Monolith is gone: the score, the leftover money, and your options

Updated October 2026

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Monolith is a closed programme, so this is not a review of a card you can sign up for today. On 8 October 2024 Monolith shut down its services, deactivated its cards and closed customer accounts, citing growing regulatory pressure in the EU and the UK. That single fact drives everything below: there is nothing left to apply for, no fees to weigh against a monthly subscription, and no way to top up a card through Monolith any more. What remains for you is either clean-up — if you once held a Monolith card, there may be crypto in a wallet you still control and a small balance sitting with the issuer that has to be claimed — or a decision about what to use instead. I scored the card 1.8 out of 10, and the score table below breaks down exactly why. My honest summary: former holders who act now to redeem leftover balances through Solaris have a clear path out; everyone else should treat Monolith as history and read the alternatives section with an open mind.

The conditions described here are current as of October 28, 2026.

The score: 1.8 out of 10, and who it suits

The score is not a stylistic judgement. Every line below is a fact I checked against what the card actually did before it closed. With a score this low there is very little positive to say, so I will not dress it up: a service that no longer issues cards, no longer has an app in the stores and no longer accepts top-ups cannot be recommended as a financial product in good conscience. The one group this page genuinely helps is former Monolith holders who still have a leftover balance or crypto to move — and even for them, the product experience is over, and what remains is a claim process, not a card you keep using.

The “cost” line is the only one that is not a flat zero, and even that is generous. Historically the card charged no monthly fee, but it did charge on the things you actually do — topping up and converting currency. Those historical numbers come from third-party reviews rather than from the card itself, so treat them as unofficial and not confirmed by Monolith. Since the card is closed, none of them apply to you today; I include them only so you understand what kind of product it was.

If you are still looking for a crypto card you can actually use in 2026, the answer to “is Monolith worth it” is simply no, because there is nothing to be worth. Skip to the alternatives section below. If you are reading this because you once had the card, stay with me through the next two sections — that is where your money is.

What happened to the programme

Here is the timeline as far as the public record states it, and it is short. On 8 October 2024 Monolith announced that its services were closed, its cards deactivated and its accounts closed, and gave the reason as increasing regulatory requirements in the EU and the UK. The closure notice does not mention MiCA by name, so I will not claim MiCA was the trigger — the notice’s own wording is the safest guide. Separately, on 17 February the Monolith app was delisted from app stores; the page does not state the year, though the surrounding context points to 2025. In April 2025 the company promised details of a swap of the TKN token to TOKEN, and a successor app, Token.com, was named. Legally, Monolith was a trading name of UAB “Belela”, a Lithuanian virtual-currency deposit and exchange operator registered under code 305982313; the card itself was issued by Solaris.

Two points about that corporate picture matter for you. First, the entity you dealt with was Lithuanian, and the card was issued by a partner, Solaris — which is why Solaris, not Monolith, is the party that now holds any leftover card balance. Second, the KYC and eligibility information that once existed is simply not applicable now: the card is closed, the closure notice carries no eligibility rules, and there is nothing to verify because there is no product to verify for. If you have been searching this card’s old pages for “who can apply” or “does it require KYC”, those answers died with the product.

One last piece of the history, offered with a caveat. Some third-party coverage from 2023 described the card as a Visa debit card available across the EEA — 31 European countries — and said it could not be used in the USA or Asia; an even earlier report from 2019 named a different issuer. These are unofficial accounts from outside the card itself, and they conflict with the more recent picture of a Solaris-issued card whose network the closure notice does not state. I mention them only because they explain why you may find contradictory information about “which card was it” while you research this. For your money today, the only fact that matters is the issuer: Solaris.

If you already have the card

This is the section that actually needs your attention. There are two separate pots of money, they are in very different hands, and they need two different actions.

The crypto in your wallet. Monolith was, at its core, a non-custodial setup: your crypto stayed in a wallet that you controlled, and the card only ever spent from it. That is the one genuinely good piece of news here, and it is bigger than it may sound. Because the crypto was never held by Monolith on your behalf, it is still yours. You can reach it by taking the 12-word seed phrase and importing it into another wallet such as MetaMask, Trust Wallet or Coinbase Wallet. If you never wrote the seed phrase down, the app showed it under Settings > Back up Seed — though note the app has since been delisted from the stores, so if you never backed it up and no longer have the app, you need to think carefully about your next step before assuming access is easy.

