SORA card review: what the closure means and what to use instead

Updated October 2026

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The SORA card programme stopped issuing new cards in January 2026, and the app’s card functions were switched off at the same time. If you are reading this because you typed “SORA card review” into a search bar, you are probably in one of two situations: you held a card and want to know what happens to the money still on it, or you were considering signing up and have just discovered that you cannot. Either way, the honest answer is that this is a programme that no longer exists in any practical sense, and the rest of this page is dedicated to explaining what it was, what went wrong, and what to do next.

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

Verdict

The SORA card was a debit product aimed at European Economic Area residents who wanted to spend the XOR token, the native asset of the SORA network, through a familiar card. It looked reasonable on paper — no issuance fee, no monthly fee, and a free first year of membership — but it was shut down at very short notice in January 2026. The current score reflects that the card is closed to new applicants, that the app no longer offers card functions, and that some account holders have had their balances held by the card issuer pending review.

Score

Who the card suited, during its time in operation, was a narrow band of people: EEA residents willing to hold XOR, comfortable with converting to euros before each spend, and not reliant on a wide network of merchants. The few existing cardholders who still have money in the programme and want it back are the only people for whom SORA is a current concern. If you were thinking of signing up, that door is closed and you should look at the alternatives section instead.

What happened to the programme

The SORA card was run by SORA Biome, a company registered in Bulgaria, and the card itself was issued by Unlimit EU Ltd, an electronic money institution licensed by the Central Bank of Cyprus under licence 115.1.3.7. SORA Biome handled the website, the iOS and Android apps, and the front-end experience; Unlimit was the regulated party sitting behind it. The split matters for what follows, because once the programme was wound down, the issuer — not the crypto brand — became the only entity that could act on frozen balances.

When the card was accepting applicants, the rules were unusually broad in one respect and unusually tight in another. Eligibility was by residence, not nationality: you needed to live in the EEA and pass KYC, but you did not need to be an EEA citizen. Residents of Russia, Iran, and North Korea were explicitly not eligible, and the public blacklist page (/blacklist) held the full country list. That distinction between residence and nationality is not unusual for a European EMI product, but it is worth noticing because it means your passport could come from almost anywhere as long as your address is in the EEA and you are not on the excluded list.

The application itself required standard European KYC: a selfie, an identity document, and proof of address. The card’s public pages do not give processing times or any tiered “enhanced” level — what you see is what you got. Once approved, you could order a physical card and a virtual card, both for €0 as the first card, and you could use the iOS “SORA” app (apps.apple.com/us/app/sora-dae/id1457566711) or the Android build (play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.soramitsu.sora) to manage them. App ratings were not surveyed for this review.

The fees that applied

The fee schedule dated 17 September 2024 was the one in force when the card was live. First card issuance was free, both virtual and physical, and the monthly maintenance fee was €0. A “client membership” of €39 per year kicked in after the first year; that was the only paid tier — there was no premium or metal level. International card payments cost €0.90 plus 1.1%, while the first ten online and ten in-person domestic payments each month were free. Top-up itself cost €0, but the actual conversion from XOR to EUR was done through a partner, and the spread on that conversion was not stated on the pages read. In short, the day-to-day cost was low until you went abroad or withdrew cash, at which point the fees added up quickly.

The card promised Apple Pay and Google Pay support in a “Phase 2” that did not arrive before the closure, and the public pages did not list which merchant categories — gambling, for instance — were blocked. The card’s network was not stated on the pages read either, which is one of several “not stated” notes that a careful reader will run into when comparing the card to alternatives that publish their full fee and feature tables.

The 10 January 2026 notice

On 10 January 2026, SORA published a notice of termination of SORA Card services. The deadline was Friday 30 January 2026 at 18:00 GMT, after which the card, the app’s card functions, and the card-related parts of the platform stopped. Cardholders who held balances inside GateHub — the wallet layer behind the card — were told to withdraw their funds before the cutoff. Some accounts had already been suspended earlier by Unlimit, the issuer, and those balances were not accessible even before the formal closure. The official channel for balance release after the cutoff was [email protected], with the explicit warning that SORA itself could not submit release requests on a user’s behalf. The SORA Wallet application continues to operate for users who want to keep the underlying wallet functionality, but the card parts are gone.

