The BitPay card is gone — what happened, what to do, and what to use instead
Available in US
The BitPay prepaid Mastercard programme is no longer issuing cards, and the card support pages have been pulled from the BitPay site. If you arrived here looking for a working BitPay card, the short answer is: there isn’t one. This review explains what happened in 2023, what anyone who still holds a balance should know, what can go wrong with a programme that has been wound down this way, and which live alternatives step in for everyday crypto spending. Conditions are current as of 2026.
Conditions are current as of October 28, 2026.
Verdict
The BitPay card scores 1.7 out of 10. The headline numbers make the case at a glance.
| Criterion | Score | Why it scored that way |
|---|---|---|
| Who can get it | 0 / 10 | Card support and ATM access were ended on 15 June 2023 after the issuing bank left crypto; there is no card on the BitPay site to apply for. |
| Cost | 3 / 10 | Historical, unofficially reported fees of 3% on foreign transactions, $2.50 per domestic ATM withdrawal, $5 per month after 90 days of inactivity, and a $10 replacement fee; the card’s own pages do not state fees because the programme is closed. |
| Top-up options | 3 / 10 | The last day to load the card was 1 June 2023. No current top-up method is published because the card is closed. |
| Reliability and complaints | 1 / 10 | The programme shut down on 15 June 2023 and remaining balances were mailed out as cheques. The replacement card reportedly never launched. BitPay as a company holds 1.2 out of 5 on Trustpilot across 299 reviews. |
| Everyday use | 2 / 10 | With no virtual, physical, wallet or ATM access to test, the day-to-day proposition cannot be evaluated. |
| Total | 1.7 / 10 | Closed programme; a card that no longer exists, scored across the criteria above. |
The audience this review is written for is the people who still look up the BitPay card by name: former cardholders trying to track down a balance that never arrived, and readers who had the card on a list and want to know whether to keep it on the list or strike it off. For both, the answer is the same — the card is gone, and the more useful question is which live card now does the job.
What happened to the programme
The BitPay card was a prepaid Mastercard issued through Metropolitan Commercial Bank, a US bank that had been BitPay’s card partner. The programme was wound down in mid-2023, and the sequence is worth laying out in full because the dates govern what former holders should expect.
In January 2023, Metropolitan Commercial Bank announced that it was exiting crypto banking. On 17 May 2023, cardholders were emailed that the BitPay prepaid Mastercard programme was being shut down. The last day to load the card was 1 June 2023. ATM access and in-store spending ended on 15 June 2023. Around 30 June 2023, remaining balances were to be sent out as cheques mailed to the address linked to the card. A replacement card was promised; one review states the replacement never launched, while a third-party site says new applications are paused and a waitlist is open, undated. The BitPay site, as checked in 2026, shows no card product, only the company wallet. BitPay states it is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS); the card issuer is not stated on the card’s own pages because there is no card page.
The dates come from news reporting and from the email BitPay sent to cardholders in May 2023. They are the official timeline, not third-party reconstruction.
It helps to know that this was not the first time a BitPay card had to be wound down. In 2018, BitPay’s earlier non-US prepaid Visa was shut down after Visa revoked the licence of Wave Crest, the issuer that had supplied several crypto card brands. That history matters for the same reason it mattered in 2018: a programme that depends on a single bank partner can be turned off when that bank changes course, and crypto cards have been turned off in this way before. The same pattern showed up with FTX in November 2022, when Visa said it had “terminated our global agreements with FTX” and the FTX US debit card was wound down by its issuer.
The bottom line for the What happened to the programme section: the card no longer exists, the bank’s exit from crypto was the trigger, and the cheque-by-post refund window is now years behind us.
If you already have the card
If you held a BitPay card in mid-2023, the relevant question is what happened to your balance. The card’s own pages do not state a refund process because the card is closed; the news reporting and the email to cardholders are the source of what is known.
