026-10-20.

Conditions are current as of October 28, 2026.

Verdict

Exa earns a 6.2 out of 10 in my scoring. The score is a balance between the things the card does well and the things it does not yet say out loud. The first column in the table shows the criterion, the second the mark out of 10, and the third the reason in a sentence.

The card is built for one specific reader: someone who already holds crypto in their own wallet, would rather not give a custodian the keys, and is happy to spend against a credit line rather than a prepaid balance. If that is you, the design makes sense. If you want a prepaid debit feel, a strong cashback rate, or a card you can hand to a friend at a restaurant, you are not the audience.

Will they give you the card

The Exa Card is issued in 45 countries and 31 US states, and the rule is by residence. The 45 countries include Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates, with Nigeria treated as conditional. Eighteen countries are off the list, and the ineligible set includes Belarus, China, India, Iran, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam and Russia. The wording on the site is also worth reading twice: Russian residents cannot be issued a card, and the card is blocked from spending in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela, which is a longer list than the issuance block. If you live in a permitted country but travel to a blocked one, the card will not work at the till.

In the United States the card is available in 31 states, and the US legal address the company lists in its help center (San Juan, PR) is provided by Rain, a card-issuing partner. The licensed bank that actually puts the Visa on file is not named on the pages I read, and Exa Labs SAS, the operating company, says it does not issue payment instruments itself. That is normal for a card programme, but it is one of the things a cautious reader will want to know up front.

A practical point on identity: the official page does not publish the exact documents you will be asked for. It states that requesting a card starts a single validation step of “no more than 3 minutes” and that the same step is described in the app as “about 3 minutes”. Above $10,000 of weekly purchases an automated source-of-funds check kicks in, and raising limits requires proof of address and proof of funds. Age, residence and identity rules are typical of the category but are not spelled out on the public page, which is something to expect rather than to be surprised by.

How to get it

There is no web sign-up: the entry point is the Exa app, which is reached by a QR code on the site. A web version also exists at web.exactly.app. The official flow is download the app, add funds and pass the KYC check, and the help center describes the validation as a single step of “no more than 3 minutes”. After validation, the card is provisioned into Apple Pay or Google Wallet, because the card is virtual only.

The card you get is the Visa Signature Exa Credit Card, a credit product rather than a prepaid one, and it is accepted “at over 150 million merchants in more than 150 countries” according to the official page. There is no physical card at the moment; the help center has a “Is there a physical card?” article and a separate “No, there are no physical cards available at the moment” answer, so delivery and replacement do not apply. The card’s underlying currency is US dollars, and the help center has a non-USD conversion article whose contents I did not read in full, so the 1.5% FX fee is the part that is public.

Two things to know about the sign-up process before you start. First, it is credit, not prepaid, so the app will look at your collateral and set a spending limit, and the loan interest is built into the instalment plan you choose. Second, the issuer is not named on the public pages, so you are trusting the Exa brand and the visible partners (Visa on the network side, Rain on the US side) rather than a specific bank.

What it really costs: Fees

The Exa Card is marketed as free, and the public page lists no amount for issuance, monthly or annual. The help center has an “Exa Card associated fees and costs” article that I could not read in full, and a separate article covers the non-USD conversion rate. The single fee that is clearly stated is the 1.5% charged on every purchase in a currency other than USD; that fee is included in the exchange rate the merchant sees, so it is not a line item on the receipt. A loan-origination fee can apply and, when it does, it is folded into the instalment interest.

The picture below is the official one. Unofficial sources fill in some blanks, and I have marked every such line as unconfirmed.

There is no tier system: the card is one product, the Visa Signature Exa Credit Card, and there are no paid plans to upgrade to. The single 1.5% line is the only fee a casual reader will see, and even that is hidden inside the conversion rate rather than shown as a charge.

To make the table land in real life, three everyday payments are worth walking through.

• A $40 coffee in Berlin. The merchant is paid in euros, the card is denominated in USD, and 1.5% is added to the wholesale rate inside the conversion. There is no separate foreign-transaction line; the receipt will show the dollar amount, and your statement will show a slightly higher dollar total than the rate you saw on Google would suggest.
• A $25 supermarket shop in Mexico City paid in pesos. Same mechanic: 1.5% is built into the rate. The card is not blocked for spending in Mexico, because Mexico is one of the 45 issuance countries and is not on the blocked-spend list, so the only friction is the rate.
• A 1,000 peso ATM withdrawal in Buenos Aires. The official page does not publish an ATM fee, so you have nothing to check the receipt against. CryptoCardHub, which is an unofficial source, lists $1 plus 0.65%, a $250 per-withdrawal cap and four withdrawals per day, and notes that you need a contactless NFC ATM and a PIN from the app. The ATM operator can also add its own fee, which is not something Exa controls.

The shape that emerges is a card whose headline fee is genuinely small, but whose day-to-day cost is hard to budget because the official page does not show enough of the numbers.