No reason for the closure was given in the notice. The programme simply stopped, leaving a number of users with balances in a frozen state pending Unlimit’s review. That is the single most important fact to understand about the SORA card in 2026: it is a closed product, and the people who can do anything about your money now are at Unlimit, not at SORA.

If you already have the card

If you are one of the existing cardholders, your situation depends on whether your account is currently suspended or simply closed. Both groups are stuck, but the path out is different.

Getting cash out of the card

When the card was live, ATM withdrawals inside the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway cost €1.20 plus 3%, and international withdrawals cost €1.75 plus 3%. One free balance inquiry per month was allowed. SEPA outgoing and SEPA Instant outgoing transfers each cost €0.50. None of this matters now in a direct sense, because after 30 January 2026 18:00 GMT the app no longer gives any access to balances — there is no way to push a transfer or trigger a withdrawal from your side.

If your account is in normal “closed” status, the only route is to contact Unlimit support at [email protected] and ask for a balance release. The fact that the support address is Unlimit’s, not SORA’s, is deliberate: SORA is no longer the regulated party. There is no published timeline for how long that review takes, and there is no public statement on what Unlimit will ask for. A reasonable first step is to gather your KYC documents, your transaction history, and the card’s last few statements, and to send them in one clean email so the review has everything it needs.

If your account was already suspended before the closure, you may still see a balance on screen, but the funds are inaccessible until Unlimit completes its review. This is a different situation from the standard closure and typically signals a KYC, sanctions, or compliance flag that the issuer has to clear. Again, the only person who can move the process forward is on the Unlimit side. SORA has stated explicitly that it cannot submit release requests on a user’s behalf, so any message sent to the SORA card website asking for help is going to be redirected back to Unlimit. That double-bounce wastes time during what is already a slow process.

Crypto in GateHub

Cardholders who held crypto in GateHub — the wallet layer linked to the card — were told to empty those balances before the cutoff. The notice gave no specific deadline within 30 January other than 18:00 GMT itself. After that, the card-side access is gone, but the underlying SORA Wallet app continues to run, which means users who self-custody their own keys may still be able to reach their crypto through the wallet. The fact that this part of the SORA ecosystem continues while the card does not is consistent with how the product was structured: the wallet was a separate, self-custody product, while the card sat on top of a custodial arrangement with Unlimit. If your GateHub balance was custodial rather than self-custody, the same Unlimit review may apply to it as to the euro balance, and the same [email protected] address is your point of contact.

Limits and missing details

The public fee page on the SORA card website refers users to /fees#4 for “limits”, but the actual amounts were not present on the pages read for this review. Closure fees, replacement costs, and a few other edge-case charges are similarly not listed. Anyone preparing a request to Unlimit should not assume that the published fee schedule is a complete picture; if a fee is not on the page, ask the issuer to confirm before relying on it.

Support channels

The SORA card site offered support at the SORA card website’s support page, contact at the contact page, and an email address for technical help. There were also community channels on Discord, Telegram, X, and Reddit, and the site was available in English and Spanish. Russian was not offered. None of these channels are useful for the balance-release question any more, because the answer they will give you is “contact Unlimit”. The community channels can still be worth reading, however, because other cardholders have been sharing the wording that has worked for them in their Unlimit release requests, and that kind of practical information is rarely available anywhere else.

What can go wrong

The SORA card’s story is in many ways a worked example of risks that are quietly present across the whole crypto-card category. The main issues are below.

Frozen balances after issuer action

The headline complaint is the one described above: some users had their accounts suspended by Unlimit, the EMI behind the card, before the formal closure date. The notice from SORA does not say what triggered the suspensions, but the standard reasons an EMI freezes an account are incomplete KYC documentation, sanctions screening flags, suspected fraudulent activity, or a request from a law enforcement body. The published SORA card support pages do not go into detail on dispute handling, so the only visible route is to write to Unlimit and wait. People whose accounts were suspended were told that SORA could not act on their behalf, and that only Unlimit could review and release the funds.

