The card is going away, but your money is not going with it

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

Gnosis Pay was one of the better-known crypto payment cards in Europe: a Visa card, virtual and physical, that spent straight from a self-custody Safe, with no transaction fee and no added currency conversion fee bolted on by the card company. On 21 September 2026 the company published a formal notice closing the whole consumer programme. The card stops authorising payments and the web app shuts down at 23:59 UTC on 20 December 2026, with withdrawals still available afterwards. That makes this a review of a card nobody can newly sign up for, which changes what a useful review has to say. The question is no longer “is this card worth getting” but “what does the end of it mean for me, and what does the money in my Safe do”.

My score for the card as it now stands is 4.5 out of 10. The individual marks are not a verdict on how the card worked when it was open; they are the card’s marks in its closed state. A card that cannot be applied for and cannot be used after 20 December 2026 scores badly on “who can get it” for that reason alone, and a programme with a support window that ends in 2028 scores badly on reliability for that reason alone. The parts that were genuinely good, the running costs and the everyday use of the card, still score well, and I explain below why.

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

Verdict: 4.5 out of 10, and the score is about the ending, not the product

The two marks worth arguing about are “everyday use” and “cost”, both high, and “reliability”, which is the lowest mark I have given anything in a long while. I keep them because they are honest. The card was cheap to run and easy to use daily, and it still is until the day it stops. But a payment card you cannot use next month is not a good product for next month, and a support relationship with a fixed end date is a poor foundation for anything you cannot resolve yourself. If you are reading this with money in the card right now, the score is less interesting than the dates: get your balance out before 20 December 2026.

Who does this suit? Almost nobody as a card to apply for. Who does it still suit? The current holder who treats the next ten weeks as a withdrawal window, knows how to move funds out of a Safe themselves or is ready to learn, and does not depend on the card for anything time-critical. Who does it not suit? Anyone without a self-custody wallet who was relying on Gnosis Pay to hold money for them, anyone with subscriptions billing to this card in December, anyone who intends to file a dispute and expects someone to answer in a month, and anyone who read about the June 2026 exploit and was waiting to see whether compensation arrived. If you are in that last group, the details below touch on it, but I could not verify the outcome and you should not take my word for it.

What happened to the programme

The short version: Gnosis Pay moved from being a card company to being a card platform for other companies, and the consumer product ended with it. The formal closure notice came on 21 September 2026. On that same month the site began pitching business-to-business card issuing, with Startup and Enterprise tiers. Gnosis Pay describes itself as the technical services provider and programme manager, not the issuer, which is the ordinary arrangement for this kind of card but it matters for who your money is actually with.

Here are the mechanics, so you know exactly what is stopping and when. All times UTC.

Three things follow from that table, and they are the practical heart of this review.

First, recurring payments are the trap. Anything billing the card automatically, a subscription, a utility, a rent service, a card-on-file payment at an online store, will fail at the cutoff and cannot be moved to another card for you. You have to replace them yourself, one merchant at a time, before the date. Start a list now if you have not already.

Second, transactions that were authorised but not yet settled at the cutoff still complete. That is normal and it is not a bug: a payment that went through before the card died will still land on the merchant’s statement.

Third, refunds arriving after deactivation cannot be used on the card. If you are owed money by a shop in January, you get it back into a channel that no longer spends. That is worth knowing before you leave a card on file anywhere.

Who could ever get this card, before the closure? Legal residents of selected European and Latin American countries, with Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia and Croatia named among the EEA countries, and a waitlist for new ones. The rule was residence, not citizenship. The site also listed corridors in USD, EUR, GBP, BRL and ARS, plus partner apps. One unofficial source, cryptocardhub in August 2026, reported that Russia is on the restricted list where card use is prohibited and is not an eligible application country. That is not confirmed by the card and you should check the current official pages for anything relevant to where you live.

The card itself was a Visa, issued by Monavate Limited under a Visa Europe licence, available as an instant virtual card and as a physical one, with settlement at T+1. Gnosis Pay is the trading name of Gnosis Pay Co Ltd, a UK-registered company, number 14919639. Monavate is an FCA-authorised electronic money institution, FRN 901097. For cardholders in the UK and outside the EEA the issuer was Monavate Ltd in the UK; for EEA cardholders it was UAB Monavate, under the Bank of Lithuania. Gnosis Pay never held your balance itself, which is the single most reassuring thing in this whole story, and I come back to it below.