Card loading ended on 1 June 2023. From that date, you could no longer top up the card. ATM withdrawals and point-of-sale spending ended on 15 June 2023. From that date, the card would not work at a till or at an ATM. Around 30 June 2023, the company said remaining balances would be sent as cheques mailed to the address on file with the card. No refund amount or claims process is published. There is no public record of a fund-claims procedure for balances that were never received, never cashed, or sent to an old address.
If a cheque was sent and arrived, it would have been made out for the balance left on the card at the cut-off, in US dollars. Cheques have an expiry — typically 90 days from the date on the cheque, depending on the bank that drew them. A cheque from mid-2023 would be stale-dated by now and may no longer be negotiable through the original drawer’s bank. If a former cardholder is in this position, the practical steps are: check with the bank whose name appeared on the cheque, contact BitPay support from the app or help library, and ask whether a replacement can be reissued; do not assume the funds are lost, but do not assume the cheque is still good either.
For cardholders who never received a cheque, the absence of a published claims process is itself a problem. The company’s app and help library are reachable, but card-specific support has been wound down along with the card. Languages and hours of support are not stated.
The historical, unofficially reported limits on the card were a $10,000 daily purchase cap and a $25,000 monthly ATM cap. These are not stated on the card’s own pages, and the card no longer exists, so the figures are only useful as context for what a BitPay card once was.
What this section adds up to: the card is unusable, the refund window is years past, and a former holder who never received a cheque has very limited official recourse. The most productive next step is to look at a live alternative.
What can go wrong
The risks on a closed programme are not the same as the risks on a live one. There is no card to hack, no balance to drain, and no transaction to dispute. The risks that remain are about the wind-down itself, the company behind it, and the patterns of complaint around BitPay as a whole.
The structural risk is the one that materialised here: a crypto card that depends on a single bank-issuer can be turned off when the bank changes its policy. Metropolitan Commercial Bank’s exit from crypto banking ended the card on a fixed schedule, with no appeal and no opt-out. This is the same risk that ended the 2018 BitPay Visa, the 2018 WaveCrest programmes across several brands, and the FTX US debit card in 2022. A card on a single issuer is only as durable as that issuer’s appetite for crypto.
The complaint risk sits with BitPay the company rather than the BitPay card. On Trustpilot, BitPay holds 1.2 out of 5 across 299 reviews, with around 89% of those at one star (read 2026-10-20). The themes reported by reviewers are: funds that could not be withdrawn or sent (June to October 2026), KYC that was either burdensome or declined (January to October 2026, including a report of KYC being demanded for a $15 payment in October 2026), support that is bots-only with no phone line (2026), and account closure being refused (December 2025). Some reviews promote crypto-recovery services; those are a known scam pattern and should be ignored. BitPay does not reply to negative reviews on the platform. These figures describe the company and the wallet, not the card programme, but they are the only current public signal of how the company handles its customers.
The regulatory position is partial. BitPay states it is “licensed to engage in Virtual Currency Business Activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services” — a company-wide licence, not a card one. The card issuer is not stated officially, because the card is closed. NYDFS publishes virtual-currency licences on its site; consumers can check a provider there. In the EU, where BitPay is not a card issuer, the equivalent check is ESMA’s interim register of crypto-asset service providers, though BitPay is not a MiCA-authorised CASP.
The security and dispute-resolution mechanics for the card are not stated because the card is gone. The same is true of the seed-phrase and custody story: the BitPay wallet provider is named as BitPay Software, LLC, but a closed card cannot be evaluated on its security.
The take-away from the What can go wrong section: the risk that ended the card was external (the issuer bank) and outside the cardholder’s control. The risk that lingers is operational (support, refunds, KYC), and the public signal on that is poor. A live card on a more diversified issuer stack is a different bet.