Programme closure at short notice

The card was wound down on a three-week notice, with the cutoff landing on a Friday evening. Anyone whose salary or rent ran through the card was left with a weekend to find an alternative, and the way the announcement was written placed the burden of withdrawing crypto from GateHub squarely on the user. Three weeks is short for any payment product, and shorter still when the issuer is also suspending accounts. The general pattern in the industry is that card programmes do close from time to time, but a well-run closure gives users longer, multiple reminders, and a way to spend down their balance through the existing card until the last day. The SORA closure did none of those things, at least not visibly.

Self-custody is not a guarantee for the card balance

SORA Wallet is a self-custody product, which is to say the user holds the private keys. That is genuinely a better security posture than keeping funds on a custodial exchange. It does not, however, help with the card balance, because the card balance sat with Unlimit in its role as e-money issuer, not in the user’s self-custody wallet. Anyone who assumed that the card balance was protected by SORA’s self-custody design was confusing two layers of the product, and the closure has exposed that confusion in the most direct way possible. Self-custody gives you control of the keys; it does not give you control of the issuer’s e-money ledger.

No deposit insurance

Unlimit EU Ltd is licensed as an electronic money institution, not as a bank. That distinction matters because electronic money held with an EMI is not covered by the Cyprus Deposit Insurance Fund or by any equivalent European deposit guarantee scheme. EMI funds are safeguarded — segregated from the issuer’s own balance sheet, or insured — but “safeguarded” is not the same as “insured up to the limit of a current account”. If Unlimit itself failed, the safeguards would matter, but the protections are not the consumer-friendly kind that bank customers are used to. None of this was a problem while the card was working, and the company is not in any visible distress, but it is the structural background against which a balance release can be slow.

No Trustpilot or Reddit pattern to lean on

A search for user complaints about the SORA card on 20 October 2026 turned up no Reddit or Trustpilot reports. That is not the same as saying there were no complaints — Unlimit suspensions were a real event, and the user community on Discord, Telegram, and other SORA channels did discuss them — but the absence of a public review footprint makes it harder to gauge how widespread the problem is. It also means that if you are waiting for a balance release, you cannot easily compare your experience to that of other users.

Security features that did exist

When the card was live, the app mentioned two-factor authentication and biometrics, and the wallet side was self-custody, with the user holding the keys. Card freeze and similar in-app controls were not described on the pages read for this review. Compared to mainstream bank cards, the SORA card’s security surface was narrower; compared to some other crypto cards, it was similar. None of that is a problem in itself, but it is worth knowing that a closed programme cannot offer any of these features any more, and a card that has been switched off cannot be frozen or unfrozen from your end.

What to take instead

Because the SORA card is no longer available, the comparison here is between cards that fill the gap it left. The three alternatives below all let you spend crypto or stablecoins through a Visa or Mastercard debit card, and all of them are currently open to applicants, unlike SORA. Each is summarised briefly; a full review of each would be a separate page.

TokenPocket (TP Card)

TokenPocket’s TP Card is a Visa or Mastercard debit product that runs on the Arbitrum network. The Visa debit is available in a list of European countries and territories (Germany, France, Spain, and Switzerland are among those named), while the Mastercard debit is available in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and the UK, among others. The Americas are listed as “planned for Q2 2025”, so readers in the United States and Latin America should check the current state of the rollout before applying. Balances are held in EUR24 and USD24, and the cards issued under the Fiat24 programme are virtual — no physical card is indicated in the available information.

On cost, the headline line is “Apart from these, TP Card does not charge any additional fees”. The fees that do exist are the NFT creation fee, partly covered by TokenPocket with the user paying “a small portion” (amount not stated), and a 1% fee on crypto deposits into the TP Card, which the issuer says will be refunded later through rewards or reduced transaction fees. The foreign exchange fee is not stated, and the small print warns that extra fees can come from inter-institution settlement. On the rewards side, there is no cashback; the 1% deposit fee is the closest thing to a rebate, and it is paid in the same kind of reward, not in fiat. TokenPocket offers a 5.8 / 10 package that focuses on the Arbitrum network.

MetaMask Card

The MetaMask Card is a Mastercard issued by Monovate, with Crypto Life as the card provider. Sign-ups are open in 45 listed countries and territories (including Andorra, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Spain, and Uruguay), with other regions on a waitlist. Proof of residency is required, and the published note is that “ineligible regions limit sign-ups, not spending” — a useful distinction that means a US or UK applicant cannot get a card, but a cardholder travelling in those countries can still spend. US and UK sign-ups are temporarily closed per the FAQ, so the rule is being applied more strictly than the headline line suggests. Citizenship rules are not stated, so the safe reading is that residence is what matters.

