A crypto-spending card that keeps the crypto part simple, and charges you for the privilege

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

If you have been trying to get an ordinary bank card and the answer keeps being no — no fixed address, no local utility bill, no local branch — then SharPay is the kind of thing you end up looking at. It is a Mastercard you spend from an account that holds euros and crypto, issued by a licensed e-money institution in Lithuania and serviced by a payments company in Canada. That sounds unglamorous, and it is: this is not a rewards card, it is a way to have a card number that a shop will accept.

I have read the card’s own pages for who can get it, what it costs, how you top it up and how it behaves day to day, and I have weighed that against three other cards aimed at roughly the same reader. My score is 5.9 out of 10. That is a middling mark, and it is not a mistake — the card does the fundamentals well and then takes a fee for every one of them.

Who it suits: someone outside the EU who wants a Mastercard with Apple Pay or Google Pay, holds euros or a dollar-pegged stablecoin, and does not mind a monthly card fee plus a top-up fee plus a currency mark-up. Who it does not suit: anyone in the EU or the UK looking for a free card, anyone who plans to move large sums, and anyone who needs a card in a currency other than euros without paying a mark-up they have not agreed to in advance.

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

The score at a glance

The card does not publish a single quality figure for itself, so this is my assessment across five things I actually use to compare cards: whether you can get one at all, what it costs, how you get money onto it, whether the company behind it looks solid, and whether it works every day without fuss.

The highest mark here is for everyday use, and it is deserved: nothing about spending this card at a shop is unusual. The lowest is cost, and that is where your money actually goes. The complaints row is high, but read it carefully — a high mark there means “no bad news found”, not “many happy users”. I searched for complaints and found nothing at all, which is exactly what you would expect from a product most of its audience has never heard of. Absence of complaints is not evidence of a good track record; it is absence of data.

Will they give you the card

They will look at where you live, not at what passport you hold, and that distinction matters more than anything else on this page.

The rule the card states is blunt: you must not be a resident of a restricted or prohibited country. The prohibited list comes from SPEKA Payments Corp and includes Russia and Belarus, along with Crimea, DNR, LNR, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Iran, Cuba and Syria, among others. So if your address is in one of those places, the answer is no regardless of your citizenship. If you have moved out of such a country years ago and now live legitimately elsewhere, your residence is what counts.

Then there is the second rule, and it is the one most people miss: the crypto services are not for EU residents. You can read that as a split product. The payment account and the card are one thing; crypto holding, buying and transfer are another, and the second part is closed to residents of the European Union. If you live in Frankfurt or Kraków or Sofia, you are not getting the crypto side, and it is worth being honest with yourself about whether the card alone is worth 3 EUR a month.

For everyone else, the document side is straightforward but strict. Citizens of other, non-EU countries verify with a foreign passport. EU citizens can use a passport or an identity card. There is no separate citizenship rule beyond that. Where you are from matters for screening in ways the pages do not spell out, which is normal, but it does mean your nationality can affect how closely you are looked at even when your residence is acceptable.

One thing the card simply does not tell you: how many countries are covered in total. If your country is not on a list you have seen, there is no published answer. Assume you have to ask.

How to get it

The application is three steps — register, verify, order — and the verification is where the time goes.

Registration takes a phone number, an email address and a password. Then comes identity verification, split into two levels. Level 1 follows the standard check: a passport (a full page, good quality, cropped copies are rejected), bank statements in English, and a questionnaire covering turnover, the source of your funds, and any links to politically exposed persons or US persons. There is also a video selfie. Level 2 is what you need for fiat accounts and for the card, and it comes after an additional check described as taking up to 5 days. Document review itself is quoted at from 1 to 72 hours.

The rejections are predictable, and it is worth reading this list before you film anything. Cropped copies fail. Documents that are not passports fail. A video selfie shot in poor light fails, and so does one taken with a hat, with glasses, or through a filter. In other words, this is not a process you can rush or retake carelessly.

There is no stated age requirement on the pages I read. Cards of this kind are normally for adults, but I am telling you what the card says, and what it says is nothing.

