Ether.fi Cash Card Review 2026

Name: Ether.fi Cash Card
Brand: Visa
Availability: InStock

Reviewed by Mihail B. in October 2026 · Data verified October 13, 2026 · how we verify

4.9 / 5.0Sweepbase rating

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CustodySelf-custody

NetworkVisa Signature

CashbackUp to 3%

Regions91 countries

Fees and limits

Issuance fee	First virtual card free (Core 1, Luxe 4, Pinnacle 10, VIP 50), except that Core members in Argentina, Angola… The fine print … Bangladesh, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, South Africa and Thailand pay $10 for the first virtual card under regional pricing Additional virtual $10 (VIP none) Physical: none free on Core, 1 metal free on Luxe, 2 on Pinnacle and VIP An additional physical card costs $50 on Core and $100 on Luxe and Pinnacle Delivery "within 15+ business days", Pinnacle 1 to 3 business days Cancellation only within 24 hours Card fees are deducted from the account balance
Annual fee	Free; Luxe and Pinnacle can be bought outright at $199/year and $999/year instead of earning them with points
FX fee	0% on USD purchases The fine print Every other currency pays a 1% base foreign transaction fee plus a tier margin of up to 0.5% on Core and up to 0.25% on Luxe, per the international cardholder agreement last modified 8 Sep 2026, so a Core holder pays about 1-1.5% over the Visa rate The help centre (3 Nov 2026) prints only the tier margin (Core 0.5%, Luxe 0.25%, none on Pinnacle and VIP) and leaves out the 1% EUR at 0% rests on a help article of 24 Jun 2026 that calls the feature beta The agreement has no EUR exception FX still applies if the merchant charges a third currency or the terminal runs dynamic currency conversion
ATM limit	Up to $5,000 per withdrawal, 5 withdrawal attempts and $25,000 per rolling 24 hours, the same on every tier and both… The fine print … card types Declined attempts count toward the 5 Ether.fi fee: free up to 10 withdrawals a month on Core and Luxe, free and unlimited on Pinnacle and VIP The fee from the 11th withdrawal on Core and Luxe is not published, and ATM operator fees are separate The virtual card works at contactless ATMs through Apple Pay or Google Pay, the physical card at any Visa ATM, both with a PIN Was $1,000 per withdrawal and 5 per 24 hours on 24 September 2026, and $500 and 3 withdrawals until August 2026
Spending limit	Self-set in-app The fine print Defaults: daily card limit $5,000, daily vault limit $10,000, monthly vault limit $10,000, all adjustable by the cardholder Weekly caps by merchant category: $500 (crypto, gambling, cash-like), $1,000 (securities, dating), $3,000 (wallets, pharmacies, government)

Fees change; the current ones are in Ether.fi Cash’s terms.

Features

Cashback: Up to 3%
The fine print
- … cashback on Core, Luxe and Pinnacle (4% on VIP), paid in ETHFI since September 2026: a help article says every qualifying transaction "earns cashback in ETHFI. This will display in your assets list as ETHFI", converted at the ETHFI price when the purchase clears, then locked for 7 days
- A minimum of $5 in cashback is needed to claim
- Before this change cashback landed as USDC (our July 2026 purchase paid back USDC)
- Monthly ladders: Core 3% to $2,000, 1% to $3,000, 0.5% above
- Luxe 3% to $10,000, 1% to $20,000, 0.5% above
- Pinnacle 3% to $50,000, 1% to $80,000, 0.5% above
- VIP 4% to $50,000
- Euro purchases earn on a shorter ladder measured in USD equivalent: Core 3% to $800, 1% to $1,500, 0.1% above (Luxe $3,000/$6,000, Pinnacle $16,000/$26,000), and USD and EUR share one monthly counter
- Luxe and above add category cashback on named subscriptions (10% up to $10 a month on Luxe, 20%/$20 Pinnacle, 30%/$30 VIP)
- Pinnacle and VIP add 25% on airport fast-track fees, up to $25 a year on Pinnacle and $50 on VIP
- Tiers are earned monthly with points, by staking 30,000 ETHFI for Luxe or 150,000 for Pinnacle, by a Liquid deposit of $15K/$100K, or by paying $199/$999 a year
- Points earn at 1.5 per $1k staked per day, 10 per $1k in Liquid per day, 1,000 per $1k of card spend and 5 per 1K ETHFI staked per day
KYC: Yes
Card type: Virtual + Physical
Top up with: USDC, USDT, EURC, frxUSD, eUSD, wETH, weETH, eBTC, ETHFI, sETHFI, wHYPE, SCR, LiquidETH, LiquidBTC, LiquidUSD…
Full list
… LiquidReserve via Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Scroll, Solana, Tron (Direct Pay: USDC, LiquidUSD only; Solana USDC and Tron USDT: no-fee 1:1 transfer)
Available countries: United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador…
Full list
… El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Bulgaria, Latvia, Andorra, Iceland, Malta, Lithuania, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Bangladesh, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, South Africa, Angola, Hungary, Norway, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Maldives, Palau, Vanuatu, Oman, Seychelles, Nigeria