The card is virtual at issuance (instant) and a Metal card can be pre-ordered in the app after the virtual card is approved; one card per user. The Virtual tier is free with no annual or maintenance fee, and the Metal tier costs $199 per year. Per-transaction fees are described as “minimal” without a number, and the public material says there are no additional MetaMask fees and no foreign transaction fee, with the Mastercard rate used for FX. Spends are pulled directly from the connected wallet, on the Linea, Base, Monad, and Solana networks, and the named tokens include mUSD, wETH, EURe, GBPe, USDC, and USDT (the page says nine in total). Solana-only wallets cannot withdraw credit.

The rewards line is the strongest part of the offer. Virtual cardholders get 1% cashback in mUSD into the Money Account, while the headline 3% on Metal is footnote-limited to the first $10,000 spent, then 1% thereafter. There is also a $FLY bonus of 5× (Virtual) or 7× (Metal) via the Blackbird dining app. With its broad availability and rewards, the MetaMask Card earns a 7.1 / 10 rating.

KAST

KAST issues a Visa Platinum (Standard), a Visa Infinite metal (Premium), and a Visa Infinite gold-plated (Private) card, with up to ten cards per user and a long list of designs including Pengu, Solana, and Bitcoin. Account balances are held in USD, and stablecoin deposits convert 1:1 with a 0% spread. The eligibility rule is residence-based: if your country is not listed at the KYC step, KAST is not available to you, and the Restricted Locations list is referenced without naming the countries. Citizenship also matters: someone living in a supported country but holding only an ID from a restricted region may fail KYC, while a dual citizen with a supported-country ID may pass. The account can be created in an unsupported country, but KYC stays locked, so the gating is real. Only the cardholder’s own ID is accepted, and using a VPN does not bypass the check.

The cost structure has three tiers, billed annually upfront with no monthly option. Standard is $0 per year, Premium is $1,000 per year, and Private is $10,000 per year. Standard includes one virtual card; extra virtual cards cost $2 (and in some regions the included Standard virtual card also carries a $2 fee). The Standard physical card has a $0 card fee plus $40 delivery, while Premium and Private physical cards are included. An inactivity fee of $1 per month kicks in after twelve months of no use, and renewal or reactivation fees exist but the amounts are not stated. On the fee side, stablecoin top-up is 0%, card spend in USD is 0%, the transaction fee is 0%, Apple Pay and Google Pay are 0%, and the non-USD FX fee runs from 0.5% to 1.75% depending on residence country, transaction country, and card programme. Non-USD transactions under $25 carry a $0.10 fee, and a declined transaction for insufficient balance costs $0.50. Non-stablecoin tokens may be auto-converted at a fee shown in the app.

Stablecoin funding covers USDT, USDC, PYUSD, and RLUSD, with USDT and USDC supported on Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum, and TRON — though the app lists the current networks, and Circle stopped supporting USDC on TRON in February 2024, so “USDC over TRC20” is not a native option. The Terms say acceptable tokens are “currently USDT and USDC”, which conflicts with the in-app support for PYUSD and RLUSD; treat the in-app list as the live one. No bank account is needed, and spending is from your own balance, with each purchase deducted straight away, not as credit. On rewards, cashback in USD runs 1.5% on the first $2,000 of monthly spend for Standard, 2% on the first $10,000 for Premium, and 3% on the first $40,000 for Private, with KAST Points adding 1% on Premium and 2% on Private. KAST provides a 6.1 / 10 service suited for users who want a wider range of card tiers.

How the three compare

If the deciding factor for you is geographic availability, MetaMask Card has the broadest current country list and the simplest pricing, KAST is the strongest on rewards and card variety, and TokenPocket is the most interesting for users who want an Arbitrum-native experience and are happy with a virtual card. None of them is a SORA replacement in the strict sense, because SORA was built around XOR and none of these spends the same token, but as a route to spend crypto through a card without an EEA-specific restriction, all three do the job the SORA card was doing.