The card itself is a Mastercard debit, issued by UAB Walletto. You get a virtual card that is active immediately after you order it, and a physical card that is typically shipped within about 15 working days, with delivery times varying by destination. Countries served and delivery cost are not stated. You can hold up to five cards per account. The card currency is EUR, and the fee schedule is in euros.

That gives you an honest answer to the question people ask most: if you need a working card number tonight, the virtual one is the point of applying. The plastic is a later convenience, not the product.

What it really costs: Fees, limits and the two percentages that matter

This is where the 5.9 comes from. SharPay is not expensive in any one place. It is a little bit expensive in six places at once, and two of them are percentages that apply to everything you do.

Read that table twice. The 3 EUR monthly service is the floor. The 2.99% mark-up is the ceiling on everything you buy in a currency that is not the euro, and a spending holiday abroad becomes noticeably more expensive than the euro rate. And the 2.00 EUR plus 1.99% for loading the card is charged each time you move money from one place to another, which people forget more often than they forget the monthly fee.

A few details are worth separating out. Purchase fees are shown as a dash, which is to say there is no charge listed for using the card at a merchant in the eurozone. Depositing USDC by Mastercard or VISA costs 4%, and withdrawing costs 3%; other coins are charged a “network fee” rather than a stated percentage. ATM withdrawals are possible — the card mentions them as one of the things you can do — but no fee and no allowance are listed on the fee page, so treat any cash withdrawal as a cost you have to ask about rather than one you can predict. Crypto purchases by card have monthly limits, and the amounts are shown in the app rather than published.

There is one tier, and that is the whole tier structure. There are no plans, no names, no premium tier that lowers the fees. Pricing is listed per product: the payment account at 10 EUR, issuing at 1 EUR, card service at 3 EUR.

Now let me run a few ordinary days through those numbers, because that is where a fee table becomes a real bill.

A coffee and a sandwich in Berlin, about 12 EUR. You pay 12 EUR in euros on a euro card, and purchase fees are shown as a dash, so the cost is the 12 EUR itself. This is the easy case, and it is the case the card is genuinely good at.

A week of groceries and one large purchase, 400 EUR in euros. Again a dash for purchase fees. But the account opening at 10 EUR and the 1 EUR card issuing are one-off, and the 3 EUR monthly service is already in your plan. Land at roughly 414 EUR the first month and 403 EUR a month after that, before anything else.

Ten days in the United States spending 1,000 EUR of your money. The card is in euros, so the merchant charges you in dollars and the 2.99% mark-up applies on top of the exchange rate. That is about 30 EUR of pure mark-up on 1,000 EUR, before the bank’s own spread on the dollar conversion, which is not listed anywhere. Add the 3 EUR monthly fee and you are paying in the region of 33 EUR simply to have been abroad.

The moment you actually want to use the card’s crypto side. Loading the card card-to-card is 2.00 EUR plus 1.99%. Depositing USDC by card is 4%. Withdrawing is 3%. If you move money in and out of crypto repeatedly, you are paying at each door.

The honest summary is that the fixed fees are small and predictable, and the percentages are the thing to watch. If you live in the eurozone and spend in euros, this card is fine. If you spend in other currencies, the 2.99% is a permanent tax on your spending.

How to Top up the card

Topping up starts with a transfer to the right network, and that is the sentence where most first-time users get into trouble.

The supported currencies are EUR, USDT, USDC, BTC, ETH, XRP, LTC and BCH, and the price page additionally lists DAI and TUSD. That is a genuinely wide list for a card of this size, and it is why the top-up score sits at 6 rather than lower. The catch is that the FAQ does not name the networks. It tells you to “select the currency and network” and stops there. So before your first transfer, you need to see the network list in the app, because sending on the wrong network is not a small mistake.

If you send XRP or Stellar, you also need a memo or tag. This is routine in crypto and it catches people out constantly: a deposit without the tag can arrive with nothing attached to it, and support has to sort it out.

