Fuse card — USDC to a virtual Visa, no card fees, but only 18 countries can get one

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

The Fuse card is unusual in the crypto-card space. It charges nothing to issue and nothing per month, and there is no foreign-transaction fee on a $2,000-per-day spend. But the everyday reality is narrow: only USDC can be loaded, only residents of a fixed list of 18 countries can sign up, only a virtual card exists, and the conversion fee that turns USDC into the merchant’s currency is not disclosed anywhere on the card’s own pages. I spent time with the cardholder agreement, the support site and the App Store listing to work out what the trade-offs actually look like, and this review is the result.

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

Verdict: 6.3 out of 10

The Fuse card scores 6.3 out of 10 overall. The strong points are the cost structure (9/10) and reliability (8/10): the card itself costs nothing to hold, the issuing bank is Lead Bank under a Visa U.S.A. licence, and Bridge Ventures LLC runs the programme. The weak points are who can get one (5/10) and everyday usefulness (4/10). Only USDC can be loaded, there is no physical card, no ATM access, and the card lives only inside the Fuse iOS app. I would frame it as a niche fit: a working virtual Visa for someone whose main holding is USDC and who is happy to spend from a balance rather than a credit line.

Here is how the score breaks down.

The audience this card fits, in plain terms, is a resident of the supported Americas or West-African list who already holds USDC and wants a free USD Visa to spend it through. If you are in the EU, the UK, Canada, Australia or most of Asia, Fuse is not for you at the moment, and you will want to look at the alternatives in the what to take instead section.

Who will they give you the card

The supported-residence list is short and specific. According to the card’s own pages, Fuse is available to residents of the United States (excluding New York and Alaska), Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Nigeria, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. That is 18 jurisdictions. Anyone outside that list cannot pass the KYC step that opens the card.

The card’s public pages do not say anything about citizenship. I want to be clear about that: citizenship rule is not stated. In practice the only filter the card publishes is the residence list above. A non-citizen living in Mexico on a valid permit is treated as a Mexican resident for this purpose; a citizen of one of the listed countries living in, say, Spain is treated as ineligible. The cardholder agreement reserves the right to ask for further documents at any time, so a citizenship question could still come up at KYC, but the rule is not on the page.

A few consequences fall out of this list. Most of the European Union and the United Kingdom are not covered. Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, the UAE and South Africa are not covered. New York and Alaska residents are excluded even inside the US. If you are in any of those places, the card simply does not exist for you.

The age bar is the standard 18+. KYC is mandatory and is run by Bridge (the Bridge Ventures LLC entity that runs the programme); the bank is not doing the onboarding directly. If you cannot complete KYC, you cannot get a card.

How to get it

The sign-up path is built around the Fuse iOS app, and it has three steps that you cannot skip.

First, you verify in the Fuse app. That means KYC through Bridge: name, address, date of birth and a government ID number. The cardholder agreement says the bank may also ask for further documents such as a driver’s licence “at any time” — that is not a list of documents you must provide up front, it is a right the bank reserves to ask. Processing time and the specific reasons an application would be rejected are not stated on the public pages.

Second, once verification passes you create the virtual card. There is no physical card. The product is described in the agreement both as a “prepaid debit card” and as a “debit card”, and it is denominated in US dollars.

Third, you transfer USDC from your Main Account to the card. Only USDC in the Card Account can actually be spent. The card does not pull from your Main Account at the time of purchase; you have to top up the card balance first.

There is one practical limit worth noting up front. The app is iOS only. The App Store listing for the Fuse wallet in the Paraguay storefront, which I read on 20 October 2026, asks for iOS 16.4 or later, and at the time of writing it had no star rating shown (“not enough ratings”). Unofficial aggregators put the average somewhere around 4.5 to 4.6 from roughly 35 ratings, but that number is not from Apple directly and I would not lean on it. If you are on Android, the situation is not clear from the card’s own pages: a Google Play listing was not confirmed in the materials I worked from. So “iPhone first, Android uncertain” is the honest summary.

What it really costs — the fees

This is where the card looks its strongest, with one important asterisk.

A few everyday scenarios help to show what this means in practice.

A $50 lunch in a US restaurant. The card balance is already in USDC and you have topped up the Card Account in advance. The merchant is paid in USD, the foreign-transaction fee is 0% because it is a domestic transaction, and there is no per-purchase fee. The only fee that could apply is the crypto conversion fee, which is the one number the card’s own pages do not publish; the agreement warns that “fees may apply”. In practice the card spends by selling USDC at the moment of purchase, and the rate of that sale is not visible to the user up front.