Who I would recommend it to

At this point, the honest version of the recommendation is short. I would not recommend the SORA card to anyone, because the SORA card is closed. The only people for whom the product is still relevant are existing cardholders waiting on Unlimit to release their balance, and for them the recommendation is “do exactly that, and treat SORA’s customer service as a signpost rather than a helpdesk”.

For everyone else, the question is which live card best matches the use case that the SORA card used to serve. If you wanted a low-friction European debit card funded by a single token, MetaMask Card is the most direct replacement, with a free Virtual tier, no foreign transaction fee, and the broadest country list of the three. If you wanted the cheapest ongoing annual cost, the same MetaMask Virtual card wins, with KAST Standard as a close second. If you wanted a metal card and a strong rewards rate, the MetaMask Metal is the obvious choice, with KAST Premium worth a look if you want the Visa Infinite experience and can justify the $1,000 annual fee. If you wanted a card that runs on Arbitrum and are happy with virtual only, TokenPocket’s TP Card is the most natural fit.

There is one broader point worth stating. The SORA card’s closure is a useful reminder that “this card is issued by an EMI” is a meaningful piece of information, not a line of legalese to skip. SORA was a brand on top of a regulated issuer, and when the programme stopped, the issuer was the only party that could move user money. Anyone choosing a card on the same model — and most crypto cards are structured this way — should look up the issuer, its licence, and its home regulator before signing up, and should assume that the brand name on the front of the card is not the entity that controls the balance.

Frequently asked questions

What is the SORA card?

The SORA card was a debit card issued by Unlimit EU Ltd and run by SORA Biome, designed to let people spend the XOR token through a physical or virtual card. The programme stopped issuing new cards and switched off the card functions in the SORA app on 30 January 2026 at 18:00 GMT, so it is no longer available to new applicants.

How does the SORA card work?

When the card was live, holders would convert XOR to euros through a partner or send a SEPA transfer to load a euro balance onto the card, and then use the card like any other Visa or Mastercard debit card at merchants and ATMs. The actual card network was not stated on the public pages reviewed here, and the conversion spread was not disclosed either.

Is SORA a bank?

No. SORA Biome, the company behind the card, is a Bulgarian technology company. The card itself was issued by Unlimit EU Ltd, an electronic money institution licensed by the Central Bank of Cyprus, not by a bank. Funds held with an EMI are safeguarded but are not covered by the Cyprus Deposit Insurance Fund.

Who owns SORA?

SORA Biome runs the website and the apps, while the card programme is held by Unlimit EU Ltd as the licensed e-money issuer. The two are separate entities, and that separation is the reason Unlimit — not SORA — is the only party that can act on a frozen balance after the closure.

How do I get a SORA card?

You cannot, as of the closure on 30 January 2026. New cards are not being issued and the app no longer offers card functions. The alternatives in the section above are the live options to consider if you were looking for a similar product.

Does the SORA card require KYC?

Yes. The KYC requirements for the card were a selfie, an identity document, and proof of address. The process is not described in tiers on the public pages, and processing times are not stated.

How do I activate the SORA card?

Activation instructions for the physical card were part of the SORA app while the card was live, and the first card itself was free, including delivery. With the card functions removed on 30 January 2026, the activation flow is no longer available, and the only way to recover a remaining balance is to contact Unlimit at [email protected].

How do I top up the SORA card?

The card was topped up either by converting XOR to euros through a partner or by sending a SEPA transfer. There was no direct crypto load, and the minimum top-up amount was not stated on the public pages. Both routes are closed after 30 January 2026.

How do I withdraw money from SORA?

The standard way to withdraw was at an ATM (€1.20 + 3% inside the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway; €1.75 + 3% internationally) or by SEPA transfer (€0.50 per outgoing transfer, with the same price for SEPA Instant). After the cutoff on 30 January 2026 the app gives no access to balances, and the only path to a withdrawal is to email Unlimit at [email protected] and ask for a release.

Is the SORA card safe?

When the card was live, the SORA Wallet side was self-custody — the user held the keys — and the app mentioned two-factor authentication and biometrics. The card balance itself, however, was held by Unlimit EU Ltd, an electronic money institution, and is not covered by the Cyprus Deposit Insurance Fund. The main safety question now is not whether the card was safe at the time, but whether you can get your money back, which depends on Unlimit’s review.

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