On money movement, two more things matter. The minimum top-up is not published — the page tells you to read the minimum amount in the top-up amount input field, which is a reasonable design but means you have to look in the app to know. And if you top up in a currency other than the euro, it is “automatically exchanged at the system exchange rate”, which is a phrase that covers a lot of ground without telling you what the rate is or what it costs.

Getting money back out is faster than getting money in. Transfers to SEPA, to cards, to e-wallets and to crypto are processed from 1 to 60 minutes. Card transfers only work if the card was previously topped up — so a cold card cannot be drained, which is a sensible anti-abuse rule rather than a limitation you will notice.

Paying with it every day

Everyday use is the strongest part of this card, and here is the whole of it: you can pay contactless, and you can pay with Google Pay and Apple Pay. That is more than many competitors in this bracket manage.

The app is the SharPay Wallet app, on Google Play and the App Store. The store ratings and the number of ratings were not shown in the text I read, and the homepage claims “15k +” users, which is the sort of figure that tells you nothing precise. The claim I would hold onto is not the user count but the fact that card controls live in the app: you can block and unblock your cards there.

What you cannot do with this card is earn. No cashback is mentioned anywhere on the pages I read. Treat that as a flat zero rather than an absence of information — if rewards existed, they would be the most advertised thing about a card.

There are categories you will not be able to pay at. SPEKA’s prohibited-activities list covers illegal gambling services, including illegal online casinos and sports betting, adult content, and similar. That is a list you should read as “the merchant will decline the payment”, not as anything you need to work around.

If a payment goes wrong, the mechanics are worth knowing before you need them. Chargeback handling costs 40 EUR, which is steep enough that you would think twice before lodging one. If your account has been debited twice during a payment, the money goes back automatically. A refund policy is linked as a PDF, but no time frames are stated.

One more piece of context for your own understanding. The card is a Mastercard debit, and that means at a shop it behaves like any other Mastercard. The number identifies the issuer — six or eight digits at the start name the institution that issued it — and merchants can look that up. If the issuer country differs from your billing address, some merchants apply extra scrutiny. That is not something SharPay does to you; it is how card acceptance works everywhere, and it is one reason a Lithuanian-issued card can occasionally look “foreign” in a shop that has never seen one.

What can go wrong

The specific risks here are not fraud warnings from me. They are gaps in what the card publishes, and you should weigh a gap the way you would any other unknown.

You are trusting a custodian. This is an e-money account held at the provider, not your own wallet. Control of crypto belongs to whoever holds the private key or seed phrase, and here the provider holds the credentials, so you must trust them completely. That is the trade you are making, and it is a real one: custodial platforms have a history — Mt. Gox, roughly US$350 million reported stolen between 2011 and 2014; Coincheck, about US$400 million in 2018; Ronin Network, US$625 million in 2022. And transfers are typically irreversible, so a stolen key has no built-in recovery. The network cannot freeze or return funds. Whatever safeguarding the provider does, the pages I read do not state it, and e-money balances are not bank deposits in any case — they are typically segregated or insured under a regime that is not the same as a deposit guarantee scheme.

The regulatory shape is unusual and you should hold it in mind. The card comes from UAB Walletto, an e-money institution in Lithuania under Bank of Lithuania licence no. 33. The crypto services run through SPEKA Payments Corp in Canada, registered as a FINTRAC money services business, M22046940, and the card describes those services as operating outside the EU and not for EU residents. Neither of those licences on its own tells you what protections apply to your balance in the event of insolvency, and I could not find that spelled out.

Programme shutdown is not hypothetical. Card programmes do close. Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX in November 2022 and the FTX US debit card was wound down by its issuer; WaveCrest, a Visa issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing all its programmes. When that happens, the pattern is a notice period, then spending and loading stop, then you are asked to withdraw what is left. One 2026 closure reported by a secondary source stopped new loads on 8 July 2026 and spending on 8 August 2026 — a single unconfirmed source, but the shape of it is what to expect.