How to top it up: Top up

Topping up the Exa Card is not the same as topping up a prepaid card. Your funds stay in the self-custody Exa app, and the card spends against credit that the app extends against your collateral. The official page does not name the networks, and the help center has an “associated fees” article that lists only the FX fee and the loan-origination fee; a deposit fee, a minimum top-up and the fiat on-ramp options are not stated in the articles I read. Withdrawals are described in general terms, with funds that can be sent to a bank account or a digital wallet, and what happens to a remaining balance on closure is not stated.

The collateral assets are listed in the project documentation rather than on the marketing pages: USDC, ETH, wstETH, WBTC and OP, all borrowed against through Exactly Protocol markets. Because networks are not named, the safest assumption is that you should only send on a network that the app explicitly shows you when you start a deposit, because crypto transfers are irreversible and an asset sent on a chain the app does not support can be lost or stuck in support. Circle’s own documentation lists USDC on 38 networks as of mid-September 2026, and the same logic applies to wrapped ETH and similar assets: the app has to tell you which chain it expects, and you should not guess.

Two practical notes from the unofficial side. CryptoCardHub says that crypto deposits themselves carry no stated fee from Exa, while any fiat on-ramp fee is set by the third-party route and the country, which is normal. And because the underlying loan is on-chain, your credit limit is set by the value of your collateral and the loan-to-value ratio the protocol allows, so a price drop in your collateral reduces your spending limit in real time.

Paying with it every day

The card lives in your phone, not your wallet. The help center has articles for adding the card to Apple Pay and Google Wallet, which is the only way to pay in store because there is no plastic. Restricted merchant categories, such as gambling, are not listed on the public pages, and the only published reward-like offers are the standard Visa Signature benefits, a 20% discount on Airalo eSIMs, and a US activation deal that pays $20 in XRP via Uphold when you spend $100 in a set window. Cashback is not the focus: the “earn while you spend” wording on the official page refers to yield on the assets you hold in the app, not to a percentage rebate on card spend, and any historical 1.5% USDC cashback is described by CryptoCardHub as unverified.

The app itself is the part of the experience the official pages say least about. The site points iOS and Android users to a QR code, and the help articles run on intercom.help/exa-app. Unofficial store ratings paint a split picture: 5.0 out of 5 on the Apple App Store from a small sample of four ratings, and 2.7 out of 5 on Google Play from 58 ratings. Small samples, and a reason to look at the reviews rather than the headline number.

A few things about paying that the official page does spell out. A purchase is placed on hold at authorisation, and it usually settles one to three days later. The final amount can differ from the held amount, with three common causes: a tip added after the fact at a restaurant, a hotel hold that is adjusted when you check out, and exchange-rate moves between authorisation and settlement. Disputes, refunds and chargebacks are not described on the public pages, so a reader who cares about them has to ask support directly before relying on the card for a high-value purchase.

What can go wrong

A crypto card sits at the intersection of three things that can fail: a regulated payment programme, a self-custody app and a DeFi protocol. Each of those has its own failure mode, and the Exa Card has a small footprint in public for a product that touches all three.

• The company behind it. Exa Labs SAS is named in the footer as the operator, with a 2026 copyright. Cards are “issued by licensed third parties”, and the issuer bank is not named in the public pages. Exa Labs says it does not issue payment instruments, which is normal for a programme manager but worth knowing.
• The protocol underneath. A $7.3M exploit of Exactly Protocol in August 2023 is reported by third-party tracker cryptocards.so. The card sits on top of that protocol’s lending markets, so a repeat would hit the source of the credit line even if the card itself is fine.
• The public reputation. There is no Trustpilot page for exactly.app, the Google Play rating is 2.7 from 58 reviews, and cryptocards.so (5.7 out of 10) flags KYC failures for users in African markets, especially Nigeria, a lack of a documented support SLA, and the exclusion of 24 US states. The 24-state figure is the third-party number, not the 31-state figure on the official page, which is another reason to treat the rollout as a moving target.
• Account security. The official page describes a self-custodial account “secured with passkeys”, with an optional second account owner, and says borrowing and spending run on non-custodial smart contracts. Audits and insurance are not mentioned. In-app card freeze and granular spending controls are not described either, so a reader who needs those buttons has to ask.
• Support. The help center at intercom.help/exa-app and help.exactly.app is the main channel, with an X account at @Exa_App. There is no phone number, no live chat and no published service-level agreement.
• The category. The category has a track record of programmes that ended. Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX in November 2022 and the FTX US debit card was wound down by its issuer. WaveCrest, a Visa issuer that supplied several crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018. A 2026 closure of an unrelated programme is reported by a single secondary source, so it is unconfirmed, but the pattern matters: when a programme shuts, users usually get a notice period, then loading stops, then spending stops, and any remaining balance has to be withdrawn before the deadline.