Who issues the Ether.fi Cash Card

The Ether.fi Cash Card is issued by Third National (Nimbus LLC), USA; Puerto Rico money transmitter (NMLS #2612780), a subsidiary of Signify Holdings, Inc. ("Rain") per Rain's privacy policy. The issuer is named in the source linked below.

Primary source · All cards issued by Third National (Nimbus LLC) · Why the issuer matters

Supported cryptocurrencies

You can load the Ether.fi Cash Card with crypto; the 5 assets we track for it are listed below.

Networks & deposit details: Ethereum and Base networks (eETH, LiquidUSD, USDC, supported crypto)

USDCUSD CoinUSDTTetherETHEthereumSOLSolanaTRXTRON

Pros and cons

Pros

✓
True non-custodial credit card
The fine print
- Borrow against DeFi collateral
- Earn yield while spending
- Cashback in ETHFI with a 7-day lock
- Visa Signature benefits ($10k protection)
- Physical cards: plastic (Core), purple metal (Luxe), black metal (Pinnacle), gold metal (VIP)
- No-fee funding via Solana USDC and Tron USDT
No annual maintenance fee
Banking rails: SEPA / SWIFT support

Cons

✗
Requires crypto collateral
The fine print
- The borrow rate is variable, set by Aave v4 markets, not fixed
- Not available in the Netherlands, Finland or Estonia, nor in twenty US states
- Core members in fourteen regional-pricing countries pay $10 for the first virtual card
- Cashback is paid in ETHFI and locked 7 days, so its dollar value moves with the token
- Rates decrease after monthly spend caps
- Some merchants declined under high-risk category rules (age-restricted alcohol and tobacco shops reproduced across several merchants in several European countries)

Regional availability

Available in 91 countries

91 countries and territories: 88 with virtual and physical cards, Belgium and Ireland with virtual cards only, and the United States. Most of Europe including Hungary, Norway, Liechtenstein and Monaco, except the Netherlands, Finland and Estonia; the UK, Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man; the Americas and much of the Caribbean; UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and selected Asia-Pacific; South Africa, Angola and Nigeria. United States: thirty states plus the District of Columbia; not available in Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington or Wisconsin. Not available in India, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam, China, Russia or any other jurisdiction the list omits.

Card overview

Collateral stays on-chain while you spend. The first major credit card we've used where that's true, and we hold this one. The 3% rate is real: a $5.00 charge paid back exactly $0.15 in July 2026, and it arrived as USDC. Since 12 September 2026 the help centre says cashback "earns in ETHFI", converted at the token price when the purchase clears, locked for seven days, and claimable only once $5 has built up, so the dollar value of a month's rewards now moves with ETHFI between the purchase and the claim.

What the headline also hides is the ladder underneath it. Core pays 3% on the first $2,000 of monthly spend, 1% to $3,000, then 0.5% above that, so heavy months blend down fast. Luxe and Pinnacle push the 3% band out to $10,000 and $50,000, but the tier is not yours to keep: points reset every calendar month and Luxe wants 5,000 points again (it was 10,000 when we ran it in July), unless you stake 30,000 ETHFI, park $15,000 in Liquid, or pay $199 a year for it outright.

