The Pay card stopped issuing cards months after it launched

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

The Pay card is a name you may still meet in older app-store listings and forum threads, but the programme behind it no longer issues cards. The card’s own public pages say prepaid card purchases were switched off through the Wyre route on 2022-12-05, and the last version of the app was 1.2.0 on 2023-02-18. That is the whole story in two dates. The score I give it is 1.8 out of 10, and I want to be honest about what that number means: it is not a verdict on a live product you could sign up for today, it is a verdict on a programme that has already stopped.

So who is this page for? Two different readers, reading the same facts. If you are one of the people who still holds an old Card Pay wallet and still sees an app on your phone, the section on what to do with your money is the one that matters to you, and you should read it first. If you are researching payment cards that turn crypto balances into everyday spending, the alternatives section is the useful part, because the question is no longer whether this card is good but which card is actually running.

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

What happened to the Pay card programme

The Pay card is a “Manage your prepaid cards” listing in a DeFi payments wallet. That description is the App Store’s own wording, and it is the most informative sentence the public pages contain. Network and currency are not stated. Who can get it is not stated. What identity checks are required is not stated. Those absences are not me being cautious — the card’s public pages simply do not say, and I would rather tell you that than fill the gap with something plausible.

What the pages do say is this: buying prepaid cards with Wyre was disabled until further notice on 2022-12-05, in version 1.1.12. That “until further notice” turned out to be the end. Around the same period, other apps were withdrawing from the same provider — MetaMask ceased Wyre support in January 2023 as Wyre was reportedly closing, and Wyre’s wind-down was announced in June 2023. I have to be careful here about sourcing: neither the app listing nor the developer’s site links any source to these reports, so treat the Wyre shutdown timeline as what third-party reporting says rather than something the card itself confirms. The one thing the card’s own record does establish is that the purchasing route stopped, and that the last app release was 1.2.0 on 2023-02-18.

After that, the programme went quiet rather than announcing an orderly wind-down. No tiers are described, no currencies are listed, no physical delivery is mentioned. The version notes trail off rather than end with an explanation. When a financial product’s release history simply stops, the absence of a closure notice is itself a fact worth weighting.

A few other details round out the picture:

• The app is free to download. The only in-app purchase listed is “Account on Gnosis Chain” at GBP 0.99.
• Rewards are mentioned — a version note for 1.1.13 says each reward is claimed individually rather than automatically. No rate is stated, and a rewards rate that has to be claimed by hand in a wallet that stopped updating is not something to plan around.
• The app runs on iOS 13.0+, macOS 11.0+ on Apple M1+, and visionOS 1.0+. Google Play support is not stated, so whether an Android version ever existed is something I cannot tell you from the public pages.
• Transactions are confirmed with Touch ID or Face ID.

The App Store (UK) rating is 5.0 from 3 ratings, read on 2026-10-20. I would not lean on that number for an opinion about the product. Three ratings cannot tell you whether a card works at a shop in Lisbon, and a perfect score that was set by three people in one storefront is not evidence about everyday use.

If you already have the Pay card

This is the section I would put first if I were writing for you specifically. Here is the honest position: nearly everything you would want to know is not stated. Limits are not stated. ATM use is not stated. Funding is not stated beyond the listing’s mention of crypto balances. Most importantly, what happens to a card balance after the programme closes is not stated — no public page describes how to withdraw a card balance, or what happens to one.

Here is what I can offer instead. The version notes are the only trail. Version 1.0.11 mentions “Reward withdrawal” bug fixes, and 1.1.13 says each reward is claimed individually. Read together, those two notes suggest that within the app’s own logic, a reward was something you held and then moved or claimed — so if there is anything of value in there, it is likely sitting in the wallet, not on the card. That is an inference from release notes, not a documented procedure, and you should treat it as a lead to investigate rather than a method.

