Monolith closed in 2024 — what to do with the money, and which cards still work
Available in US
Monolith was a non-custodial debit card programme: you held the crypto, the card spent a converted balance, and you kept your own keys. The programme is gone. Services shut down on 8 October 2024, cards were deactivated, accounts were closed, and the app was delisted on 17 February. Anyone searching for how to get one, how to top it up, or whether it is worth it is now looking at a programme that no longer issues cards. The reason given was “increasing regulatory requirements in the EU and UK.”
The conditions in this review are current as of October 28, 2026. Dates taken from the programme’s own notice keep their real year.
This review explains what actually happened, what a former cardholder should do right now with whatever balance is left, what can still go wrong on the way out, and which cards do the same job today. I do not recommend the Monolith card: there is nothing to recommend, because the card cannot be obtained or used.
Verdict
The Monolith card scores 1.8 out of 10 in total. A score that low is unusual in any card review, and it is unusual for a simple reason: the programme is closed. Most of the marks a card is judged on — who can get it, can you top it up, can you spend with it today, does the app work — are zero, because those things no longer exist.
| Criterion | Mark | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Who can get it | 0 / 10 | Services closed 8 October 2024, cards deactivated, accounts closed. |
| Cost | 5 / 10 | The programme is closed. Historically (unofficial) the top-up fee was 1%, with a 1% community contribution on TKN, capping at 2%; FX outside the card currency was 1.75%; no monthly fee. |
| Top-up options | 2 / 10 | Top-ups through Monolith are no longer possible. Historically (unofficial) the card topped up with ETH, TKN, DAI, DGD, DGX, MKR, SAI and USDT. |
| Reliability and complaints | 1 / 10 | Programme closed, citing increasing EU and UK regulatory pressure. The balance is now held by the issuer, Solaris, and refunded through a dedicated Solaris Redemptions page that aims to respond within 14 days. The app has been removed from app stores. |
| Everyday use | 0 / 10 | Cards deactivated on 8 October 2024. The app is no longer in app stores. |
Cost gets a 5 because the published fees, at the time they applied, were reasonable. The other four zeros are not a comment on Monolith the product. They are a comment on the fact that there is no product left to judge. If you are weighing a card you can sign up for today, the Monolith card is not in the running.
The audience for any of the remaining advice is narrow: people who held a Monolith card before 8 October 2024 and have a balance they want to redeem, or people who already own TKN and want to know what the $TKN to $TOKEN swap will look like in April 2025. For everyone else, the relevant question is which card replaces it, and I cover that further down.
What happened to the programme
Monolith was a fintech brand operating as UAB “Belela” in Lithuania (company code 305982313), registered there as a virtual currency deposit and exchange operator. The site ran under a Token Group Ltd copyright and a licence to UAB “Belela”. The card was issued by Solaris, the German-regulated banking-as-a-service provider, and historically (per Coin Bureau, updated 29 March 2023) ran on the Visa network.
On 8 October 2024 the programme shut down. The company’s own page, as I am reading it, says: services closed, cards were deactivated, and accounts were closed. The reason given is “increasing regulatory requirements in the EU and UK.” The page does not name the EU’s MiCA regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/1114) by that name, but the timing matches the period when MiCA’s stablecoin rules applied from 30 June 2024 and the broader crypto-asset service provider rules applied from 30 December 2024.
The two practical effects of the closure notice are these. First, the app balance shown to users is “no longer accurate” — the on-screen number is stale and should not be used to plan spending. Second, the app itself was delisted from the Apple App Store and Google Play on 17 February (the year is not stated on the page; the surrounding context points to 2025). With the app gone, the only entry point for the closure procedure is the web, not the phone.
A few more details from the same notice are worth recording here in their own right. A $TKN to $TOKEN token swap was promised for the period starting April 2025, with an earlier update on 28 February 2025. A successor app called Token.com was named for the post-closure period. The official guidance is to redeem leftover card balances through Solaris, not through Monolith. I will go through the holder’s path in the next section.
Two pieces of background are still useful to record. The card was historically available only across the EEA — 31 European countries — and could not be used in the USA or Asia, per Coin Bureau (updated 29 March 2023). Earlier Monolith coverage from 2019 names Contis Financial Services Ltd as the original issuer; Solaris took over the role later. Both points are unofficial.
The history of crypto card programmes being closed mid-life is long enough that this is not a one-off. Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX on 13 November 2022, after which the FTX US debit card was wound down by its issuer. WaveCrest, a Visa card issuer that supplied several crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, taking all WaveCrest-issued Visa programmes with it. Programmes typically follow a sequence: a notice period, a cut-off for new loads, a cut-off for spending, and a refund window for leftover balances. Monolith followed the same shape.
If you already have the card
This section is the one that matters for former holders. If you had a Monolith card before 8 October 2024, two balances are in play: the crypto in your non-custodial wallet, and any fiat left loaded on the card. They are not treated the same way and they are not refunded by the same party.