A related risk is the self-custody one. With a self-custody-linked card the funds stay in your own wallet until the moment of payment, which removes the custodian-failure risk, but it puts the responsibility for the seed phrase, phishing and clipboard-hijacking malware squarely on you. A lost seed phrase with this card is the same as a lost seed phrase anywhere: there is no one to call.

What to take instead

Three cards that solve a similar problem in a different way are worth a quick look. The numbers and rules below come from the same kind of official and unofficial sources I used for the Exa review, and each has its own trade-off.

A few patterns jump out. Nexo is the closest to a familiar bank-card experience, with a Mastercard, a physical card and a tier-based cashback rate, but it is gated to European residency and has the unusual rule that the physical card is reserved for higher balances. Xplace is the most transparent on annual fees and tier benefits, and it is one of the few cards that publishes a 0% FX on its top tier, but the Gold and Platinum physical cards are not yet shipping. ether.fi is the most ambitious on cashback rates (3% in the lower monthly brackets), but it prices the first virtual card in a long list of regional-pricing countries, which can be a surprise on sign-up.

If you only care about self-custody, the Exa Card is the only one of the three that keeps the keys in your hands from end to end, and that is also why its support and disclosure are thinner: there is no custodian to fall back on.

Who I would recommend it to

The Exa Card is worth a serious look if you already keep your own crypto, you are comfortable with the idea of a credit line against collateral, and you are happy to pay through Apple Pay or Google Wallet rather than a piece of plastic. The 1.5% FX fee is competitive, the fee shape is simple, and the rollout is wide enough to cover most major markets. The trade-off is disclosure: the official page does not publish daily or monthly limits, ATM costs, deposit networks or the issuer bank, and the only public reputation data is a 2.7 on Google Play and a third-party tracker that flags a 2023 protocol exploit.

I would not recommend the card if you are new to self-custody, if you want a prepaid feel with a fixed balance, if you want a published cashback rate, or if you need a physical card for situations where phone payments are not accepted. For those readers, ether.fi’s reward-heavy tiers or Xplace’s published annual fees are a more honest trade, and Nexo’s Mastercard is the closest to a familiar bank card.

Before you commit, three things are worth doing. First, check the residence rules for your country and for any country you plan to spend in, because the issuance list and the blocked-spend list are not the same. Second, ask support for the full schedule of fees, limits and the issuer bank, and write down the answer. Third, send a small test top-up on the network the app shows you, because the official page does not name a chain for USDC, ETH, wstETH, WBTC or OP, and an incorrect chain is the one mistake that is hardest to undo.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Exa card?

The Exa Card is a virtual Visa Signature credit card paid from a credit line that the self-custody Exa app extends against crypto collateral held in your own wallet. It is issued in 45 countries and 31 US states, and there is no physical card at the moment.

How does the Exa card work?

You keep your crypto in the Exa app, the app lends against that collateral through Exactly Protocol markets, and the card spends from the resulting credit line. A purchase is authorised against the line, then settles one to three days later, sometimes for a different final amount.

Is Exa a bank?

No. Exa Labs SAS, the operating company, says it does not issue payment instruments, and cards are “issued by licensed third parties”. The issuer bank is not named on the public pages, so the card is a programme on top of a licensed partner, not a bank account.

Who owns Exa?

Exa is operated by Exa Labs SAS, which appears in the site footer with a 2026 copyright. The licensed issuer and any equity investors behind the company are not described on the public pages.

Is the Exa card available in my country?

The card is issued in 45 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa and the UAE, with Nigeria conditional. 18 countries are excluded, including Belarus, China, India, Iran, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam and Russia. The rule is by residence, and the card is also blocked from spending in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela.

How do I get the Exa card?

Download the Exa app via the QR code on the site, complete the single KYC validation step (described as “about 3 minutes”), and provision the virtual card into Apple Pay or Google Wallet. Above $10,000 of weekly purchases an automated source-of-funds check is triggered.

Does the Exa card require KYC?

Yes. The sign-up step is a single validation of “no more than 3 minutes” that includes identity checks, and a source-of-funds review can be triggered for higher limits. The specific documents are not listed on the public pages.

How do I top up the Exa card?

You do not top up the card directly. You hold collateral in the self-custody Exa app in USDC, ETH, wstETH, WBTC or OP, and the app extends a credit line against it. Networks are not named on the public page, so use the network the app shows you when you deposit, and start with a small test amount.

How do I add the Exa card to Apple Wallet?

The help center has a dedicated article for adding the card to Apple Pay and another for Google Wallet, and the official flow ends with the card being provisioned into the wallet of your choice. There is no physical card to pair, and no plastic is shipped.

Is the Exa card safe?

The app is self-custodial and “secured with passkeys”, and the underlying credit line runs on non-custodial smart contracts. The trade-offs are that audits and insurance are not mentioned on the public pages, there is no published service-level agreement for support, and a $7.3M exploit of the Exactly Protocol in August 2023 is still the headline third-party finding, which is why a cautious reader treats the card as one tool in a wider setup rather than a primary account.

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