The Polygon network was removed in version 1.1.13. If you ever had a balance on Polygon, that removal is a reason to look rather than a reason to relax: a network being dropped from an app can leave assets stranded on a chain the app no longer watches.

My practical advice, offered plainly and without pretending to know more than the public pages say:

1. Do not add funds. There is no live route to spend them, and every transfer costs you a network fee.
2. Look for a withdrawal or export function in the app itself, and treat anything you find there as the only path the product actually offers.
3. If the app shows you a balance you cannot move, that is the situation to take to the developer’s listed channels — the App Store listing links only to cardstack.com and a privacy policy, with no support page.
4. Write down what you can see — balances, networks, dates — before anything changes on screen. Screenshots are evidence you will want if a conversation turns into a dispute.

I want to be careful about one thing. The natural next question is whether your funds are safe. I cannot promise that, and nobody honestly can. The facts I do have are these: self-custody is not stated for this card, and the issuer is not named anywhere on the public pages. An unnamed issuer in a closed programme is the detail that should make you look twice.

On disputes and chargebacks: nothing is stated, because the programme is closed. And I would not assume prepaid-card protection applies. Coverage for prepaid cards varies and should not be taken for granted; in the US, debit card reversal rights come from Regulation E and credit card rights from Regulation Z, and prepaid cards sit outside much of that. There is no point planning around a right that the programme itself never describes.

What can go wrong

Nothing dramatic happened to this card. That is precisely the problem worth understanding. There was no theft, no fraud scandal, no mass user revolt — the card simply stopped, one release note at a time, and then stopped releasing. The way crypto card programmes end is worth looking at directly, because it is a recurring pattern rather than a one-off.

The structural reason sits underneath. A card payment involves several parties. The network, Visa or Mastercard, routes the messages and sets the rules. The issuer — a bank or electronic money institution licensed to issue under that network’s licence — holds the actual programme. The crypto brand is often only a programme manager or a front end that markets the card. So a card can depend on a partner whose business has nothing to do with the app you installed. When that partner exits, the app has nothing left to sell you.

Two precedents show how quickly that happens:

• In November 2022 Visa said it had “terminated our global agreements with FTX”, and the FTX US debit card programme was being wound down by its issuer.
• WaveCrest, a Visa card issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing all WaveCrest-issued Visa programmes.

The Wyre case follows the same shape: prepaid card purchases disabled 2022-12-05, wind-down reported in 2023, and the app’s last release in February 2023. I have no complaint threads to show you for this card — no Trustpilot page or Reddit threads were found for Card Pay, and searches returned unrelated companies. That absence is not a clean bill of health. It is equally consistent with a programme that simply ended before it ever accumulated a user base large enough to post about it.

The usual shape of a closure, for planning purposes: a notice period, then loading and spending stop, then users are asked to withdraw remaining balances. If you have ever seen a crypto card die, that is the sequence. What you cannot rely on is the last step being generous.

• Where the money sits matters more than the brand name. An electronic money institution must safeguard customer funds, by segregating them in dedicated accounts or insuring them — but those funds are not the same as bank deposits and may not be covered by a deposit guarantee scheme. If a card’s issuer is not named, you cannot even establish which safeguard applies.
• Networks can be dropped from under your assets. Polygon was removed from this app in version 1.1.13.
• Stablecoins, the balance most of these cards spend, are not guaranteed. They aim to hold a stable value, but as the BIS put it in July 2025 about 90% of stablecoin market capitalisation sits in USDT and USDC, and both have broken their peg before: TerraUSD collapsed in May 2022, and USDC temporarily lost its peg in March 2023.
• And a card’s own data can be the thing that leaks. The listing says transactions are confirmed with Touch ID/Face ID, which is a reasonable safeguard, but a seed phrase of 12 to 24 words is the unencrypted form of the private key, and anyone who obtains it can restore the wallet and spend the funds. Transfers are typically irreversible, and a stolen key has no recovery path — the network cannot freeze or return what left.