Euro purchases carry 0% FX, a benefit ether.fi only put in writing at the end of June 2026 and still ships with a beta label attached, paid for by a shorter cashback ladder that tapers after the first $800 of euro spend. Everything outside dollars and euros runs about 1%, and Core adds up to half a point on top of that.

In Direct Pay the money keeps earning until the moment it is spent; Borrow Mode instead draws credit against collateral at a variable rate the issuer does not print, described in one article as Aave v4 markets and in another as ether.fi's own lending market, and that interest is real too. The card also declines age-restricted merchants: we had alcohol and tobacco shops refused across several European countries, same category every time.

Available in the 91 jurisdictions on the issuer's list, all of which we list individually, with Belgium and Ireland on virtual cards only; the Netherlands, Finland, Estonia and 20 US states are excluded.

Best fit: DeFi-native spenders who already hold productive collateral, would rather borrow against it than sell it, and are happy to be paid in ETHFI

Editor’s note by Mihail B. · Founder & Editor

Reviewed October 2026 Tested hands-on

Ether.fi Cash is the first credit card I've tried where my collateral stayed on-chain while I was paying for lunch. The 3% cashback on the first $2K of Core spending is real, but since September 2026 it lands as ETHFI with a 7-day lock and a $5 claim minimum rather than as USDC, so what you get depends on the ETHFI price when you claim. The borrow rate is real too, variable and set by Aave v4 markets rather than fixed, so you need to pay the balance down like an actual credit card. I ran the Luxe metal tier for two months in Berlin.
The roughly 1% FX outside dollars and euros is fine on paper, and their help article dated 24 June 2026 says ether.fi now applies zero FX markup on euro purchases; euro spending, though, earns on a reduced cashback ladder (3% only up to the equivalent of $800 a month, then it falls fast), and a native EUR balance still isn't live, so euros settle from a dollar balance. The help centre changed the payout asset on 12 September 2026: my July purchase paid back USDC, purchases now pay ETHFI. If you understand what a smart-contract vault is and why borrowing beats selling, this card earns its keep.
The tier is not something you earn once. Club Tian resets every calendar month, so Luxe had to be won again each month: 10,000 points in July, when mine landed at 10,867 with three days left (the help centre has asked for 5,000 since September). Points come from two places, not one. Of my 10,867 this month, 5,707 came from card spend and 5,159 from simply holding sETHFI and LiquidUSD, so about half the tier was earned without buying anything.
The rates are published but easy to misread. Staking pays 3 points a day per $1,000 and Liquid pays 9, while sETHFI sits on its own scale at 20 a day per 1,000 tokens. Note the unit: sETHFI is counted in tokens, not dollars, so my stake earned the same points every day regardless of where the price went, and that alone covered 4,874 of the month. Staking ETHFI unlocks Luxe outright and skips the points entirely: 15K ETHFI in July, 30K since September.
Luxe also raises the fiat to crypto transfer allowance to $50K a month at 0.2%, against $10K on Core and $200K on Pinnacle. Read that cap as a limit on moving money in and out, not on what the card lets you spend. Spending limits are your own to set: you pick the ceiling in the app, and the tier headroom above it is far larger than anything I would leave open on a card. Read the 3% rate as a rate you re-qualify for, not one you own.
Day to day it runs close to faultless, with one exception: shops selling alcohol and tobacco. It happened to me in several countries across Europe and never at the same merchant twice, which rules out one badly coded shop: what the card refuses is the age-restricted category itself. The decline mail calls it a high-risk category and points you at a help article about it. Before you fund it, know this: in May they suspended my card as suspected cashback farming, which I was not doing.
Support handled it properly, ran a check and lifted the suspension in under 24 hours, and the only real cost was having the card reissued. What matters more is what happened while it was suspended. I pulled every dollar out on-chain straight away. The card stops, the vault does not, so even if the appeal had gone the other way the money would never have been stuck.
That is the practical difference between a self-custody card and a custodial one, and you only find it out when something breaks. On the numbers, a $5 charge on 27 July paid back $0.15, so the 3% is exactly 3%.