There was one consumer tier only, with no tiers on the fees or limits page and no cashback tiers or metal card. The Startup and Enterprise tiers on the business side, with two-year and three-year agreements and a dedicated BIN on the Enterprise tier, are not for cardholders at all. As for cashback, the closure notice does not describe cashback on the current card; news coverage, not official, reported that GNO cashback eligibility ended on 30 September 2026 with a final distribution on 7 October. Partner programmes may run different rewards, which is their business and not the card’s.

One more piece of news, again not from the card itself: MiniPay was reported on 24 September 2026 as handling the migration and issuing replacement cards on Gnosis Pay’s enterprise rails. Treat that as a plan described by others, not a promise to you, and check the official pages rather than assuming your account moved.

If you already have the card: move your balance out before 20 December 2026

This is the section that matters if you hold one. The recommendation is simple, and Gnosis Pay makes it themselves: withdraw before 20 December 2026. Withdrawals stay open on the web app after that date, at the withdrawal page, with no deadline stated, and the unofficial reporting agrees that the app stays in limited capacity for withdrawals only. But “stays open with no stated deadline” and “open on the date you need it” are different things, and a service in wind-down mode can degrade without announcing it. Do not plan to leave money in a closing service on the strength of a promise that has no end date printed on it.

What actually happens to your money, and this is the part I want to be precise about: your assets are in a self-custodial Safe smart contract account on Gnosis Chain. They are yours. Neither Gnosis Pay nor Monavate can take them or block transfers, because they hold no key. That is a structural property of a Safe, not a promise made by a company that is in the middle of shutting down. You can also reach the same Safe through third-party Safe interfaces using your existing signer key. So the shutdown ends the card, the app and the merchant acceptance, not your custody.

Blockchain network fees may apply to a withdrawal, so keep a little gas in the Safe or on the chain you are withdrawing to. Gas is paid in ETH on Ethereum, which catches people out: a wallet with stablecoins and no ETH cannot send anything.

The rest of what you held, here are the details. Your balance was held in EURe, GBPe and USDCe, spent 1:1, so a EUR 10 purchase spends 10 EURe. Gnosis Pay added no fee on conversion and Visa’s exchange rate applied automatically, with the page advising you to choose the local currency at terminals rather than letting the terminal convert for you. The card was funded from your Safe, and the site mentioned USDC and EURC on Ethereum, Polygon and Gnosis Chain. On-chain transfers between your own wallets pay gas, but card transactions do not.

Limits that generous were one of the card’s quiet strengths, and they are irrelevant now in the way a car with no fuel is irrelevant to a journey. I include them because they tell you what kind of product you were holding.

Costs, since a closing card still has running costs. The help center states no transaction fees and no added FX fee from Gnosis Pay, and fiat and stablecoin convert 1:1. Top-up fees and minimum top-up are not stated on the card’s public pages, which is a gap rather than a reassurance. One unofficial source, cryptocardhub in August 2026, reported no top-up percentage fee from Gnosis Pay, while warning that funding from another chain may need a swap or a bridge with network and DEX costs, and that on-chain transfers pay gas. The card’s site mentioned fiat on and off-ramps at 1:1 through local rails, USD, EUR IBAN, BRL Pix and ARS, for the new platform, with fees not stated.

Apple Pay and Google Pay were “ready” on the wallet side. Restrictions: rental-car agencies and automated fuel dispensers are restricted, and usage is prohibited in certain countries. Unofficial, gambling is blocked as a card category, betting, casinos, lotteries and other gambling, and excluded from cashback. That matches how issuers treat MCC 7995, the four-digit merchant category for gambling, which many block by policy rather than by law, with the list varying by issuer.

Support and your rights are the two things to read twice. Channels: the help center and the support email, complaints forwarded to Monavate at the complaints address or Monavate’s own address, complaints to Monavate accepted in English or Lithuanian, hours not stated. Partner-app questions go to the partner, not to Gnosis Pay.