The leftover card balance. Any fiat that was sitting on the card itself is a different story. That money is held by the issuer, Solaris, not by you and not in your crypto wallet. To get it back you submit a request on the Solaris Redemptions page with the subject line “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, your payout account details in EUR or GBP — the currency of your card — and a colour copy of your ID if the email on the account differs from your account details. Solaris aims to respond within 14 days. This is the single practical thing a former holder needs to do, and the single most useful reason to read this page to the end.

What you can no longer do is top up: the cards cannot be loaded through Monolith any more, and the card currency is simply whatever EUR or GBP card you had. For support, the channel for card funds is the Solaris Redemptions Support page, by form and email; for anything about the TKN-to-TOKEN questionnaire, Monolith was reachable via Telegram and email. I could not find stated support hours or languages for either, so plan on that uncertainty rather than assuming a quick reply.

A few other things that once applied, now purely historical and mostly from unofficial third-party reporting rather than the card: there used to be ATM and spending limits (around £350 / €378 per day at ATMs, and £7,500 / €8,113 per day of spending), and top-ups used to accept ETH, TKN, DAI, DGD, DGX, MKR, SAI and USDT. None of that helps you now, because the cards are deactivated. The limit that matters is the one on the balance you can still claim — take it through Solaris.

What can go wrong

Nothing here is a warning about a card you might open; it is a warning about the situation you are already in, plus the general risks that made crypto cards fragile in the first place.

The first and largest risk is simply that a closed card leaves you exposed. Once a programme shuts down, spending stops and loading stops, and the company asks you to withdraw whatever is left. One 2026 closure reported elsewhere ended new loads in July and spending in August — I have only a single, unconfirmed source for those dates, but the pattern is the point: the window between “the company announces” and “you have your money” is where the harm happens. The Monolith closure followed that pattern, and your job is to move your balance without sitting on it.

The second risk is the seed phrase. With a non-custodial wallet, control is entirely yours, and so is the responsibility. A seed phrase is typically 12 to 24 words and is the unencrypted form of your private key; anyone who obtains it can restore the wallet and spend the funds. Crypto transfers are also typically irreversible, and a stolen key has no recovery mechanism, because the network cannot freeze or return funds. So while self-custody protects you from an insolvent provider, it protects you from nothing else. If you are moving your Monolith wallet into a new one, take it slowly and treat the phrase with the care it deserves.

The third risk is where the leftover balance sits and who answers you. The money is with Solaris, an e-money style institution, and getting it back means a claim, not a click. The notice itself is candid about what this balance is not: Lithuanian deposit insurance and the UK FSCS do not cover crypto activities or funds in the non-custodial wallet. Funds held by an e-money institution are safeguarded in a way that is not the same as a bank deposit, and you should not assume any deposit-guarantee scheme covers you. Solana’s broader record is worth weighing too: related Solaris-issuer closures have drawn complaints about slow refunds on Trustpilot. That is context, not a verdict on your claim — I found no Monolith-specific complaints at all, and no Monolith Trustpilot page — but it is a fair reason not to sit on an unclaimed balance indefinitely.

I want to be careful not to overstate a regulatory angle. The closure reason given was growing regulatory requirements in the EU and UK. Under MiCA — the EU’s crypto-asset regulation, whose rules on e-money tokens applied from 30 June 2024 and whose remaining provisions applied from 30 December 2024 — providers already operating under national law could continue only until 1 July 2026 or until they received or were refused authorisation, whichever came first. Cards are regulated separately from the crypto side, so a crypto card often rests on two licences. None of this changes your immediate task, but it explains the climate the closure happened in, and why “the app might come back” is not something to plan around.

What to take instead

If you want a crypto card you can actually use in 2026, these are the live options I looked at, alongside Monolith’s dead 1.8 for scale. All three below are currently operating; each has real trade-offs, and each rules people out. Read the eligibility column first — it is the one that decides whether anything else matters.

Note the two things this table makes plain. First, MetaMask is the strongest of the three and the only one whose headline price is genuinely free. Second, both RedotPay and Bybit exclude large parts of Europe — Bybit bars European Economic Area customers outright, and RedotPay’s restricted list includes the UK and the US. So if you are reading this from inside the EEA, MetaMask’s list of 45 sign-up countries is the one to check first, because it is the option least likely to wave you away.

Let me look at each a little more closely, because the headline score hides the details that decide whether a card works for you.