Read our guideEther.fi Cash vs Tria Card: I hold both, so I measured both Read our guideAdvertised vs measured: what two crypto cards actually paid us Read our guideYield crypto cards: where the wallet earns in DeFi, card by card Read our guideBybit Card vs Ether.fi Cash 2026: which is better?

Common questions about the Ether.fi Cash Card

We do not collect user reviews. Answers come from the card terms, the issuer disclosure and the regulator registers we could reach, rechecked on the Data verified date above.

What are the fees for the Ether.fi Cash Card?

The Ether.fi Cash Card charges no issuance or annual fee. FX fee: 0% on USD purchases.

Is the Ether.fi Cash Card legit, and who is behind it?

The issuer of record for the Ether.fi Cash Card is Third National (Nimbus LLC), USA, named in the terms published at etherfi.gitbook.io. We have held and used this card ourselves.

Is the Ether.fi Cash Card worth it?

Best fit for the Ether.fi Cash Card: DeFi-native spenders who already hold productive collateral, would rather borrow against it than sell it, and are happy to be paid in ETHFI. The advertised cashback is up to 3%.

How does the Ether.fi Cash Card cashback work?

Up to 3% cashback on Core, Luxe and Pinnacle (4% on VIP), paid in ETHFI since September 2026: a help article says every qualifying transaction "earns cashback in ETHFI. This will display in your assets list as ETHFI", converted at the ETHFI price when the purchase clears, then locked for 7 days. A minimum of $5 in cashback is needed to claim.

Where is the Ether.fi Cash Card available?

What cryptocurrencies does the Ether.fi Cash Card support?

You can fund the Ether.fi Cash Card with: USDC, USDT, EURC, frxUSD, eUSD, wETH, weETH, eBTC, ETHFI, sETHFI, wHYPE, SCR, LiquidETH, LiquidBTC, LiquidUSD, LiquidReserve via Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Scroll, Solana, Tron (Direct Pay: USDC, LiquidUSD only; Solana USDC and Tron USDT: no-fee 1:1 transfer).

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What that looked like

Straight from the account we opened. Card numbers, on-chain hashes and transaction IDs are redacted; nothing else is edited.

3% is exactly 3%
A $5.00 charge paid back $0.15, settled to the cent. Every purchase also carries an on-chain spend transaction, which we redacted here because it resolves to the wallet.
Captured 27 July 2026
The zero-FX claim on euros survives a real purchase
A EUR 138.00 charge settled at USD 158.882436, an effective rate of 1.151322. The ECB reference for that day was 1.1515, so the card came in 0.015% below it. It is also below Visa’s own published rate for the day, 1.155899. A euro purchase on Tria came to about 2% above the same benchmark.
Captured 4 August 2026
Euro spend still paid the top rate at this size
The same charge paid back EUR 4.14, which is 3.00% to the cent. Euro purchases run on a tighter cashback ladder than dollars, but it only starts tapering above EUR 800, and this purchase sat well under that. So the 0% FX benefit cost nothing here. It would above the threshold.
Captured 4 August 2026
The balance keeps earning while you spend it
Direct Pay deducts purchases from stables or the Liquid position. Both were still paying yield at the time of the screenshot: sETHFI 4.94%, LiquidUSD 5.24%, WETH 3.65%.
Captured 28 July 2026
Alcohol and tobacco shops get refused
The decline mail blames a high-risk merchant category and links the issuer’s own help article. Same result at several shops, in different European countries, so it is the category and not one badly coded merchant.
Captured 31 March 2026
Flagged wrongly, cleared in under a day
Card services gone, bank transfers and Pix with them, on a suspicion of cashback farming that was not happening. Support checked and put the account back inside 24 hours. Funds stayed withdrawable on-chain the whole time.
Captured 7 May 2026
The 3% tier has to be re-earned every month
In July Luxe wanted 10,000 points per calendar month, with three days left on the clock here, or 15K staked ETHFI to skip the counter. Since September the help centre asks for 5,000 points or 30K ETHFI.
Captured 28 July 2026
Half the tier came from holding, not spending
Card spend contributed 5,707 points that month; sETHFI and LiquidUSD added 5,159 between them. sETHFI is counted in tokens rather than dollars, so its rate survives a price drop.
Captured 28 July 2026