ether.fi Cash card review: spend or borrow on Visa

The ether.fi Cash card is a Visa card from the ether.fi staking ecosystem, and it is one of the few crypto cards that its own provider calls a credit card. You can pay straight from stablecoins you hold, or you can borrow against crypto such as ETH and spend that instead. For people who hold ETH long term and do not want to sell it for every dinner, that second option is the whole point. For everyone else, the card is still interesting because purchases in euros carry a 0% FX rate.

We built this ether fi card review from ether.fi’s help center, its product page and a small number of news and industry sources. Where a fact comes only from a secondary source, we say so. That matters here: the issuer, the card fees and the cashback tiers are reported by third parties, while the FX tiers, ATM caps and country rules come from ether.fi itself.

Our verdict on the ether.fi Cash card

ether.fi Cash is a good card for a specific person. If you keep savings in USDC or ETH, live somewhere the card is offered and spend mostly in euros, it is close to the cheapest way to pay that we track. Outside the euro, the base FX of about 1% puts it behind zero-FX rivals. Borrow Mode is a real feature, not a gimmick, but it turns a payment card into a lending product with its own risks.

We score it 7.5 out of 10. It loses points for partial US coverage, for details we could not confirm on official pages, and for the fact that the best FX pricing sits behind higher tiers. It gains points for clear euro pricing, high cash limits and a self-custodial design that limits damage if the program ever closes.

ether.fi Cash at a glance

Is the etherfi Visa card a credit card? Direct Pay vs Borrow Mode

Most crypto cards are spend cards: they sell a slice of your balance when you pay. People searching for the etherfi Visa card often ask whether it really is a credit card, and the honest answer is “partly”. ether.fi’s help center uses the word credit card, and reporting on the product describes two ways to pay. The difference between them decides how you should use the card.

Direct Pay spends USDC or EURC you already hold. There is no loan, so it behaves like a debit card funded by stablecoins. Because you are spending a stablecoin that tracks the dollar or the euro, each payment usually creates little or no taxable gain in countries that tax crypto disposals. This is the mode we would use for daily spending.

Borrow Mode lets you spend against crypto collateral, such as ETH, without selling it. The card payment is covered by a credit line secured by what you deposited. That can make sense if you expect to repay soon and do not want to trigger a sale. It is not an unsecured bank credit card, though. If you want the wider picture of these card types, our guide to debit, prepaid and credit crypto cards lays out the differences.

FX tiers and fees

The fee structure is unusually transparent on the point that matters most for travelers. ether.fi publishes a base FX rate of roughly 1% on non-EUR foreign currencies, plus a margin that depends on your tier. A separate help article confirms that purchases in euros get a 0% FX rate. Card fees and cashback by tier come from secondary reporting, so we mark them as reported.

Here is what that means in money. Spend €2,000 on a week in Spain and you pay nothing in FX on any tier. Spend the same $2,000 in Japanese yen on the Core tier and the FX bill lands somewhere between about $20 and $30. Move up to Pinnacle or VIP and it settles near $20, because the base rate stays. For a full side-by-side of how these percentages compare, see our crypto card fees calculator.

Card issuance is reported at $0–$10 for a virtual card and $0–$100 for a physical card, depending on tier. We found no monthly fee. If you mainly pay in euros, the cheapest setup is a Core card used in Direct Pay. If you travel outside the eurozone often, a zero-FX card like Bleap or the weekday 0.2% pricing on the Nexo Card will usually cost less.

ATM caps and spending limits

ether.fi’s help center lists a cash limit of $1,000 per ATM withdrawal and no more than five withdrawals in any 24-hour window. That is up to $5,000 a day, which is higher than many stablecoin cards. KAST, for comparison, stops at $750 a day. We could not confirm a specific ether.fi ATM fee on the official pages we checked, so budget for one, and remember that the machine’s owner can add a surcharge.