The cost picture is worth stating plainly too, because it is unusual. The app is free, and the only purchase listed is GBP 0.99 for an “Account on Gnosis Chain”. Card fees are not stated. Wallet support, ATM withdrawals, limits, dispute handling, support contact, verification — not stated. A product with a small purchase price and no published fee schedule reads the same way whether it is a generous free tier or a product nobody was maintaining.

Score breakdown

What to take instead

Since the Pay card is not an option, here is what the current market actually offers. Three alternatives with published details, and the gaps in each stated as they are. Note the audience this card was built for: holders of the old Card Pay wallet. If that is you, the replacement question is a migration question — moving crypto you already hold, not opening something new.

BloFin Wallet Card — 6.9 / 10, the strongest of the three on published detail.

• Visa Platinum card, virtual or physical not stated, card currency not stated.
• Activation, annual, issuance and dormancy fees $0.00 each; cancellation no fee.
• Spend fee “1% or lower” by VIP tier, charged at payment.
• Top up with USDT and USDC on Arbitrum and Base.
• No cashback; a reduced spend rate instead.

The country list is not published on the card page — the app asks you to “select your country or region”. Unofficial starting data lists 35 countries including the US, Australia, Japan, the UAE, Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia and New Zealand, but citizenship versus residence is not stated, and I would not treat that list as a promise.

Decaf — 6.2 / 10.

• Decaf Visa card, virtual or physical, physical with tracked delivery; currency not stated.
• Activation: virtual card $5 worldwide; physical card $10 in the US only, or $90 rest of world. No annual or monthly fee.
• No FX fee of its own — “the FX is the one Visa offers”. Crypto conversion fee not stated.
• Pay a Decaf payment link or account details by card, bank transfer or USDC. The app runs on Solana and Stellar. Which coins and networks top up the card itself is not stated.

Decaf is the most restrictive on who it will serve. It is not issued in Belarus, China, North Korea (DPRK), India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Cuba, Ukraine, Venezuela, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico or Nigeria. Restricted US states are Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. Russia and Belarus both appear on that list, and whether the rule follows citizenship or residence is not stated — so if you hold one of these passports, check before you plan around it.

SafePal — 6.2 / 10.

• Virtual Mastercard debit; physical not stated; spending limits given in EUR on a Swiss Fiat24 account.
• No account creation or management fees; card issuance fee not stated.
• Standard top-up fee 0%; Mastercard non-USD settlement carries a 1% FX fee; refund processing 1 USD/EUR/CHF or 7 CNH; swaps include a spread, not quantified.
• Crypto from 40+ blockchains, converted to USDC by default or to fiat, transactions on Arbitrum.
• No cashback. Referral commissions reach 40% of referred top-up fees, with tier privileges tied to deposits, referrals and SFP staking.

SafePal is the vaguest on eligibility of the three: it describes serving “citizens of supported regions who live in supported areas”, and the list at its bank regions page was empty when fetched. Its sibling page says crypto top-ups go “as low as 0.4%” on the top tier, which does not match the 0% standard top-up fee on the card page — worth asking about before you rely on either figure.

Who I would recommend it to

Nobody, for a new sign-up, because there is nothing to sign up to. That is the short answer and I do not think it needs softening.

I would put it differently for the two readers. If you hold an old Card Pay wallet, my recommendation is to treat the app as a container you need to empty or at least inspect, not as a service you still have. The programme is effectively closed: no new cards, no new versions since February 2023, no named issuer, no published procedure for withdrawing a card balance. Take screenshots, do not add funds, and use whatever movement function the app itself still offers. If a balance turns out to be immovable, that is a question for the developer at the only channels the listing publishes.