Wrong network, wrong address, gone. Blockchain transfers are irreversible. A deposit sent on a network the provider does not support, or to an address belonging to a different network, can be lost or need manual recovery with no guarantee attached. This is the single most common way people lose money on cards like this, and it costs nothing to avoid: read the network list in the app before every first transfer of a given coin.

Blocked merchant categories. Gambling (MCC 7995), adult content and other listed categories are declined. Some merchants decline prepaid or foreign-issued cards outright, because the BIN lookup reveals the card type and issuer country.

Declines and holds. A declined authorisation can leave a hold on your funds that stays for several days, typically up to seven. If you are watching a balance closely, that gap can look like a problem when it is not one.

No independent reputation. I searched for complaints and found none — but I also found no Trustpilot page and no user reports, only unrelated brands. There is no dated public record of incidents for this provider either way. If the absence of complaints is the thing that makes you trust it, I would be careful: absence of complaints for a card most people have never heard of is the expected result, not a recommendation.

Safeguards that are actually in place. Two-factor codes at login, card block and unblock in the app, 3-D Secure 2.0 for online payments, and the possibility that the provider asks you for proof of funds. Whether your funds are safeguarded or insured is not stated. Support is a phone number (+357 2503-09-49), email, an on-site widget and social channels; the site runs in English, Ukrainian and German, and opening hours are not stated.

What to take instead

I compared SharPay against three cards that solve a similar problem for a similar reader. None of them is a slam dunk, and the honest answer is that you are choosing which compromises you prefer.

Reading across that table, the choice sharpens.

If your crypto is USDC or USDT, the International Visa Card is the better deal on paper: 2% against 2.99%, no monthly fee on the free plan, free deposits, and a wider refusal list. Its weaknesses are real, though. It is USD-only, it is a Visa rather than a Mastercard, and the physical card does not exist yet. If you travel in Europe and want to tap, that matters.

If you spend across several currencies, UNi Card is the more interesting proposition: no annual fee, no foreign transaction fee, conversion at live OTC rates, and up to 3% back. The catch is that its funding and eligibility details are simply not stated, so I cannot tell you whether you can get one.

If you live in the United States, Whop Cards is not really comparable — 31 states for consumers — and its economics are built around spending from a Whop balance rather than from your own wallet.

SharPay’s case is the widest funding list and the fastest route to a working Mastercard number: virtual instantly, physical in about 15 working days, Apple Pay and Google Pay. If you hold something other than USDC or USDT — BTC, ETH, XRP, LTC, BCH — it is the only card on this list that will take it directly. What you pay for that flexibility is 3 EUR a month, a 2.99% mark-up and a 2.00 EUR plus 1.99% load fee.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend SharPay to a non-EU resident who already holds euros or a dollar-pegged stablecoin, who needs a Mastercard number this week, who taps with a phone rather than a plastic card, and who spends mostly in euros. For that person the monthly 3 EUR buys a real convenience: a card that works, a virtual one you can use in minutes, wallets that just work, and a genuinely wide list of coins if you hold something off the beaten track. I would also say yes to someone who specifically wants the physical card in about 15 working days without a long application dance.

I would not recommend it to you if any of the following is true. You live in the EU and want the crypto services, because they are not for EU residents. You live in Russia, Belarus, Iran, Cuba, Syria, or one of the listed regions, because the residence rule is the wall and no document fixes it. You want a free card, because there is no free tier here and the pricing is per product. You spend regularly outside the eurozone and have not accepted a 2.99% mark-up on all of it. You plan to move more than 10,000 EUR in a day through shops and websites, or more than 14,500 EUR a day through SEPA in crypto. You are planning to run a card through a chargeback. Or you simply cannot accept holding your balance with a provider whose safeguarding arrangements the public pages do not describe.

Before you apply, here is my short list. Read the fee page again and do the arithmetic on your own spending. Open the app and read the minimum top-up field and the network list for each coin you hold, before you transfer anything. Look up your country of residence in the restricted list yourself, and if you are not there, ask the support team directly whether you are covered — because the card does not publish the count. And if your money is in a stablecoin, compare the 4% card deposit against sending it on-chain, where the cost is the network fee rather than a percentage of the amount.