Your rights for unauthorised or incorrectly executed transactions, and card-scheme chargeback rights, are unaffected by the closure. That sentence matters. Raise disputes promptly by email or through the help center, because scheme time limits apply regardless of the closure. Refunds arriving after deactivation cannot be used on the card. Support for refunds, disputes and chargebacks ends on 12 June 2028, but your statutory rights against Monavate are not limited by that date. One thing is entirely in your hands: keep your receipts, and export your transaction history, and note the last four digits and expiry date of the card, before 20 December 2026. After the app closes, the convenience of pulling that history disappears.

Identity checks were handled by Sumsub in one unified flow. The documents required, the proof of address, the age threshold, the levels, the processing time and the official rejection reasons are not stated on the card’s public pages. Unofficial, cryptocardhub in August 2026 reported age 18+, a government ID or passport, proof of address issued within the last three months, a Sumsub check, and approval not guaranteed. If you move to a partner card, expect a new identity or compliance check and a new Safe: it is a new card programme with new terms, not a continuation of this one.

What can go wrong, and what has already gone wrong

Let me split this into the risks that follow from the shutdown, which are certain, and the complaints that already existed, which are not certain but are documented.

From the shutdown itself:

• Recurring payments die without warning you. They fail after the cutoff and cannot be moved to another card. This is the one that costs real money if you have a subscription you forget about.
• Your support window is shorter than your memory. General cardholder support ends 18 June 2027. If you need help understanding a transaction in early 2027, you are past the general window; disputes and chargebacks have their own longer window to 12 June 2028.
• A refund after December is a refund into nothing. It arrives, and it cannot be used on the card.
• The web app is a service, not your Safe. Withdrawals continue with no stated deadline, and third-party Safe interfaces remain an independent route to your assets. But a closing web app is a moving target.
• Migrating is not free. A partner card is a new programme with a new Safe and new terms, so the smoothest-looking option is also the one that puts your money somewhere new, on new conditions, with new checks.

Now the existing complaints, which I read rather than invented. Trustpilot shows 2.3 out of 5, labelled “Poor”, from 38 reviews, of which 21 are in the last 12 months, with 58% one-star and 21% five-star, read on 20 October 2026. Other regional pages showed 2.5. Three themes run through the reviews:

The third theme is the one to sit with, because it is the failure mode that hits the person in this reviewer’s target audience hardest. Being told a country is not supported when the site’s own list suggests it is, or being refused verification with no reason given, is the experience of someone who already lacks alternatives. A low Trustpilot score is not proof of anything on its own, but the pattern here is consistent enough to mention.

The company behind it is straightforward to describe and worth describing accurately. Gnosis Pay Co Ltd is a UK-registered company, number 14919639. The card was issued by Monavate Limited under licence from Visa Europe Limited, and Monavate is an FCA-authorised electronic money institution, FRN 901097. The security model is self-custody: a Safe smart account under your own signer key. What the card’s own pages do not state is worth knowing too, because unstated means unstated: there is no native iOS or Android app named by the official site, the card was managed through the web app, and no App Store or Google Play rating could be found on 20 October 2026.

One thing I could not verify, and I would rather say so than smooth it over: news reports, not from the card, described an exploit in June 2026 affecting the Gnosis Pay delay module. The co-founder is reported to have said Gnosis would cover user losses, and early withdrawal advice is reported as conflicting across sources. I did not check the status of that compensation, so treat it as an open question you should investigate directly rather than a fact to rely on.

What to take instead

Three alternatives came up in the same review work, and none of them is a like-for-like replacement. That is fine; nothing is, because the thing that made Gnosis Pay distinctive was self-custody spending, and no one else has copied that exact shape. Read these as “what does the market look like after this closure”, not as a ranking.

TokenPocket scores 5.8 out of 10 here. Visa debit for a list of European countries and territories such as Germany, France, Spain and Switzerland; Mastercard debit for Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the UK among others. It runs on Arbitrum. The cards are virtual, with balances in EUR24 and USD24. TokenPocket partly covers the NFT creation fee and the user pays “a small portion”, with the amount not stated; beyond that no additional fees are charged. A 1% fee is charged when depositing cryptocurrency into the card, to be refunded later through rewards or reduced transaction fees. No cashback is stated, and the FX fee is not stated either.