What to take instead
The three cards below are the live alternatives that line up most closely with what a BitPay card used to do. Each scores higher on the same criteria used in the verdict, and each is in active issuance as of late 2026. None is a drop-in replacement — they have different fee shapes, different supported countries, and different ways of funding the balance — but together they cover the ground the BitPay card used to cover.
| Alternative | Score | Card type | Network | Standout detail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RedotPay | 6.9 / 10 | Virtual and physical | Visa (Singapore terms; card page says “leading card networks”) | Card currency in USD or HKD; virtual card from $10, physical from $100 |
| Bybit Card | 6.0 / 10 | Virtual and physical | Mastercard or Visa depending on region | Tiered cashback from 2% (Base) up to 10% (Infinite), paid in USDT |
| MetaMask Card | 7.1 / 10 | Virtual and Metal | Mastercard | Spends directly from a self-custody wallet on Linea, Base, Monad or Solana |
RedotPay
RedotPay is open to most of the world, with two official lists that word the rule differently. The KYC list names countries where identity verification cannot be completed: Afghanistan, Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bouvet Island, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo (DR), Croatia, Cuba, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Mainland China, Mali, Montenegro, Myanmar, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, North Korea, North Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, Yemen, Zimbabwe. A separate card-issuance list dated 28 August 2026 adds India, Indonesia, Morocco, Nepal, Singapore and Turkey: residents of these places cannot get either a virtual or a physical card, and they cannot be used as a billing address. Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Serbia appear on both lists; Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan and the UAE appear on neither. The rules are written in terms of country and residence, not citizenship.
The card comes in virtual and physical forms. The Singapore terms name Visa debit; the card page itself only says “leading card networks”. There is a USD card and an HKD card. A virtual card application costs $10.00; a physical card application costs $100.00, and is not cancellable or refundable once paid. A virtual replacement is $5.00 for the first, then $10.00 each. There is no monthly, annual or inactivity fee. There is a paid tier, RedotPay Pro, at $12.90 per month or $129.00 per year. A $5 welcome reward is paid on signup, usable only on spending, valid for 30 days, and cannot be used against the issuance fee.
The transaction fee is 1.00% on the crypto conversion, with a waiver for transactions in the default currency and 1.20% on non-default currency. Small authorisations of $1.00 or less are free for the first five per card per month, then $0.20; declined transactions are free for the first three per month, then $0.50. A handful of merchants (Gulf Health Counsel, Free Fire, PUBG Mobile, Brawl Stars, eFootball, Facebook Ads, Discord) carry 1.5% with a $0.50 minimum, also free for the first three per month. The fee table is effective 1 December 2025.
The card is funded by on-chain crypto deposit, or by buying crypto with a credit card in the app (ETH, USDC and USDT, depending on region). The minimum USDT-TRC20 deposit is 1 USDT after network fees, and each asset is accepted only on the networks shown on the Deposit page; RedotPay may change those networks. Deposits to the card balance are free.
Bybit Card
Bybit Card is offered in a defined set of card regions. The help center lists Argentina, AIFC (Kazakhstan), Georgia, Kazakhstan, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and a broad Asia Pacific bucket. The application asks for country of residence; if the country is not supported, Bybit “will register your interest”. The cards page is explicit: “This product is not meant for European Economic Area customers. All European Economic Area customer participation is strictly prohibited.” Bybit’s fiat-service restricted list — covering deposits, withdrawals and One-Click Buy, not the card as such — includes Belarus, the Russian Federation, Serbia, China and the United States, and notes that “Russian users can only make RUB transaction in Fiat”. No card-specific statement on Russian or Belarusian citizens was found, and the card currency is set by the country used in Advanced Identity Verification.
The card comes in virtual and physical forms, with a virtual card required first; physical cards are not available in Peru, and have been rolled out in phases. Networks and currencies vary by region: Argentina is Mastercard prepaid in ARS; AIFC, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Australia and Asia Pacific are Mastercard credit in USD; Brazil and Peru are Visa prepaid; Mexico is Mastercard credit in MXN; Peru can be PEN or USD. Validity is 3 years for AIFC, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Asia Pacific and Australia; 6 years for Argentina; 5 years for Brazil, Mexico and Peru.