If you are shopping for a crypto card today, the comparison above is where the real decision sits, and the questions to ask are narrow. Which issuer is named, and under what licence? What are the actual fees at the tier I would reach? Which networks can fund the card, and which hold the assets? What happens to my balance if this shuts down — is there a stated withdrawal route? A card that cannot answer the last question has told you something about itself. And check the regulator’s register: ESMA keeps an interim register of authorised crypto-asset service providers, white papers and non-compliant entities. MiCA, the EU’s crypto-assets regulation, took legal effect in June 2023, with the rules on stablecoins applying from 30 June 2024 and the service-provider provisions from 30 December 2024; providers already operating under national law have until 1 July 2026 or until a MiCA authorisation is granted or refused, whichever comes first. A card is regulated separately from the crypto side, so a crypto card often rests on two licences — that is normal, and it is also why asking which entity actually holds your money matters.

One last piece of context, because it explains the whole category. Visa and Mastercard do not issue crypto cards to consumers themselves. They license issuers, and they can suspend a programme. That is the lever behind both the FTX termination and the WaveCrest shutdown, and it is the same lever that took this card’s purchasing route off the table when its provider stopped. A card is not a relationship you have with a network; it is a relationship you have with an issuer, and issuers are the part that disappears.

Frequently asked questions

What was the Pay card?

It was a DeFi payments wallet whose App Store listing reads “Manage your prepaid cards”. The card’s public pages do not name the issuer, the network or the currencies, and they say nothing about identity checks. Prepaid card purchases through Wyre were disabled on 2022-12-05 and the last app release was 1.2.0 on 2023-02-18.

Is Pay a bank?

Nothing on the public pages says it is. No bank is named, and no issuer is named either. The developer is CARDSTACK SERVICES PTE. LTD. per the App Store, while the homepage footer names the Cardstack Foundation. Two different names in two places, and no financial institution among them, tells you what you need to know.

Can I still apply for a Pay card?

No. The programme is closed and no cards are issued through the app any more. Physical delivery is not even mentioned in the listing, which describes prepaid cards inside the wallet. Version notes stopped in February 2023 and there has been no functional release since.

Can I still use the Pay card in my country?

That is the wrong question now, because there is nothing to activate. No country list is published for this card and who could get it is not stated. If you want a card that works where you live, the alternatives pages publish at least some eligibility detail — and you should check it before you assume.

What happened to money left on the Pay card?

Nobody has published an answer. The pages say nothing about withdrawing a card balance or about what a balance becomes after closure. Version 1.0.11 fixed “Reward withdrawal” bugs and 1.1.13 says each reward is claimed individually, which suggests anything of value would sit in the wallet rather than the card. Take screenshots before that changes.

Is Pay card safe?

I cannot tell you that it is, and I would be misleading you if I did. Self-custody is not stated, the issuer is not named, and no Trustpilot page or Reddit threads for Card Pay were found — which reflects a programme that ended early, not a clean record. Transactions were confirmed with Touch ID or Face ID, which is the one safeguard the listing does mention.

How much did the Pay card cost?

The app is free to download and the only in-app purchase listed is “Account on Gnosis Chain” at GBP 0.99. Card fees are not stated at all, nor are top-up fees, ATM fees or limits. My cost mark is 5 out of 10, reflecting a genuinely cheap entry price combined with a fee schedule that was never published.

Is there a Pay virtual card, and can I add it to Apple Wallet?

The listing mentions prepaid cards inside the wallet but does not describe a virtual card, and says nothing about Apple Pay or any mobile wallet. Since no cards are issued, there is nothing to add. No link to a support page appears on the listing either, only the developer site and a privacy policy.

Is it worth switching to a different crypto card?

If you already hold crypto, yes — but treat it as a migration rather than a shopping trip. The live options are the BloFin Wallet Card at 6.9 out of 10, and Decaf and SafePal at 6.2. Before moving anything, check the issuer’s name and licence, the fees at your tier, the funding networks, and what the provider says happens to your balance if the programme ever closes.

Content created by the «cryptocardsexplained.com» team