MetaMask scores 7.1 out of 10, the highest of the three. Sign-up is open in 45 listed countries and territories, examples including Andorra, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Spain and Uruguay, with other regions on a waitlist, and proof of residency required. Ineligible regions limit sign-ups, not spending, and the citizenship rule is not stated; US and UK sign-ups were temporarily closed per the FAQ. The card is Mastercard: a virtual card issued instantly, a metal card that can be pre-ordered in the app after the virtual card is approved, one card per user. Issuer Monavate, card provider Crypto Life. The virtual card is free with no annual or maintenance fee; the metal card is $199 a year. Fees are described as minimal per transaction, with the amount not stated on the pages I read, no additional MetaMask fees, no foreign transaction fee and the Mastercard rate used. It spends directly from the connected wallet on Linea, Base, Monad and Solana, with tokens named including mUSD, wETH, EURe, GBPe, USDC and USDT. Rewards are cashback in mUSD into the Money Account, 1% on Virtual; the Metal headline is 3% with a footnote limiting 3% to the first $10,000 spent and 1% after, plus an $FLY bonus 5X on Virtual and 7X on Metal through the Blackbird dining app.

KAST scores 6.1 out of 10. Eligibility is shown at KYC and depends on residence; the country list is not published, a Restricted Locations list is referenced without naming countries, and identity matters too, since living in a supported country with an ID from a restricted region may still fail KYC. It offers virtual and physical cards, up to ten per user, from Visa Platinum Standard to Visa Infinite metal and gold-plated, with other designs in Pengu, Solana and Bitcoin. Membership is where it bites: Standard at 0 USD a year, Premium at 1,000 USD a year, Private at 10,000 USD a year, billed annually upfront with no monthly option, an inactivity fee of 1 USD a month after twelve months, and a Standard physical card at 0 USD card fee plus 40 USD delivery. Spending itself is cheap: stablecoin top-up 0%, card spend in USD 0%, transaction fee 0%, Apple and Google Pay 0%, while the non-USD FX fee runs 0.5% to 1.75% depending on residence country, transaction country and card programme, with 0.10 USD on non-USD transactions under 25 USD and 0.50 USD on a declined transaction for insufficient balance. Cashback is 1.5% on the first 2,000 USD a month for Standard, 2% on the first 10,000 for Premium and 3% on the first 40,000 for Private, with KAST Points adding 1% or 2% of eligible spend on the two paid tiers.

The pattern across all three is worth naming: none of them spends from a self-custody Safe the way Gnosis Pay did. MetaMask gets closest, spending from a connected wallet, but with a custodial account behind the Money Account. If custody was the reason you were here, that reason has not been answered by anyone else yet, and the search is still open.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend this card, in the only sense still available, to exactly one group: someone who already holds it, understands that it ends on 20 December 2026, and treats the next weeks as a withdrawal window rather than a warning. Move the balance out, replace every recurring payment, export the transaction history while the app still works, and note the card’s last four digits and expiry. Then decide about a partner card on its own merits, not under pressure, because you are not obliged to move and moving means a new Safe under new terms.

I would not recommend it as a way to hold money through the closure. The custody argument holds up, but the service around the custody is winding down, and self-custody only protects you if you can actually operate it. If you have never sent a transaction yourself, this is the moment to learn before the shutdown forces the lesson, not after.

I would not recommend it to anyone who needs a card next month, and there is no application to make. If you are reading a guide that tells you how to apply, that guide is out of date.

And I would not lean on any reassurance that this was a good card. It was a genuinely good card for its years, which is exactly why the ending is annoying: the fees were low, the limits were high, the custody was real, and the support record was poor. Those facts sit together. The sensible reading is that the product worked and the company around it did not, and that the money you moved into a Safe is now yours alone to manage, on a date you choose rather than one chosen for you.

Frequently asked questions

What was the Gnosis Pay card?