MetaMask Card is the one I would look at first. It is a Mastercard, you get a virtual card instantly and can pre-order the Metal card in-app, one card per user, and the issuer is Monovate with Crypto Life as card provider. It spends directly from your connected wallet across Linea, Base, Monad and Solana, and the card currency is not stated. The virtual card is free with no annual or maintenance fee; Metal is $199 a year. Fees are described only as a “minimal fee for each transaction” — the amount is not stated on the pages I read — with no additional MetaMask fees and no foreign transaction fee, since the Mastercard rate applies. Cashback is paid in mUSD into the Money Account: 1% on Virtual, and on Metal the headline is 3% but the footnote caps 3% at the first $10,000 spent and then drops to 1%. Sign-up is open in 45 listed countries and territories, proof of residency is required, and ineligible regions limit sign-ups rather than spending — meaning an existing user in a blocked country can still use the card. US and UK sign-ups are temporarily closed per the FAQ, which is worth knowing before you try.

RedotPay offers both virtual and physical cards, Visa debit in the Singapore terms, with a USD card and an HKD card. The virtual application is 10.00 USD and the physical one 100.00 USD, and once paid the physical fee is neither cancellable nor refundable; virtual replacements are 5.00 USD first and 10.00 USD each after. Account maintenance is waived, so no monthly or annual fee. Spending costs a 1.00% crypto conversion fee, waived in the default currency and 1.20% in a non-default one, with small-authorisation and declined-transaction charges after free allowances each month, and some merchants carry their own 1.5%. There is a 5 USD welcome reward usable only on spending, valid 30 days, and it cannot be applied toward the issuance fee. On eligibility, two official lists word the rule differently: the KYC list bars citizens of a long set including the United States, United Kingdom? — no, the UK is not on that list — while the card-issuance list, dated August 28, 2026, adds India, Indonesia, Morocco, Nepal, Singapore and Turkey for residents, and those countries cannot be billing addresses. Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Serbia appear on both lists; Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan and the UAE appear on neither. Which of these two rules applies to you is exactly the kind of thing to confirm with them before you commit 100 USD to a physical card.

Bybit Card is a trading-platform card with both virtual and physical versions, and its network and currency depend on the region — Mastercard in some markets, Visa in others, and a range of fiat currencies from USD to ARS, MXN, BRL and PEN. Virtual issuance is free in all regions “until further notice”; physical issuance ranges from nothing in Brazil and Mexico to about 29.99 USD or USDT in Australia, Georgia and Kazakhstan. It states “auto interest, no annual fees”. The crypto conversion fee is 0.9% over the One-Click Sell rate in most regions, 0.5% in Argentina, with an FX fee on top — 2% in several regions, higher in Argentina. The card has no balance of its own; it draws on the Funding Account and converts crypto when needed, and only crypto-funded transactions have earned points or cashback since 5 October 2026. Its cashback tiers run from 2% up to 10% with monthly caps. The decisive fact for many readers is eligibility: the cards page states the product “is not meant for European Economic Area customers” and that all EEA participation is strictly prohibited, with card regions listed as Argentina, AIFC (Kazakhstan), Georgia, Kazakhstan, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Asia Pacific.

A closing note on choosing between them, and on how this category works generally. The card number itself begins with an issuer identification number, and merchants can look it up to see which institution and country issued it — and may apply extra scrutiny if the issuer country differs from your billing address, which is why a card issued in one country can look “foreign” in another shop. Some merchants decline prepaid or foreign cards for that reason. If you are choosing on cost alone, compare the total you would actually pay: MetaMask’s virtual card is free but its per-transaction fee is unstated; RedotPay’s headline costs are high and explicit; Bybit’s conversion and FX fees stack. And on safety, the general safeguards to look for are app-based two-factor authentication, an instant card freeze, spending limits, 3-D Secure confirmation and tokenised mobile wallets. You should not accept a crypto card that cannot give you those, and you should never treat a stablecoin as cash — stablecoins can and have depegged.

Who I would recommend it to

Let me be direct, because a 1.8 out of 10 should end a conversation quickly.

I would recommend Monolith to nobody as a card to open — there is no card to open, and anyone still describing it as something you can apply for is working from old pages. I would recommend this page to two groups. If you held a Monolith card and never finished the cleanup, read the holders section and act: back up or re-import your 12-word seed phrase into a wallet you control, and submit your leftover-balance claim through the Solaris Redemptions page, with your payout details in EUR or GBP, because that balance is not moving on its own and the 14-day response window is Solaris’s aim, not a guarantee. If you never held the card and simply want a crypto card that works, this page is mostly a history lesson, and the alternatives section is where your attention belongs — with the eligibility lists read first, since they, and not the fees, are what will rule you in or out.

