A Canada-only Visa prepaid that pays you bitcoin back, with strings attached

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

If you have ever tried to open a bank account from abroad, or had a card declined in a country that wasn’t your own, the Shakepay card looks, at first glance, like the answer: a Visa prepaid card you load in Canadian dollars, a bitcoin cashback on everyday spending, and an app that lets you freeze the card with one tap. The reality is more interesting. Shakepay is a Canadian crypto company, the card only works for residents of Canada, and the rewards you collect depend on which of three tiers you land in this calendar month. Before you picture yourself earning bitcoin on every coffee, it is worth understanding who actually qualifies, what the card really costs when you spend outside Canada, and what other cardholders have said when things went wrong.

The conditions in this review are current as of October 28, 2026. I checked the card’s help center, cardholder agreement, and the public-facing pages on the date shown. Where the card’s own pages don’t say, I say so plainly rather than guess.

Verdict

Shakepay scores 4.3 out of 10 in my assessment, and that single number tells most of the story. The card works well as a piece of payment technology — it has Apple Pay and Google Pay, it has a clear prepaid model that can’t go overdrawn, and the bitcoin cashback is paid in real bitcoin that you can withdraw to your own wallet. The reason the score sits well below the line for a “good everyday card” is the geography. Shakepay is a Canadian company, the card is only available to residents of all 13 Canadian provinces and territories, and the spending experience for anyone outside Canada is built around converting Canadian dollars at a foreign-exchange rate plus a tier-based charge. For a Canadian who already keeps a Shakepay account, the card is a tidy add-on. For anyone else, the geographic restriction alone disqualifies the product.

The Shakepay card suits you if you are a Canadian resident who already uses Shakepay to buy and sell bitcoin, who spends mostly in Canada, who is comfortable with a prepaid model, and who values bitcoin cashback in real BTC over a flat-rate points scheme. It does not suit you if you live outside Canada, if you travel frequently and want fee-free foreign spending, if you need a credit card with consumer protections, or if you cannot tolerate a custodial wallet where the company holds your balance and your bitcoin rewards until you withdraw them.

Here is how the card scores, criterion by criterion:

Who will they give you the card

The short answer is: a Shakepay customer living in Canada. Shakepay states that the card is available to all Shakepay customers in all 13 Canadian provinces and territories. Canada only. The cardholder agreement I read does not explicitly require Canadian residency as a separate condition, but the eligibility flow lives inside the Canadian Shakepay app, and the help center describes delivery “regardless of where you live in Canada” while not listing any other country. If you do not have a Canadian address, you are not in this product’s lane.

For the avoidance of doubt: the card is not offered to residents of the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, or anywhere else, even though Shakepay the company may serve customers in some of those places for trading. The card sits inside the wallet, and the wallet sits inside Canada.

Inside Canada, the rules are simple. You need a Shakepay account that is fully verified, you need to be at the age of majority in your province or territory, and you get one card per person. Shakepay confirms in its help center that there is no credit check — the card is a prepaid product, not a credit product, so there is no borrowing and no credit pull. How long verification takes, which documents are required, and which reasons cause rejections are not stated on the public pages I read; if any of those details matter to your situation, the in-app eligibility questionnaire is where Shakepay asks them.

A note that I want to be explicit about, because the public pages I read did not say so clearly: Shakepay states that some countries and merchants are restricted. The help center tells you to email [email protected] for the current restricted-country list. Treat that as part of the eligibility check, not a footnote.

How to get it

Setup is the part Shakepay leans into, and on the evidence available it is genuinely quick. Shakepay states that opening the card takes minutes, that there is no credit check, and that the eligibility questionnaire runs inside the app. You order the physical card in the app, set a PIN during the ordering flow, and wait for it to arrive.

Delivery is by Canada Post regular mail, with no tracking. Shakepay puts the arrival window at within 21 days. Cost: the card is free for fully verified accounts, which is one of the cleaner statements in the help center. The issuance fee for other account states, if there is one, is not stated.

