Methodology & disclosure

What we score

Each card gets a score out of 10 from three things. Net rewards: cashback after FX fees, conversion spreads, caps and annual fees — not the headline rate. Custody and trust: self-custodial cards score higher; for custodial cards we weigh licensing, track record and how easily you can leave. The fine print: token requirements, lock-ups, redemption limits and anything the marketing page leaves out.

How the calculator works

For each card, the calculator takes your monthly spend and works out a year of cashback, then subtracts FX fees on the share you spend outside EUR and USD, conversion fees, and annual or card fees. Cards not offered in your country are excluded; cards whose availability we can’t confirm are flagged.

• It assumes you pay the cheapest way each card allows, from euros or stablecoins. Paying from BTC or ETH adds conversion spreads on most cards, and on Bybit even stablecoins cost 0.9%.
• Category bonuses, promotions and welcome offers are not counted, because they change often and rarely apply to all spending.
• ether.fi’s caps are set in dollars and converted at the rate in its own example, about €0.88 per dollar. Euro spending (the share not counted as foreign) follows its lower euro ladder, the rest its standard ladder, on one monthly total.
• USD fees are converted to euros at about 0.90. Figures are estimates, not financial advice.

How we verify

We check every card against the issuer’s own help centre, fee schedule and legal terms, and re-verify the full list at least monthly. Where marketing and legal terms disagree, we print both and use the worse number. Every material change goes into the changelog with its date. Last full verification: October 22, 2026.

Cards we don’t rank, and why

A card has to meet three conditions before it enters the table: published fees on the issuer’s own pages, a named regulated issuer, and availability to residents of at least part of Europe. These are the cards readers ask about that do not make it, with the reason on the record.

• Coinbase Card. Available in the EU but pays no rewards to European cardholders, so there is no net value to rank. We will add it if that changes.
• Binance Card. Binance discontinued its EEA card in December 2023. Nothing to rank.
• Sovrae. A prepaid USD card sold for a one-time $89 (virtual) or $249 (physical), topped up with USDT or USDC, and marketed on privacy with “no verification needed”. It pays no cashback. Its homepage says every transaction carries a foreign-exchange fee and a transaction fee that are only shown inside the app after purchase, and its terms refer to a fee schedule that is not published. The terms name the issuer as “[DCS, Interlace, or Fiat24]”, brackets included, and no licence of any kind is claimed. The operating company is DMUT PTE. LTD., a Singapore company incorporated in May 2025, under Hong Kong law. It also runs a three-level referral scheme paying up to $50 per card sold. Undisclosed fees, an unnamed issuer and no regulator each rule a card out on their own. Checked September 27, 2026 against sovrae.io and its terms of service.
• KAST. A USD stablecoin card that pays 1.5% on the free tier and up to 3% on memberships costing $1,000 or $10,000 a year. Its fees are published, which is more than most: 0.5% to 1.75% FX on non-dollar spending, so for a European every euro or lei purchase is a foreign transaction and the cashback nets to roughly nothing. It fails on the other two conditions. The terms of service, effective July 7, 2026, name the contracting company as KAST Tech, registered in Anjouan in the Union of the Comoros, and say that crypto you transfer is “sold to KAST and thereafter held by a Custodian on behalf of KAST (not for the users)”. The card issuer is “Third National” under a Visa licence, with no regulator or licence number given, and no EU authorisation of any kind is claimed. Supported countries are not published; the sign-up form is the only list. KAST is heavily promoted because its affiliate programme pays up to $500 per referred user plus a share of their card spend for as long as they keep spending, which is worth knowing when you read a glowing review. Checked September 27, 2026 against KAST’s terms of service, cardholder agreement and fee schedule.

Suggest a card by email and we will run it through the same checks. Referral offers from issuers do not change the outcome, as the disclosure below explains.

Affiliate disclosure

Some links on this site are referral links. If you sign up through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Currently this applies to OKX, ether.fi, Bleap, MetaMask, Krak, Bybit, Nexo, Wirex One and ZEN.COM (business accounts only). Referral links are labelled wherever they appear.

Commissions never change scores, rankings or calculator results. The calculator uses the same formula for every card, and the catches on our partners’ reviews are printed as plainly as everyone else’s. Cards without a referral programme are treated exactly the same.

Corrections

Found something out of date? Email hello@cryptofineprint.com. We fix confirmed errors quickly and log material changes.