What I would not tell you is that Monolith was safe, that its self-custody model made it risk-free, or that the historical fee figures make it a bargain. It had real virtues — non-custodial wallets, no cashback fuss, no monthly fee — and it still ended. That is the honest shape of this story, and the reason I score it where I do.

Frequently asked questions

What was the Monolith card?

Monolith was a crypto payment card that let you spend from a non-custodial wallet, meaning your crypto stayed under your own control rather than with the company. The cards were issued by Solaris, and the service ran under the trading name of UAB “Belela”, a Lithuanian virtual-currency operator. The programme has since closed: services ended on 8 October 2024, the cards were deactivated and accounts were closed. So Monolith is no longer something you can sign up for or use.

Why did Monolith close, and when?

Monolith closed its services on 8 October 2024, deactivated its cards and closed customer accounts, and it gave the reason as increasing regulatory requirements in the EU and the UK. The closure notice does not name MiCA specifically, so it would be overreach to say MiCA alone caused it — the broader tightening of EU and UK rules is the stated background. Separately, the app was delisted from app stores on 17 February, and details of a TKN-to-TOKEN swap were promised for April 2025.

Is Monolith a bank, and who owns it?

Monolith was not a bank. It was a trading name of UAB “Belela”, a Lithuanian company registered under code 305982313 as a virtual-currency deposit and exchange operator, with the site copyright held by Token Group Ltd under licence to that company. The card itself was issued by a separate partner, Solaris, which is also the party now holding any leftover card balance. A successor app, Token.com, was named after the closure.

I still have a Monolith card — what do I do with the money on it?

Any fiat balance left on the card is held by Solaris, not by you. Submit a request on the Solaris Redemptions page with the subject “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, your payout account details in EUR or GBP, and a colour ID copy if your email differs from the account details. Solaris aims to respond within 14 days. Your crypto, by contrast, is still in your own wallet and can be restored from the 12-word seed phrase in MetaMask, Trust Wallet or Coinbase Wallet.

My crypto was in a Monolith wallet — can I still get it?

Yes, and this is the reassuring part. Because the wallet was non-custodial, your crypto was never held by Monolith and was not frozen when the company closed. You can recover it by entering your 12-word seed phrase into another wallet such as MetaMask, Trust Wallet or Coinbase Wallet. If you never recorded the phrase, it was shown in the app under Settings > Back up Seed — though the app has since been delisted, so recover it while you still can.

Can I still top up a Monolith card?

No. Topping up cards through Monolith is no longer possible, and the cards were deactivated on 8 October 2024, so there is nothing to load. Historically the card accepted assets including ETH, TKN, DAI, DGD, DGX, MKR, SAI and USDT, and took a 1% top-up fee, but these are unofficial past figures and none of them apply to a closed programme. Any money still on a card has to be claimed through Solaris, not topped up.

Are Monolith users owed compensation or having disputes resolved?

There is no compensation or dispute process described for Monolith specifically. The closure notice points only to the Solaris redemption route for leftover card funds, and disputes are not stated as handled. I found no Monolith-specific complaints and no Monolith Trustpilot page. Related Solaris-issuer closures have drawn complaints about slow refunds, so treat that as context rather than an expectation — and note the app balance is no longer accurate, so rely on the issuer for what you are owed.

Is Monolith safe, and is the money insured?

The programme is closed, so the safety question is now about what you still hold. The self-custodial wallet meant no single company failure could take your crypto, but it also meant you alone bore the risk of losing the seed phrase — and crypto transfers are irreversible with no recovery if a key is stolen. The notice also states plainly that Lithuanian deposit insurance and the UK FSCS do not cover crypto activities or funds in the non-custodial wallet. Funds held by the e-money issuer are safeguarded but are not the same as insured bank deposits.

Is it worth applying for a Monolith card now?

No, and the reason is simpler than any judgement: you cannot. There is no application, the app is gone from the stores, and no cards are issued. If you want a crypto card in 2026, look at MetaMask Card, RedotPay or Bybit Card instead, and read the eligibility rules before anything else — they, not the fees, decide whether you can use a given card at all, and two of those three exclude large parts of Europe.

What should I use instead of Monolith?

Among the live options, MetaMask Card is the strongest and the only one with a genuinely free virtual card, though its per-transaction fee is not stated and US and UK sign-ups are temporarily closed. RedotPay offers USD and HKD Visa cards but charges 10 USD for a virtual card and 100 USD for a physical one, and restricts a long list of countries. Bybit Card is free to issue virtually but explicitly bars European Economic Area customers. Whichever you pick, check the country list first, then the total fees.

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