If something happens to the card, the replacement flow is built in. You tap “Replace card” in the app. If the card is damaged, the same card number, expiry and CVV continue to work. If the card is lost or stolen, you get new card details, the old details stop working, and the replacement happens within 30 days of your report. The replacement fee, where one exists, is not stated in the pages I read.

A small thing that is easy to miss: once you set the PIN during ordering, you cannot change it later. If you ever need a new PIN, the documented path is to replace the card.

What it really costs

The pricing model has two parts, and they pull in different directions. The good news: Shakepay states there are no annual fees, and the card is free at issuance for fully verified accounts. Activation fees and minimum balances are not part of the picture. The less good news: there is a tier system that decides both your cashback rate and your foreign-exchange charge, and the foreign-exchange charge is the number that bites you when you travel.

Here is the cost picture, with values taken from the help center and the cardholder agreement:

Three everyday payments make the structure visible. Imagine you are a Base-tier Shakepay cardholder in Toronto and you spend $100 CAD at a local grocery store: there is no foreign transaction, no conversion to think about, and you earn 1% in bitcoin cashback on the eligible purchase. The transaction costs you nothing in fees, and you receive roughly 0.0000X BTC depending on the price at credit time. Now imagine you are in the same store, in a different country, and you tap your card for the equivalent of $100 CAD: Visa converts the local currency to Canadian dollars, Shakepay adds the 3% Base foreign-exchange charge, and your $100 purchase becomes about $103 before the 1% cashback is applied. The bill is reasonable for occasional travel, but a $5 difference per $100 means the FX charge adds up over a holiday.

A third scenario, this one more painful: you walk up to a PLUS-logo ATM in another country and withdraw $500 CAD. Shakepay applies the 3% Base foreign-exchange charge on the converted amount, the ATM operator may apply its own fee, and you receive no bitcoin cashback on ATM transactions. A $500 cash withdrawal at Base can easily cost you $20 in FX and surcharges combined, plus whatever your home-bank-equivalent is not, because the card is prepaid and there is no home bank.

The help center and the cardholder agreement agree on the 3% number at the Base tier, but a separate help article on card limits, updated on 21 April 2026, has been reported as showing different per-transaction and per-day figures. I treat the values above as the ones Shakepay publishes most consistently. If a transaction limit matters to you, the in-app card section is the place to confirm what applies to your account today.

One more thing that is easy to overlook: Shakepay says foreign refunds are converted at the rate Visa pays out minus the foreign-exchange charge, so a refund usually returns less than the original payment. This is industry standard, but it is worth knowing if you are returning a purchase in a different currency.

How to top it up

The card spends from a Canadian-dollar balance on your Shakepay account. The card itself does not take crypto directly; you fund the CAD balance, and the card draws on that balance. Shakepay’s help center is explicit that the card “spends the CAD balance,” and the funding page talks about funding the Shakepay account rather than funding the card.

For getting Canadian dollars into the account, the documented routes are these:

• Interac e-Transfer in: free, arrives in minutes, minimum $5, maximum $10,000 per transfer. This is the everyday route for most Canadian users.
• Wire transfer in: free, takes 1-2 working days, minimum $10,000 per transfer. This is the route for larger deposits.

There are no activation fees and no minimum balance to keep the card working. The crypto deposit fee for the card — meaning what it costs to convert bitcoin or other coins in your Shakepay wallet into the CAD balance the card spends — is not stated on the pages I read. The networks Shakepay accepts for crypto deposits, the coins that can be converted to the card balance, and any on-chain fees that apply to those deposits are not stated in the card-specific pages either. If those details matter to you, the Shakepay app is the place where the deposit flow tells you which coins and networks are live.

A practical note about closing the card: Shakepay says closing the card leaves the Shakepay Wallet balance accessible, and that the funds do not expire with the card. Withdrawal fees from the wallet itself are not published on the card’s support pages.

