We Ran Four Crypto Cards for a Quarter

We funded four crypto cards and used them normally for three months, recording every transaction against the market rate at the time. The comparison only works against a provider that states its terms, and a licensed crypto payment processor does.

Conversion margins

0.6 percent, 0.9 percent, 1.4 percent and 2.2 percent.

Two stated the margin in their terms. Two did not, and we calculated it from statements.

Foreign currency spending

Where we spent outside the card’s settlement currency, a second margin applied: between 0.5 and 3.1 percent on top.

The card with the best conversion margin had the worst foreign currency margin, so the ranking reversed entirely for travel spending.

Match the card’s settlement currency to where you spend, or the second margin dominates.

Per-merchant virtual cards

Two supported unlimited virtual cards, one per merchant. Two supported a single card.

For subscriptions this is the most useful feature by some distance. Each service gets its own card with its own limit, cancellation means deleting the card, and reconciliation is trivial because each card maps to one supplier. Payment companies face this at a different scale, which is what a corporate crypto wallet addresses.

Funding asset

All four allowed funding from a stablecoin. Two defaulted to a volatile asset and the stablecoin option was not prominent.

Funding from a stablecoin is the single most useful configuration choice, for tax reasons below.

The tax record

Every transaction funded by selling crypto is a disposal in our jurisdiction.

Over the quarter, the volatile-funded card generated 214 disposals, each requiring an acquisition cost, a disposal value and a gain.

The stablecoin-funded card generated the same count with gains of essentially zero, which made the reporting mechanical rather than material.

If you use such a card regularly and fund it from an asset that has appreciated, the administrative burden and the tax owed are both real and both avoidable.

The liability question

We read all four sets of terms on unauthorised transactions.

Two matched what you would expect from a bank card: limited liability with prompt reporting. Two were considerably less generous, with shorter reporting windows and broader exclusions.

The issuer’s authorisation determines this, and it is in the terms rather than in the marketing.

What we would use

A card supporting per-merchant virtuals, funded from a stablecoin, settling in the currency we mostly spend, from an issuer whose liability terms match a normal card. Reproduce this yourself. a support channel with a named contact quotes without an account, which makes the comparison a five minute exercise.

Only one of four met all of those.