Virtual card issuance is free “until further notice” in all regions, with no annual or cancellation fee listed. Physical card issuance or replacement costs $29.99 in Australia, $5 in Argentina, 29.99 USDT in Georgia, 29.99 USDT in Kazakhstan (AIFC), 5 USDT in Asia Pacific, and is free in Brazil and Mexico. VIPs holding a physical card in Australia, Kazakhstan (AIFC), Georgia or Asia Pacific pay no issuance or replacement fee. The cards page says “Auto interest, no annual fees”.
The crypto conversion fee is 0.9% over the One-Click Sell rate for Australia, Asia Pacific, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Mexico; 0.5% for Argentina; One-Click Sell is not supported in Peru. Foreign-exchange fees on top of the network rate are 2% in Australia, Asia Pacific, Georgia and Mexico; 2% “International Fee” in Kazakhstan (AIFC) on purchases outside Kazakhstan even in USD; 7% in Argentina; 1.5% in Brazil; 1% in Peru. The FX padding is 0% in Australia-group and Mexico, 5% in Argentina, 1% in Brazil, with the excess refunded. Argentina carries VAT 21% on foreign digital services, a 30% tax on foreign transactions, and a provincial gross-income tax of 1% to 13.2%.
The card has no balance of its own; it draws on the Funding Account and the Flexible Easy Earn balance, fiat first, and if fiat is insufficient, crypto is sold at the One-Click Sell rate plus the Bybit Card crypto conversion fee. Supported cryptos are BTC, ETH, XRP, USDT, USDC and GRAM, with a default priority of USDT, USDC, GRAM, BTC, ETH, XRP, reorderable in the Card Dashboard. The Funding Account is topped up by Buy Crypto or by depositing crypto from other wallets.
From 5 October 2026 at 10:00 UTC, only crypto-funded transactions earn points or cashback; fiat-funded spending does not. Tiers are Base (2% cashback, $5 cap, no spend threshold), Beta (2%, $50 cap, $500 spend), Alpha (4%, $150 cap, $3,500 spend), Apex (6%, $250 cap, $9,500 spend), Omega (8%, $400 cap, $12,500 spend) and Infinite (10%, $600 cap, $25,000 spend). Points are pending for four calendar days, then paid in USDT at points × 0.002 with Auto Cashback switched on. Pay Later instalments add 1%. A welcome offer of 10% cashback up to 110 USDT runs for 30 days, with 100% cashback on subscription services for VIPs and Alpha and above. Referrals pay 20 USDT or 10 USDT.
MetaMask Card
MetaMask Card is open for sign-up in 45 listed countries and territories — Andorra, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Spain and Uruguay are examples — with other regions joining a waitlist. Proof of residency is required. The product page states that “ineligible regions limit sign-ups, not spending”. No citizenship rule is stated. US and UK sign-ups are temporarily closed per the FAQ.
The card is on Mastercard. A virtual card is issued first, instantly; the Metal card can be pre-ordered in the app after Virtual approval. There is one card per user. The issuer is Monovate and the card provider is Crypto Life. Card currency is not stated.
Virtual is free with no annual or maintenance fee. Metal is $199 per year. The pages note “minimal fee for each transaction” but the amount is not stated on the pages read; a fee table is linked. There are no additional MetaMask fees, no foreign transaction fee, and the Mastercard rate is used.
The card spends directly from a connected wallet. Networks supported are Linea, Base, Monad and Solana. The tokens named are mUSD, wETH, EURe, GBPe, USDC and USDT, with the page saying nine tokens in total. Solana-only wallets cannot withdraw credit.
Cashback is paid in mUSD into the Money Account: 1% on Virtual, headline 3% on Metal with a footnote that limits 3% to the first $10,000 spent, then 1% thereafter. There is also a $FLY bonus of 5× on Virtual and 7× on Metal via the Blackbird dining app.
Who I would recommend it to
In its current state, I would not recommend the BitPay card to anyone, because the card no longer exists. The historical proposition was a prepaid Mastercard funded from a BitPay wallet, useful for spending bitcoin and a few other cryptocurrencies where ordinary banking was thin, and that is the proposition the live alternatives now cover. The honest role for a “BitPay card review” in 2026 is to record that the card is closed, point former cardholders at the cheque-receipt steps if they have not already dealt with their balance, and steer anyone who is still shopping for a crypto card to RedotPay, Bybit Card or MetaMask Card based on the country they are in and how they want to hold their crypto.