Paying with it every day

In Canada and at Canadian merchants, the Shakepay card works the way you would expect a Visa prepaid card to work. You tap or insert, the terminal authorises against your CAD balance, and the transaction settles in Canadian dollars with no FX charge and no conversion. The 1% bitcoin cashback at the Base tier applies to eligible purchases at eligible merchants worldwide — meaning the bonus is global, but the fee-free spending experience is Canadian.

For mobile payments, Shakepay states that Apple Pay and Google Pay are supported “where available.” A tap limit of $250 applies to both. The blocked-merchant list — the categories Shakepay does not allow on the card, such as gambling or cryptocurrency purchases — is not stated on the public pages I read. In practice, the card declines at the terminal and you see the reason in the app.

The rewards structure is the part that gives the card its identity. Shakepay pays up to 1.5% cashback in bitcoin on eligible purchases, and the bitcoin is credited to your BTC balance, withdrawable to a user wallet. There are no points to convert, no merchant portals to remember, and the cashback arrives in real bitcoin rather than a “rewards currency” tied to the card.

Which rate you get depends on your status for the calendar month:

• Base (default): 1% cashback, 3% foreign-exchange charge.
• Bright: 1% cashback, 1.5% foreign-exchange charge. Qualify by exchanging $100 or more of crypto in the calendar month, or by $200 or more in eligible direct deposits.
• Blue: 1.5% cashback, 0% foreign-exchange charge, priority support. Qualify by exchanging $1,000 or more of crypto in the calendar month, or by $2,000 or more in eligible direct deposits.
• Business: automatic, with its own terms.

A note on the cashback model that is worth saying plainly: the bitcoin you earn is held in your Shakepay wallet, and Shakepay is the custodian of that balance. You can withdraw the bitcoin to a wallet you control, and that is the moment at which the bitcoin is unambiguously yours. Until then, the rewards and the underlying balance are both at Shakepay’s discretion and subject to the same operational risks as the rest of the wallet.

When something goes wrong with a payment, Shakepay runs disputes through the in-app dispute section. The cardholder agreement and the help center both describe the process, with one tension between them that is worth being aware of: the agreement says you must notify Shakepay within 90 days or the transaction is deemed accepted, while the dispute help article tells you to notify in writing within 60 days. The shorter window is the safer one to follow, because it is the help center number a customer service agent will point to. Visa’s Zero Liability policy on unauthorised use can take up to 120 days after the paperwork, may require a police investigation, and treats transactions made before you reported the card lost or stolen as yours. If you have an unresolved complaint, Shakepay points to the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (1-888-451-4519) and the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (1-866-461-3222) as escalation paths.

What can go wrong

A prepaid card cannot overdraw, and that is the structural protection. The card either has the funds or it does not, and a decline is a decline. The risks that remain are operational, legal, and counterparty.

The card is issued by Peoples Trust Company under licence from Visa International. Shakepay itself is registered with FINTRAC as a money services business (registration number M17065696) and is a member of CIRO, the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization, with the AMF and provincial regulators. The Shakepay account and the bitcoin balance you hold on the platform are not CDIC-insured. That is the line that does most of the work in this section: your Canadian dollars at Shakepay are not bank deposits, and the bitcoin in your Shakepay wallet is not in a self-custody wallet you control. Shakepay holds the keys; you hold the account.

On security, the documented safeguards are the ones you would expect: instant card freeze in the app, two-factor authentication, and a 24/7 lost-and-stolen line at 1-855-574-2539. The PIN cannot be changed after you set it during ordering, and three wrong PIN entries can disable the PIN entirely. A feature that Visa and Mastercard offer broadly, and that is worth knowing about: when you add the card to Apple Pay or Google Pay, the card number is replaced by a device-specific token, and Shakepay can restrict that token to contactless use only if it chooses. The app is the operational centre — disputes, card management, and support chat all live there.

