Letter 118: What's The Best Crypto Card?
Evaluating the landscape of crypto neobank cards in mid 2026
With the launch of the suite of Plasma One cards a couple of weeks ago, we’ve seen the crypto neobank space buzzing with renewed energy. Externally, at least. For those in the know, this entire sector has been booming with volume for a long time now. A sleeping giant that has been showcasing one of the few actual “real world” use cases of crypto (aka, actually spending it).
I first wrote about neobanks back in November of last year, so I won’t rehash the old other than to say, I was bullish then, and I am bullish now.
I think that anyone in crypto not using a crypto card is almost certainly leaving money on the table. Aside from offering extremely competitive cashback and other rewards, many of them are also running points programs that will add token rewards on top of everything else.
Most cards seem to market around their cashback %, but to me, that’s disingenuous. The reality is that it doesn’t really matter whether a card has 1%, 2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, or 10% cashback if there is a cap on spending per month and you’re going to go far over the cap. You also need to take into account any subscription fees for the card.
So, with the power of AI, I built a tool to help find the best card based on your expected monthly spend, taking caps and fees into account. It’s never going to be perfect because of the many other intangibles you need to consider: points programs, travel perks, free or discounted subscriptions, insurances, etc. You also need to look at the other fees: FX fees, ATM withdrawals, crypto-to-fiat conversions, and so on.
Still, I think it’s helpful to evaluate the cards based on the expected monthly cashback as the starting point, and work from there.
You can try it out here: Crypto Card Finder.
That’s one way I have been thinking about the neobanking space lately, but there are three main ways I am looking at things:
Investing in existing tokens
Farming projects with upcoming tokens
Finding the best card(s) to use in terms of real cashback %
Investing in existing tokens
The neobanking sector is still small. A look at the category on coingecko shows a total marketcap of ~2.3 billion, with over half of that coming from Mantle alone.
There aren’t too many tokens here that I am overly excited to be buying into. The majority of them have massive token overhangs, with an FDV of 2-4x their marketcap.
The two that stand out are EtherFi (almost fully diluted) and Avici (fully diluted). While I am bullish on Tria, I am also an investor, and I know my tokens are going to start vesting in a couple of months along with many others, so it is hard to recommend others buy into the token at this point in time. Plasma falls into a similar category, with roughly 75% of their tokens unvested and yet to hit the open market.
I recommend people use those apps and cards because they both offer good products with solid cashback and other rewards, but I would be careful about ploughing money into either token, and consider both ETHFI and AVICI to be slightly more appealing to hold from a pure tokenomics perspective.
EtherFi
EtherFi is probably the most defi-native protocol and card out there. It is an excellent place to park funds that you can earn yield on, and even borrow against, as well as get a card you can use for everyday spending.
The ETHFI token sits at a marketcap of ~$300m and is almost fully diluted. The team has spent over $15m on token buybacks, and has proven to be mindful of making decisions that help support the token price (despite the trajectory of the token, which I think can be largely attributed to the broader market).
They have paused buybacks for the time being but have said they’re working on a new plan that will bring even more value for the ETHFI token, TBD what that looks like and if it involves a different form of buybacks. Something to keep an eye on.
This is a great article if you want to dig deeper into the numbers behind EtherFi and their ETHFI token.
Avici
Avici is a Solana based neobank that shares a lot of similarities with EtherFi in that it’s also very defi-native and crypto-forward. It allows you to retain full ownership of your funds and even borrow against them while spending money via one of their Visa cards, just like you would with a bank account.
AVICI (the token) was launched via MetaDAO in October 2025, and thus, the ownership is actually held by a DAO. The company itself had been around for about 2 years prior to that, with the founding team determined to build around the token in a way that aligns incentives in a way that benefits all parties.
This article by co-founder RamXBT is a must read for anyone considering buying into the token, and I wager it would be hard not to want to be a part of what they’re building after you read it.
Sitting at a marketcap of “only” $13m (fully diluted), this seems like the value buy token to me. It has a lot going for it, and their monthly volumes are up and to the right.
Farming projects with upcoming tokens
My general philosophy when farming airdrops is to use products fairly organically, and to not go too far out of my way doing mental and financial gymnastics to try and get an airdrop.
That can sometimes work if you pick the right protocol and the timing is right, but the majority of the time, you end up wasting time and capital.
When it comes to crypto cards, I think it makes sense to try a variety of them and see what suits you best — and it’s probably a good idea to try and put a little bit of volume through on the ones that have likely airdrops coming up.
If you like any of them, and the fees and cashback seem reasonable, then making one of them your primary card could lead to a very lucrative airdrop.
There are well over 50 crypto cards at this point and it seems like there’s a new one popping up every other day. It would be crazy to try and catch them all, so instead, here is a shortlist of three that I believe to be some of the best ones to use if a potential airdrop is something you’re after:
XPlace — They have announced and planned a token and are running an XP program, but there is no TGE date set as yet.
Bleap — A token is confirmed but there isn’t a points program, this might mean you’re very early (or that they’re not planning on running points). TGE is expected in early 2027.
KAST — A $KAST token is confirmed on the roadmap with a points program running, but the token has been delayed from an initial launch date of Q2-Q3 2026 with no new launch date given.
Many of the largest card projects already have tokens (EtherFi, Tria, Plasma). Many others are unlikely to ever launch a token. It’s a fine line trying to find projects that have a chance at becoming large enough for their token to be valuable, and that haven’t yet launched a token.
There will likely be more that pop up in this sector in the coming months, and I think it’s very much worth keeping an eye on.
Finding the best card(s) to use in terms of real cashback %
Cashback is not the be-all-and-end-all for cards, but I do find it to be a great starting point for evaluating rewards. Some of the other rewards are great, like airline lounge access, AI tool access or discounts, travel insurance, hotel and flight discounts, and so on. But they’re all so intangible — some people might use all of them, others might use none of them. It’s hard to compare apples to apples.
The same goes for fees. For some people, FX fees are a major consideration. For others (aka those living in the US or spending in USD), it is not. For some people, yield on the money you have in the protocol matters. For others, it is insignificant.
So, as mentioned at the top, I built a tool to help rank cards based on their real effective cashback percentages. The site has all of the data for everything else so you can compare the things that mean the most to you, but the starting point is cashback.
Notably a lot of companies will advertise high percentages but then have a $999/month fee. Or a cap on how much you can earn in cashback (most have this). Or they’ll pay out in a non-stablecoin.
Crypto Card Finder aims to take all of this into account. Note it’s still in the early stages, so if you have any feedback, please let me know and I will be regularly trying to tweak and update the site to make it the absolute best place to go to find out what card(s) offer the best cashback.
That’s a wrap for this week, hope you found this newsletter as insightful and helpful as ever.
p.s. thanks once again to everyone who reached out after my last two letters, I still owe some of you a response, and will be getting back to everyone soon. I appreciate you all 🙏.
Disclaimer: The content covered in this newsletter is not to be considered as investment advice. I’m not a financial adviser. These are only my own opinions and ideas. You should always consult with a professional/licensed financial adviser before trading or investing in any cryptocurrency related product. Some of the links shared may be referral links.