The closest fit by shape is RedotPay: a Visa-based prepaid product with a published fee table, a wide country list, and a US-dollar card option for anyone whose BitPay card was denominated in dollars. The closest fit by rewards is Bybit Card, which pays tiered cashback in USDT and has the most explicit country roll-out of the three, with the caveat that the EEA and a handful of other places are out. The closest fit by custody is MetaMask Card: a self-custody wallet spends directly through Mastercard, which is the right answer for a reader who never wanted to load a balance in the first place.
For a former BitPay cardholder, the next step is not another BitPay product; it is one of these three, chosen on country support and on whether the reader wants a prepaid balance, an exchange-linked card or a self-custody spend.
Frequently asked questions
What is the BitPay card?
The BitPay card was a prepaid Mastercard that converted cryptocurrency from a BitPay wallet into a US-dollar balance, which could then be spent in stores or at ATMs. The programme was shut down in 2023 after the issuing bank, Metropolitan Commercial Bank, exited crypto banking, and no replacement card is currently being issued.
How does the BitPay card work?
The card was funded by loading a US-dollar balance from a BitPay wallet. At purchase, the card drew on that stored balance in the same way a standard prepaid card does. The card did not draw directly from crypto at the point of sale; the conversion happened at load time. The programme is closed, so this is how the card used to work, not how it works now.
Is BitPay a bank?
No. BitPay is a virtual currency business licensed by the New York State Department of Financial Services, and the card was issued by Metropolitan Commercial Bank, a separate US bank. BitPay marketed the card programme; it was not the issuer.
Who owns BitPay?
BitPay is BitPay, Inc., the company that operates the BitPay wallet and merchant tools. The card programme was a partnership with Metropolitan Commercial Bank as issuer. The card is no longer active, and ownership of the closed programme is not stated on the company’s current pages.
Is the BitPay card available in my country?
The BitPay card programme is closed and is not available in any country for new applications. Live alternatives with broad country lists are RedotPay, Bybit Card and MetaMask Card, each of which has its own country and residency rules that should be checked against the reader’s own situation.
How do I get a BitPay card?
You cannot. The card programme stopped issuing cards in 2023 after the issuer bank left crypto banking, and the BitPay site shows no card product in 2026. A live alternative such as RedotPay, Bybit Card or MetaMask Card is the practical replacement.
How do I activate or top up a BitPay card?
You cannot. The last day to load the BitPay card was 1 June 2023, and the card stopped working at ATMs and in stores on 15 June 2023. Balances were to be sent as cheques around 30 June 2023. There is no current top-up or activation path.
How do I withdraw money from BitPay if the card is closed?
BitPay’s stated plan was to mail the remaining card balance as a cheque to the address on file around 30 June 2023. If a cheque was received and has since expired, or was never received, the next step is to contact BitPay support from the app or help library and ask about a replacement. The card-specific support function has been wound down along with the card.
Is the BitPay card safe?
The card no longer exists, so it cannot be evaluated on its current safety. The historical risks are the ones that ended the programme: a card that depends on a single issuer bank can be turned off when the bank changes course, and the wind-down in 2023 followed the bank’s exit from crypto. BitPay the company holds 1.2 out of 5 on Trustpilot across 299 reviews, with themes around withdrawn funds, demanding KYC and bot-only support, which is the public signal of how the company handles its customers today.
Is the BitPay card worth it?
The BitPay card itself is not worth anything to a new applicant, because it is not being issued. For a former cardholder, the value of a BitPay card was the bitcoin-to-dollar bridge and the wide merchant acceptance of Mastercard; both are now available on live cards such as RedotPay, Bybit Card or MetaMask Card, each of which should be judged on its own fees, country support and funding model rather than as a BitPay replacement.
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