A €40 dinner in Spain. The card’s USD balance is converted to euros at the network rate with no foreign-transaction fee added, because the international fee is 0%. Whether there is any markup on top of the network rate is, again, the undisclosed crypto conversion fee. This is the asterisk: a “0% FX” card can still cost you something on the conversion spread, and Fuse does not tell you what that spread is.

A cancelled card with a small remaining balance. The cardholder agreement says the bank may refuse to return balances under $1.00, so a few cents of leftover USDC can effectively be lost. Anything above that is returned as a stablecoin to the Platform Provider wallet, with no fee, though the closure can be blocked by a pending transaction, an open dispute, an amount owed or a hold.

A few more cost facts to anchor the picture. There are no tiers: one product, one fee schedule, one set of limits. The cash reload fee is $0 and there is no minimum top-up listed. The agreement does state that the Platform Provider or the Program Manager may charge separate fees for stablecoin sales, which is a second, hidden channel through which the same conversion cost can appear.

Top up the card

Topping up Fuse is a one-step action in the app: simply initiate the transfer from your Main Account balance. The funds are available immediately, and the support pages say there are no top-up fees and no card transaction fees, with the agreement’s usual “fees may apply” caveat.

The thing that constrains this is the narrowness of what you can actually send. Only USDC is supported. The card’s public pages do not state which networks are accepted, which means a user has to know what the app expects and pick the right one in their external wallet. The product positioning puts the wallet on Solana, but the card’s own pages do not confirm that. If you send USDC on the wrong network, you are sending it to a wallet the card cannot read, and on-chain transfers are not reversible. That is the single biggest practical risk in the funding flow, and it is worth being deliberate about which network you choose before you confirm a transfer.

There is no fiat top-up path described. You cannot load the card from a bank account or a debit card in the public materials I worked from. The only entry point is USDC you already hold in your Fuse Main Account.

A second flow goes the other way. You can move USDC from the Card Account back to the Main Account, which is how you “withdraw” the card balance. There is a 5-minute security time lock on that direction. The same 5-minute time lock appears on the description of how funds become spendable. The top-up direction is the one that is immediate.

A few more funding details to round out the picture. Cash reload is $0 and no minimum is listed. Stablecoin-to-fiat sales may carry a separate fee charged by the Platform Provider or Program Manager. And on card closure the agreement says any remaining balance comes back to the Platform Provider wallet as a stablecoin, again with no fee, subject to the under-$1 rule and the closure-block conditions mentioned above.

Paying with the card every day

In person, the Fuse card works through Apple Pay. The support pages confirm that, and since the card is virtual-only, Apple Pay is essentially the only way to tap-to-pay at a shop. Google Pay is not mentioned in the materials I worked from, so Android users with a working web client would have to fall back to typing in the card number online. There is no plastic to swipe, no PIN entry at a terminal in the usual sense, and no ATM access: the agreement lists ATM withdrawal and balance inquiry as not applicable, and the support pages say outright that Fuse cards cannot be used at ATMs at the moment.

Online, you type in the card details as you would with any virtual Visa. The support pages do not list any blocked merchant category codes, which means the usual gambling blocks many issuers apply are not visible here; the only categories the agreement calls out as forbidden are illegal transactions and cashback at the point of sale. In the absence of an MCC list I would not assume the card works at every online merchant, but there is no stated wall.

There is no cashback on this card. The card’s own pages do not mention a rewards programme, and the alternatives section below shows that some competitors do publish rates. If you are weighing Fuse on rewards, this is a clean zero, not a complicated structure.

A few practicalities that came up in the materials. Declines can happen for a few reasons — the card balance might be empty, the merchant’s fraud rules might decline a prepaid or foreign-issued BIN, or 3-D Secure might step in. A failed authorisation can put a hold on the funds for several days, which is a category-wide behaviour and not specific to Fuse. Disputes and unauthorised-use claims are covered in the next section, because they sit on the risk boundary rather than the everyday-use one.

The app itself is iOS 16.4 and up. Unofficial aggregator data put the average rating at around 4.5 to 4.6 stars from roughly 35 ratings, which is a small sample. The Apple listing at the time I read it did not show a star rating at all because there were not enough ratings to publish one.