None of that is a disqualification. It is the homework that makes the difference between a card that costs you 3 EUR a month and one that costs you a percentage of everything.

Frequently asked questions

What is SharPay card?

SharPay is a Mastercard you spend from an account holding euros and crypto. It is a debit card, issued by UAB Walletto, an e-money institution licensed by the Bank of Lithuania under licence no. 33, with payment services provided by SPEKA Payments Corp in Canada. The crypto side runs through the Canadian entity, outside the EU. You get a virtual card immediately and plastic in about 15 working days.

Is SharPay a bank?

No. It is an e-money and payments arrangement, not a bank account. The card comes from a licensed electronic money institution in Lithuania, and the crypto services come from a FINTRAC-registered money services business in Canada. Electronic money balances are not bank deposits, so deposit guarantee schemes do not apply. Treat the two differently in your head: card spending is one arrangement, crypto is another.

Who owns SharPay?

GTM Exchange Ltd, a company in Cyprus, designs and operates the sharpay website and app. Behind it sit two regulated partners: UAB Walletto in Lithuania for the card, and SPEKA Payments Corp in Canada for payments and crypto. Who you deal with in a dispute depends on which part of the service went wrong, which is worth remembering before you need it.

Does SharPay card require KYC?

Yes, and it is a real process. You need a passport, full page and good quality, plus English bank statements, a questionnaire on turnover and source of funds, and a video selfie. Cropped copies, non-passport documents, and selfies taken in poor light, with a hat, glasses or a filter are all rejected. Level 2 verification, needed for fiat accounts and cards, can take up to 5 days.

Is SharPay card available in my country?

It depends on residence, not citizenship. You must not be a resident of a restricted or prohibited country, and that list includes Russia, Belarus, Crimea, DNR, LNR, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Iran, Cuba and Syria. On top of that, the crypto services are not for EU residents. The card does not publish how many countries it covers, so if yours is not on a list you have seen, ask before applying.

Is SharPay card free?

No. Opening the payment account is 10 EUR, issuing the card is 1 EUR, and card service is 3 EUR per card per month. On top of that, loading the card card-to-card costs 2.00 EUR plus 1.99%, and the currency mark-up on a personal card is 2.99%. The crypto account itself is free. There is one tier only; there is no cheaper plan to move up to.

What are SharPay’s fees and limits?

On costs: purchase fees are shown as a dash, the currency mark-up is 2.99% on a personal card and 1.00% on payments, card load is 2.00 EUR plus 1.99%, USDC deposit by card is 4% and withdrawal 3%, other coins carry a network fee, and chargeback handling is 40 EUR. On limits: 10,000 EUR daily and 30,000 EUR monthly at point of sale and online, 14,500 EUR/day for SEPA crypto, and monthly caps on crypto bought by card, shown in the app.

How do I top up the card?

You load it with EUR, USDT, USDC, BTC, ETH, XRP, LTC or BCH, and the price page also lists DAI and TUSD. The critical step is choosing the right network, because the FAQ does not name them and a wrong-network transfer can be lost. XRP and Stellar deposits need a memo or tag. The minimum top-up is only shown in the amount input field in the app. Loading card-to-card costs 2.00 EUR plus 1.99%.

How do I withdraw money from SharPay?

Transfers go to SEPA, to cards, to e-wallets and to crypto, and the card says they are processed from 1 to 60 minutes. Card transfers only work if the card was previously topped up. There is an account closure fee of 25.00 EUR for personal accounts and 100.00 EUR for business accounts, and the pages do not state what happens to a remaining balance when you close.

Is SharPay card safe, and should I trust it with my crypto?

That is your call, and here are the pieces. It is custodial, so the provider holds the credentials and you must trust them completely; transfers are irreversible and a stolen key has no recovery path. Safeguarding or insurance is not stated on the public pages. I found no complaints and no reviews at all, which means no public track record in either direction. The regulated partners are real licences, but the card is also outside the EU and not for EU residents.

Content created by the «cryptocardadvisor» team