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141 cards in database Last verified
Sweepbase rates 141 crypto debit and credit cards using a 12-factor formula. Every score on the site can be reproduced from the published data and the rules below. There is no editorial discretion, no manual reranking, and no affiliate influence on the math.
This page explains how the formula works, what data goes into it, where that data comes from, and how to verify any individual card's score yourself.
Most crypto card comparison sites do not disclose how they rank cards. They publish ordered lists, claim to be "independent," and rely on readers to trust the order. In practice, those orders are often driven by affiliate commissions: the highest-paying issuer ends up at the top, and low-paying or non-paying issuers disappear from the list entirely.
We publish the formula because anyone should be able to challenge a rating. If our score for a card seems wrong, you can walk through the same factors using the public data on our card page and tell us where we are mistaken. We update the data within 48 hours when an error is confirmed.
Every field in our card database is collected from primary sources only. We do not aggregate from other comparison sites, scrape user reviews, or accept submissions from issuers without verification.
The current database holds 141 cards with around 25 normalised data fields per card stored in our schema. The most recent full audit (April 2026) corrected 57 data points and removed 4 cards that no longer exist as standalone products.
Every card starts at a base score of 2.5 out of 5. From there, we apply nine bonus factors and three penalty factors. The final score is clamped to the [2.3, 4.9] range and rounded to one decimal place.
| Factor | Points | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Meaningful cashback | +0.5 | Card pays cashback that is not capped behind unrealistic staking tiers |
| Self-custody | +0.4 | Funds remain in the user's wallet until the moment of purchase |
| Premium card tier | +0.3 | Visa Signature, Platinum, Infinite, Black, Obsidian, or premium credit product |
| Virtual + Physical | +0.3 | Card is offered in both virtual and physical formats |
| Yield on deposits | +0.3 | APY, APR, staking, or other yield is paid on collateral or balance |
| Editor's Pick | +0.3 | Card has a verified affiliate or partner relationship (flat bonus, same for every partner card) |
| Low FX fee | +0.2 | FX fee is 1% or lower |
| Zero issuance + annual fees | +0.2 | Both issuance fee and annual fee are free |
| Apple Pay / Google Pay | +0.1 | Card supports Apple Pay or Google Pay mobile wallets |
| Factor | Points | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| High FX fee | -0.3 | FX fee is 2% or higher |
| 3+ missing key fields | -0.4 | Three or more of cashback, issuance fee, annual fee, network, or regions are unavailable |
| 1-2 missing key fields | -0.2 | One or two of those key data fields are missing |
After bonuses and penalties are summed, we add a small deterministic noise value of roughly +/-0.1 derived from a djb2 hash of the card slug. This prevents dozens of cards from landing on identical rounded scores. Because the noise is deterministic, the same card always receives the same final rating. There is no randomness on each request.
The final score is clamped to the [2.3, 4.9] range and rounded to one decimal. We do not award a perfect 5.0 because no card on the market is flawless across every dimension we measure, and we do not award scores below 2.3 because that would publicly shame products beyond what their data warrants. We simply de-prioritise or remove them.
Below is the full step-by-step calculation for the 1inch Debit Card, taken directly from our database. You can verify every value on the card's detail page. This example is included so you can see the formula applied end-to-end, not just described in the abstract.
| Step | Delta | Running | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base score | 0 | 2.5 | Every card starts at 2.5/5 before applying any factors |
| Meaningful cashback (1% BTC/USDT) | +0.5 | 3.0 | Cashback is paid in liquid assets, not capped reward tokens |
| Self-custody | +0.4 | 3.4 | Funds stay in the user's wallet until the moment of purchase |
| Virtual + Physical formats | +0.3 | 3.7 | Both card formats are offered |
| Yield (BXX staking 5-25% APY) | +0.3 | 4.0 | Yield is offered on platform deposits |
| Zero issuance + annual fees | +0.2 | 4.2 | Both fees marked Free in our database |
| Mobile pay check | 0 | 4.2 | Mobile Pay reads "Yes" but neither Apple Pay nor Google Pay is named in the card copy, so no bonus |
| High FX fee (2% card spend fee) | -0.3 | 3.9 | The marketed 0% FX is offset by a 2% card spend fee on every purchase |
| Premium tier check | 0 | 3.9 | Mastercard Standard is not a premium tier, no bonus |
| Editor's Pick check | 0 | 3.9 | No affiliate URL on file for this card |
| Deterministic noise (slug hash) | +0.0965 | 3.9965 | djb2 hash of this slug yields +0.0965 (range is +/-0.1); reproducible, prevents identical scores from clustering |
| Clamp to [2.3, 4.9], round to 0.1 | 0 | 4.0 | Score is already inside editorial bounds; rounding to one decimal gives the published rating |
Final published rating: 4.0 / 5 (with deterministic noise, no clamp applied). You can find this card and its full data at /cards/1inch-debit-card.
Sweepbase earns revenue through affiliate partnerships with some card issuers. Affiliate status contributes exactly one thing: the flat +0.3 Editor's Pick bonus, applied identically to every card with a verified partner link. Merit factors control up to +2.3 / -0.7 points of the score, so the bonus cannot move a weak card into the top tier, and every card that receives it is labelled with a visible Affiliate partner badge on its detail page.
We list every significant crypto card we are aware of, including those with no affiliate relationship. If you find a card on the market that we have not covered, please email contact@sweepbase.net. We add new cards within one week of confirmation.
Read our full Affiliate Disclosure for details on which cards on Sweepbase carry affiliate links and how the commercial relationship is structured.
The most recent full audit of the Sweepbase database was completed in April 2026. Headline numbers from that audit:
If you spot a value that does not match the issuer's current published terms, please report it. Reader-submitted corrections feed directly into the next weekly review.
Methodology version 1.0 · Last verified · Reproducible from public card data