What can go wrong

A few categories of risk are worth walking through separately, because the card sits at the intersection of a US bank, a crypto wallet and a small support team, and each of those brings its own failure modes.

Counterparty and platform risk. Card programmes can be suspended by Visa or Mastercard, and issuers can close programmes at any time. The published issuer is Lead Bank, a Missouri state-chartered bank, and the programme is run by Bridge Ventures LLC, with Squads Labs Inc. acting as the Platform Provider. The Platform Provider is explicitly not a bank. Funds on the platform side are described in the agreement as not being FDIC-insured, and there is no overdraft facility, so the worst the card itself can do is refuse a transaction. The bigger risk is that the platform goes away and the remaining balance becomes hard to recover. The cardholder agreement has a binding arbitration clause with a class-action waiver, which means disputes are resolved individually rather than as a group action.

Conversion and on-chain risk. Because the card spends by selling USDC at the moment of purchase, you are exposed to two things at once: the spread on that sale (which the card does not disclose) and any network or finality risk if the USDC happens to be in transit at the moment of the purchase. The card’s own pages do not state which networks are supported, so a user can plausibly send USDC on a chain the app does not read. On-chain transfers are irreversible, and recovering funds sent to the wrong network is a manual support process with no guarantee of success.

Account closure and frozen funds. I found one user report about a closed account with roughly $600 inaccessible, and an X user reportedly complaining of unanswered emails. There is no Trustpilot page for Fuse, which means public complaint data is thin. The agreement reserves the bank the right to close the account, and the closure flow is the one that returns remaining balances to the Platform Provider wallet, subject to the under-$1 carve-out and the closure-block conditions. Pending transactions, open disputes, amounts owed and holds can all block a closure, which is worth knowing before you try to wind down.

Disputes and unauthorised use. The cardholder agreement gives a specific protection framework. If you report an unauthorised transaction within 2 business days, your liability is limited to $50; later it can rise to up to $500. Reporting errors on a statement has a 60-day window. The bank aims to decide within 10 business days, and that window can extend to 45 days, with provisional credit within 10 business days if it does, and up to 90 days for point-of-sale, foreign-transaction and new-card errors. The outcome is told to you within 3 business days of the investigation ending. There is no provisional credit for goods-or-services disputes, and refunds that do come through are credited back to the wallet as a stablecoin, not as cash. Stop-payments are not allowed on card purchases, so the dispute route is the only one you have for a merchant problem.

Security features. The app supports freeze and unfreeze of the card from settings, a PIN you can set and reset, the adjustable daily spending limit up to $2,000, and a “smart account enforced spending limits” feature. Two-factor authentication is not described in the materials I read. The bank can block or cancel a card for suspected fraud.

Support. Email is [email protected] and the phone line is 833-237-8104. Hours are not stated, though the agreement refers to business days, Monday to Friday excluding holidays. There is no in-app chat described in the materials.

What to take instead

Fuse is a free virtual USD Visa that runs on USDC and lives in 18 jurisdictions. The cards below are the most useful points of comparison, because they all sit in the same general “crypto balance, spendable card” category and have different trade-offs.

If you live in the EU and would rather a self-custody card, the MetaMask Card is the more flexible of the three competitors above: 45 countries/territories at sign-up (the rest on a waitlist), funds stay in your own wallet until the moment of payment, and the rewards are paid in mUSD. The trade-off is that the Metal tier is $199 a year and the per-transaction fee is not stated on the public pages I read. Note that the US and UK are listed as temporarily closed for sign-ups in MetaMask’s own FAQ.

If you want tiered rewards and are willing to pay an annual fee, KAST runs up to 3% USD cashback on its Private tier, with physical cards in the box. The catch is the entry price: Premium is $1,000 a year and Private is $10,000 a year, plus there is a $40 delivery fee for the included Standard physical card and a 1 USD-a-month inactivity fee after 12 months.

If you are already in the TokenPocket ecosystem and live in Europe or APAC, TP Card is the in-wallet option, on Arbitrum, with the deposit fee explained up front (1%, later refundable through rewards). The Americas availability was still listed as planned for Q2 2025 in the materials I read, which means US residents looking for a TokenPocket-branded card may not have one yet.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend the Fuse card to a fairly specific reader. You live in the US (outside New York and Alaska) or in one of the other 18 supported countries, you already hold USDC, you are happy with a virtual card and Apple Pay as the primary way to spend, and you want a free USD Visa without a monthly fee. The card is well suited to that profile: the cost structure is excellent, the issuing bank is a real US bank, and the everyday flow is straightforward once you have USDC in your Main Account.