On complaints, the picture is mixed. The card’s help pages do not list specific incidents, and a user-report search I ran did not return targeted complaints about the card itself. The platform around it tells a more textured story. Trustpilot scores Shakepay at 2.3 out of 5 across 22 reviews, with only one of those reviews mentioning the card (a positive one from December 2021). The themes that come up repeatedly are account freezes and closures without clear reasons (across 2021, 2022, and into 2025), support being unresponsive for days at a time, and delayed or blocked withdrawals — including a bill payment for $250 in September 2026 that a user reported as unreturned. One third-party site, CryptoCardHub, dated 11 August 2026, cites Trustpilot at around 1.5 out of 5, which is lower than the figure I read directly. The two sources disagree, and I am giving you the number I verified on 2026-10-20 (2.3 / 5 across 22 reviews). Either way, the themes — frozen accounts, slow support, blocked withdrawals, source-of-funds questioning — are the ones to read for. They are common complaints against custodial crypto platforms, and they are consistent with the way KYC and AML rules work in this industry: when a transaction looks unusual, the platform can and does pause the account pending documents.

If a Shakepay account is closed, the card stops working with it. The Shakepay wallet balance remains accessible, but the moment your account is in a frozen state, the card is effectively frozen too. That is the operational risk that a debit card from a major bank does not usually have, and it is the reason the score for reliability and complaints sits where it does.

What to take instead

If the Shakepay card is not the right fit, three alternatives cover the most common reasons a reader ends up here. None of them is a perfect substitute; each trades one set of trade-offs for another.

Gemini Credit Card. Gemini’s card is a Mastercard World Elite credit card, and the difference in product type matters. A credit card is paid off in fiat at the end of the billing cycle, which means the rewards — up to 4% back in bitcoin or another of 50-plus cryptocurrencies on categories like gas, EV charging, and transit (on the first $300 a month), 3% on dining, 2% on groceries, 1% on everything else — are paid in crypto on top of a normal credit line. There is no foreign transaction fee, and the rewards are credited to a Gemini account you control. The card score is 4.9 out of 10 in my research, and the trade-off is that you need a credit history strong enough to be approved. Country availability and card form (virtual, physical, metal) are not stated on the pages I read.

Lava. The Lava card advertises “no FX fees, and no FX spread,” and up to 5% back in bitcoin on every purchase. The product is positioned for spending in 150-plus countries at 150 million merchants, and the funding model accepts local-currency deposits or stablecoins. The card score is 7.1 out of 10, and the trade-offs are the ones the page does not spell out: which networks and coins are supported for the stablecoin deposit, and what the conditions on the 5% cashback actually are, are not stated. The country list is also not stated, which is a meaningful gap.

GoMining Card. GoMining’s card is currently virtual, with a physical card described as “coming soon.” It is funded from the GoMining wallet in BTC, USDT, GOMINING, and other coins, and the cashback is paid in mining power that scales with your VIP level — described as “up to 5% cashback.” The product may not be available in your jurisdiction, and GoMining is the only one of the three that funds the card directly from crypto. The score is 6.6 out of 10, and the trade-off is that you are tying your spending to a token and an ecosystem that is less broadly accepted than Shakepay’s.

A quick comparison:

If you are a Canadian who wants bitcoin cashback on a prepaid card, the Shakepay card is the natural answer. If you want a credit card with no foreign transaction fees and category bonuses, Gemini is the closer fit. If you want fee-free foreign spending on a card you can fund in stablecoins, Lava is the one to read up on, with the caveat that the country and network details are not in the public pages. If you want to spend directly from a crypto balance, GoMining is the only one of the four that is explicit about it.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend the Shakepay card to a Canadian resident who is already a Shakepay customer, who spends mostly in Canadian dollars at Canadian merchants, who is comfortable with a prepaid model and a custodial wallet, and who wants bitcoin cashback in real BTC rather than points or cash. For that reader, the card is a clean, low-friction add-on to an account they already use, and the bitcoin cashback is a real return on spending they were going to do anyway.

I would not recommend it to a non-Canadian reader. The card is not available outside Canada, and there is no workaround that the card’s own pages describe. I would also hesitate to recommend it to a reader who travels frequently: the Base-tier 3% foreign-exchange charge is the kind of number that erodes the cashback quickly, and the only way to bring that charge down to 0% is to be in the Blue tier, which requires $1,000 a month in exchange volume or $2,000 in eligible direct deposits.