Five withdrawals is also a useful ceiling when you are traveling. If an ATM only allows small notes, you can split the cash into several smaller withdrawals and stay inside the daily count. Our guide to ATM withdrawals with crypto cards explains how operator fees and dynamic currency conversion add to the bill. We did not find a published daily or monthly card spending limit, and limits may vary with your tier and verification.

Availability and who issues the card

ether.fi says Cash is available in more than 100 countries. The exceptions are specific. In the United States the card is offered only in listed states, so check the availability article before you start, and read our US crypto card guide for alternatives if your state is missing. Residents of Belgium and Ireland cannot get the physical card.

Industry reporting says the card is issued through Rain, a principal member of both Visa and Mastercard that settles card volume in stablecoins. Rain reportedly raised a $250 million Series C in January 2026 at a $1.95 billion valuation. The Defiant also reported that ether.fi chose Scroll for card settlement. Neither detail appeared on the ether.fi pages we reviewed, so we treat them as reported. Even so, the setup follows a pattern we see across the market: a crypto brand runs the app, and a licensed issuer-processor runs the card.

Cashback: generous, but capped

Secondary sources citing ether.fi’s help center report cashback of 3% on the Core tier on the first $2,000 of monthly spending, rising to 4% on the VIP tier on the first $50,000. We could not confirm the Luxe and Pinnacle rates, the reward currency or how often caps reset. Treat the headline numbers as a ceiling, not a promise.

Even at the base tier, 3% on $2,000 is $60 a month, which is better than most crypto cards pay. Past the cap, the reward stops while FX keeps running. Cashback in crypto can also count as income in some countries, so read our page on crypto card taxes before you plan around it.

Custody and risk

Reports describe ether.fi Cash as self-custodial, built on a Safe smart-contract vault. That puts it in the same family as the MetaMask Card and Bleap. The practical benefit showed up in 2026. When the issuer behind the Solflare card wound down, users kept their funds because the stablecoins stayed in their own wallets. With custodial cards, your balance is a claim on the company.

Self-custody does not remove every risk. The card can still be paused if the issuer changes its terms, smart contracts can have bugs, and Borrow Mode adds market risk on top. Our crypto card safety guide covers what to check, and our self-custody card overview compares how other wallet-linked cards handle the same trade-offs.

How to get the ether.fi Cash card

1. 01
   Check eligibility

   Open ether.fi’s availability article and confirm your country, or your US state, is listed.

2. 02
   Set up and verify

   Create your Cash account in the ether.fi app and complete identity verification.

3. 03
   Fund the vault

   Deposit USDC or EURC for Direct Pay, or eligible crypto as collateral for Borrow Mode.

4. 04
   Choose a mode

   Pick Direct Pay for everyday spending, or Borrow Mode if you want a credit line.

5. 05
   Order the physical card

   Request plastic if your tier and country allow it; there is no physical card in Belgium or Ireland.

Need stablecoins first? Our guide on how to load a crypto card covers on-chain deposits, network choice and the common mistakes, such as sending tokens on the wrong chain.

Pros and cons

ether.fi Cash alternatives

If the US state list rules you out, or you mostly spend in dollars and pounds, compare these cards. MetaMask and Bleap keep the self-custody model. Nexo also offers a credit mode, but holds your assets for you. KAST is a custodial stablecoin card with a free tier and wide country coverage. All of them sit on our stablecoin cards shortlist.

Every score on this site follows the same model, explained on our methodology page. We recheck ether.fi’s FX and availability articles when we update this review.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and official pages

1. ether.fi Help — ether.fi Cash card type (credit card)
2. ether.fi Help — EUR purchases: 0% FX rate
3. ether.fi Help — Cash availability by country and US state
4. ether.fi — Cash product page
5. Rain — media kit (Visa and Mastercard principal member)
6. The Defiant — ether.fi partners with Scroll for card settlement (news report)

Ready when you are

Load your card with crypto you own

Buy Bitcoin, Ether or stablecoins with a bank card, Apple Pay or bank transfer, then move them to the card or wallet you choose.

Open account

Exchange running since 2013 · registered with FinCEN (US) and the FCA (UK) · card, Apple Pay or bank transfer

Keep reading