I would not recommend it in a few cases. If you are in the EU, the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, the UAE, South Africa or anywhere else not on the supported list, you cannot get one, and the cardholder agreement is not going to bend. If you want a physical card, ATM access, Google Pay support, cashback, or any currency other than USD, this card does not provide them. If you want to know what the conversion from USDC to the merchant’s currency will cost, the card does not publish that number. And if you want a self-custody experience where the funds stay in your own wallet until the moment of payment, the Fuse flow is a custodial one — your USDC is in the Platform Provider’s wallet, and the bank may close the account or block the closure under the conditions described in the risks section.

In short: the cost is right, the access is narrow and the funding is USDC-only. Whether that is a good deal depends on whether you are already living in the supported geography and holding the supported token.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Fuse card?

The Fuse card is a virtual Visa debit card denominated in US dollars, issued by Lead Bank under a Visa U.S.A. licence and run by Bridge Ventures LLC as the programme manager. The card sits inside the Fuse iOS app and is funded by USDC, which is moved from a Main Account to a Card Account and then spent. It has no physical version and no ATM access.

How does the Fuse card work?

The card spends a pre-loaded USDC balance. You keep USDC in your Fuse Main Account, transfer some to the Card Account, and the card debits that balance at the point of sale. When you pay in a non-USD currency, the card sells the USDC for the merchant’s currency at the moment of purchase; the foreign-transaction fee is 0%, but the conversion spread itself is not disclosed on the card’s pages.

Is Fuse a bank?

No. Fuse itself is not a bank. The card is issued by Lead Bank, a Missouri state-chartered bank, and the programme is managed by Bridge Ventures LLC. Squads Labs Inc. is the Platform Provider and is explicitly not a bank in the cardholder agreement. Funds on the platform side are not FDIC-insured.

Who owns Fuse?

Fuse is a product of Squads Labs Inc., which acts as the Platform Provider. The card programme is run by Bridge Ventures LLC, and the issuing bank is Lead Bank. The Fuse wallet app is published under Squads’ name in the App Store storefront I checked.

Is the Fuse card available in my country?

The card’s supported-residence list, taken from the card’s own pages, is the US (excluding New York and Alaska), Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Nigeria, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. If your country of residence is not on that list, you cannot pass KYC. Citizenship rules are not stated on the card’s public pages.

How do I get a Fuse card?

You download the Fuse iOS app, complete KYC through Bridge (name, address, date of birth, government ID number, with possible follow-up documents), then create the virtual card and initiate the top-up. The card is virtual, so there is no delivery step.

Does the Fuse card require KYC?

Yes. KYC is mandatory and is run by Bridge before the card can be created. The minimum data the agreement names is name, address, date of birth and a government ID number, with the bank reserving the right to ask for further documents at any time, such as a driver’s licence. Processing time and rejection reasons are not stated on the public pages.

How do I top up the Fuse card?

In the app, you fund the card balance from your Main Account USDC holdings. The funds are available immediately. There is no fiat top-up path described on the card’s pages and no top-up fee stated, though the agreement warns that “fees may apply”. The accepted networks are not published, which means you need to check the app for the right one before sending from an external wallet.

Is the Fuse card free?

Issuance is $0, the monthly fee is $0.00, there is no annual fee, no inactivity fee, no cash reload fee, and no foreign-transaction fee. The one cost the card does not publish is the spread on the USDC-to-fiat conversion that happens at the moment of purchase, and the agreement notes that the Platform Provider or Program Manager may charge separate fees on stablecoin sales.

How do I add the Fuse card to Apple Wallet?

Open the Fuse app, go to the card details, and follow the in-app flow to add the card to Apple Pay. The card’s support pages confirm Apple Pay is supported for in-person payments. Google Pay is not mentioned in the materials I worked from, so on Android the only practical way to use the card details is to type them in at an online checkout.

Is the Fuse card safe?

The card is issued by a real US bank under a Visa licence, the card can be frozen from the app, the daily limit is adjustable up to $2,000, and the cardholder agreement gives specific protection for unauthorised use (liability capped at $50 if reported within 2 business days, rising to up to $500 after that). Funds on the platform side are not FDIC-insured, the agreement has a binding arbitration clause with a class-action waiver, and at least one user has reported an account closure with funds stuck. Treat it as a custodial product and keep balances modest.

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