Finally, I would not recommend the Shakepay card — or any custodial crypto card — to a reader whose primary concern is keeping their funds outside a single company’s control. The card is convenient, the rewards are real, and the bitcoin cashback is a genuine innovation in a product category that usually gives you airline points. The trade-off is that Shakepay holds the CAD balance, holds the bitcoin rewards until you withdraw them, and can freeze the account if the compliance team needs to ask questions. A reader who cannot accept that trade-off should look at a self-custody card or at a regular bank product instead.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Shakepay card?

The Shakepay card is a Visa prepaid card that spends from a Canadian-dollar balance held in your Shakepay account, with up to 1.5% cashback in bitcoin on eligible purchases. The card is available only to Shakepay customers in Canada’s 13 provinces and territories, and it is issued by Peoples Trust Company under licence from Visa International.

How does the Shakepay card work?

The card draws on a CAD balance you hold at Shakepay. You fund that balance through Interac e-Transfer (free, in minutes, $5 to $10,000) or wire transfer (free, 1–2 working days, $10,000 minimum), the card spends the balance, and you receive bitcoin cashback credited to your Shakepay BTC balance. You can withdraw the BTC to your own wallet at any time.

Is Shakepay a bank?

No. Shakepay is a Canadian crypto company registered with FINTRAC as a money services business (registration number M17065696) and is a member of CIRO, the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization. The card itself is issued by Peoples Trust Company. Funds held at Shakepay are not CDIC-insured and are not bank deposits.

Who owns Shakepay?

Shakepay is a private Canadian company. The card pages I read do not list the founders or the ownership structure in a way I can verify against a primary source, so I am not going to guess.

Is the Shakepay card available in my country?

If your country is not Canada, the card pages say it is not. Shakepay states that the card is available to customers in all 13 Canadian provinces and territories; the help center tells you to email [email protected] for the current restricted-country and merchant list. The cleanest answer for any non-Canadian reader is that the card is not available to you.

How do I apply for the Shakepay card?

You apply inside the Shakepay app, where an eligibility questionnaire asks the questions Shakepay needs answered. The cardholder agreement and the help center confirm there is no credit check. Setup is described as taking minutes, and the physical card arrives by Canada Post regular mail within 21 days, with no tracking.

Does the Shakepay card require KYC?

The card sits on top of a Shakepay account, and Shakepay accounts are subject to Canadian KYC and AML rules. A fully verified Shakepay account is required, and the age of majority in your province or territory applies. The specific documents Shakepay asks for, the verification tiers, and the processing time are not stated on the pages I read.

Is the Shakepay card free?

The card is free for fully verified accounts: no annual fee, no issuance fee, no activation fee, and no minimum balance. The fees that do apply are the foreign-exchange charge (3% at Base, 1.5% at Bright, 0% at Blue) and any ATM operator fees on cash withdrawals. Crypto-to-CAD conversion fees, where they apply, are not stated on the card pages I read.

Is the Shakepay card safe?

The documented safeguards are the ones you would expect from a regulated payments product: instant card freeze in the app, two-factor authentication, a 24/7 lost-and-stolen line, and tokenised mobile-wallet numbers. The Shakepay Trustpilot score sits at 2.3 out of 5 across 22 reviews, with recurring themes of frozen accounts and slow support, and Shakepay account funds are not CDIC-insured. Safety, in other words, is a function of both the technology and the company behind it.

Is the Shakepay card worth it?

For a Canadian Shakepay customer who spends mostly in Canada and is happy to hold a small BTC balance at Shakepay, the card is worth it: no annual fee, 1–1.5% bitcoin cashback, and Apple Pay and Google Pay for everyday use. For a non-Canadian reader, the card is not available. For a frequent traveller, the Base-tier 3% FX charge is the number to weigh against the 1% cashback.

Content created by the «cryptocardfacts» team