It was a Visa payment card, virtual and physical, that spent directly from a self-custody Safe smart account on Gnosis Chain. Gnosis Pay ran the programme as technical services provider and programme manager; the card was issued by Monavate Limited under a Visa Europe licence. Balances were held in EURe, GBPe and USDCe and spent 1:1. It was a prepaid-style card, not a debit card tied to a bank account.

Is Gnosis Pay a bank?

No. Gnosis Pay is the trading name of Gnosis Pay Co Ltd, a UK-registered company, number 14919639, and it was not the issuer. The issuer was Monavate Limited, an FCA-authorised electronic money institution, FRN 901097, with UAB Monavate under the Bank of Lithuania for EEA cardholders. An electronic money institution can issue e-money and payment cards but cannot lend, and its customer funds are safeguarded rather than bank deposits.

Can I still apply for the Gnosis Pay card?

No. The programme is closed. A formal notice on 21 September 2026 announced the end of the consumer card and web app, and the card stops authorising payments and the web app closes except for withdrawals at 23:59 UTC on 20 December 2026. The consumer card is replaced by partner cards, which are separate programmes. Any page still offering an application is out of date.

When do I need to withdraw my money?

Ideally before 20 December 2026, which is what Gnosis Pay itself recommends. Withdrawals stay open on the web app after that date with no deadline stated, and unofficial reporting says the app remains available for withdrawals only. Because your assets sit in a self-custodial Safe, neither Gnosis Pay nor Monavate can take them or block transfers, and you can also reach the Safe through third-party interfaces with your signer key. Network fees may apply, so keep gas available.

What happens to my recurring payments?

They fail. Recurring payments stop working after the cutoff and cannot be moved to another card for you. Transactions that were authorised but not yet settled at the cutoff still complete, so some final charges will land as expected. Refunds arriving after deactivation cannot be used on the card, which is worth remembering if a shop owes you money in the new year.

Does the Gnosis Pay card require KYC?

It did. Verification ran through Sumsub in one unified flow. The card’s public pages do not state which documents were required, the proof of address, the age threshold, the processing time or the official rejection reasons. Unofficial reporting from cryptocardhub in August 2026 described age 18+, a government ID or passport, and proof of address issued within the last three months, with approval not guaranteed. Moving to a partner card means fresh checks.

Was the Gnosis Pay card free to run?

Effectively, yes, while it worked. The help center states no transaction fees and no added FX fee from Gnosis Pay, with fiat and stablecoin converting 1:1 and Visa’s exchange rate applying. Card order and shipping are free, and an older EUR 30.23 purchase fee is out of date. Replacement of a lost or stolen card cost 4.99 EURe/GBPe/USDCe including shipping. ATM withdrawals were free up to five times a month or 200 units, then 2% with a 1 EUR/GBP minimum.

Is my money safe in the Safe?

The custody itself is sound and it is why I am not telling anyone to panic. The Safe is a self-custodial smart contract account on Gnosis Chain; the assets remain yours and neither Gnosis Pay nor Monavate can take them or block transfers. What you do not get is a working company around it: general support ends 18 June 2027, refund, dispute and chargeback support ends 12 June 2028, and statutory rights against Monavate are unaffected by that date.

Can I still get a refund or file a chargeback?

Your rights for unauthorised or incorrectly executed transactions, and card-scheme chargeback rights, are unaffected by the closure. Raise disputes promptly by email or through the help center, because scheme time limits apply. Support for refunds, disputes and chargebacks ends 12 June 2028. Before 20 December 2026, export your transaction history and note the last four digits and expiry date, because after the app closes that becomes much harder.

What can I use instead of the Gnosis Pay card?

Nothing replaces it exactly, because none of the alternatives spends from a self-custody Safe. MetaMask comes closest with a Mastercard spending from a connected wallet, with a free virtual card and a metal card at $199 a year, open in 45 listed countries and territories. KAST offers Visa Platinum, metal and gold cards with zero spend fees and tiered cashback, at membership from 0 USD to 10,000 USD a year. TokenPocket offers virtual Visa and Mastercard cards on Arbitrum with a 1% crypto deposit fee said to be refunded later via rewards.

Content created by the «cryptocardfacts» team