Crypto in the non-custodial wallet stays yours. Monolith never held your keys, and the closure does not change that. The wallet is restored using the 12-word seed phrase. If you have the seed, import it into another wallet — MetaMask, Trust Wallet and Coinbase Wallet are the three named on the official notice — and the assets appear in the new wallet. If you did not save the seed, the official guidance is that the app used to show it under Settings > Back up Seed; that path is closed because the app has been delisted. From here on, anyone without their seed has to rely on the redemption route, not on a wallet recovery.
Top-up of cards through Monolith is no longer possible. That means the card balance cannot be replenished and any new spending is over. Whatever sat on the card at 8 October 2024 is the maximum that Solaris has to refund.
The refund of the card balance runs through Solaris, the issuer, not through Monolith. The official process is a redemption request submitted on the Solaris Redemptions Support page, with the subject line “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”. The body of the request needs payout account details in EUR or GBP, depending on the card’s currency — Monolith cards were denominated in EUR or GBP — and a colour copy of an ID if the request comes from an email address that does not match the account on file. Solaris aims to respond within 14 days. The notice does not give a hotline or live chat for this; it gives a form and an email.
Support for the crypto side of the closure, in particular the $TKN to $TOKEN questionnaire, runs through Monolith itself, by Telegram and email. The notice does not give support hours or languages. As context rather than as a Monolith-specific data point, the broader pattern with Solaris-issued card programmes that have shut down — for example Plutus — has included Trustpilot complaints about slow refunds, so the 14-day response target is worth treating as a target, not as a guarantee.
The card programme’s terms on disputes, chargebacks and compensation are not stated on the closure page. There is no promise of compensation for the closure, and no mention of a chargeback right for a card that no longer functions. The only formal route to a refund is the Solaris Redemptions request, and the only asset the request covers is the leftover card balance in EUR or GBP.
A quick checklist of what to do in what order:
- Export your 12-word seed phrase, if you still have it, and import it into a wallet you control (MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet) before you do anything else. That is how you keep the crypto.
- Submit a redemption request on the Solaris Redemptions page with the subject line “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, payout details in EUR or GBP, and a colour ID copy if your email is new.
- If you hold TKN, watch for the April 2025 swap details and complete the questionnaire Monolith sends by Telegram or email.
- Do not trust the in-app balance shown by any version of the app you have cached; the notice says it is no longer accurate.
What can go wrong
The risks here are mostly about the way out, not the way in. There is no new spending, no new top-ups, no new application. The dangers are stale balances, lost seeds, slow refunds, and a token swap that has not been fully published yet.
The app balance is unreliable. The closure notice says so directly. If you opened a cached copy of the app after 8 October 2024, the number on screen is not the live figure. Plan around the Solaris route, not around anything the app still shows.
The seed phrase is the only path to the crypto side. A seed phrase is the unencrypted form of the private key, and anyone who obtains it can restore the wallet and spend the funds. If the seed was never written down, the app route to display it is closed. Crypto transfers are typically irreversible, so a stolen or leaked seed has no built-in recovery. Treat the seed as the asset it is.
The Solaris refund takes time, and may take longer than 14 days. The notice says Solaris “aims to respond within 14 days.” Aim is not a guarantee. Comparable Solaris-issuer card programmes that have closed have produced Trustpilot complaints about slow refunds. Submit the redemption request with complete payout details, including a colour ID copy where the email differs, to avoid a back-and-forth that adds days.
The $TKN to $TOKEN swap is pending. An update dated 28 February 2025 promised that swap details would arrive in April 2025. Anyone holding TKN at the time of the closure is in a queue for a token migration whose exact mechanics were not yet published on the page I am reading. There is no public timetable for what happens if the questionnaire is missed.
Regulatory coverage of the crypto side is narrow. The closure notice says Lithuanian deposit insurance and the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme do not cover crypto activities or funds in the non-custodial wallet. In other words, the balance in the wallet is not a bank deposit, and there is no public backstop if the wallet or its successor is compromised.
I did not find a Monolith-specific complaints page on Trustpilot, and no other consumer complaint thread specific to the programme has surfaced. Other Solaris-issuer card closures have drawn Trustpilot complaints about slow refunds, and these serve as context only.
What to take instead
There is no perfect replacement for what Monolith was, because what Monolith was — a non-custodial debit card that spent directly from a self-custody wallet — is rare in the market. The three cards below are workable alternatives for different readers. None of them is a one-to-one match, and the differences matter.
Cardex (5.6 / 10)
Cardex markets itself as “one crypto card, 200+ countries” with no published country list or exclusions. The card runs on VERVE, Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay, and both virtual and physical forms are listed. The app store listing is Naira-focused — pay in Naira — so the practical coverage is shaped by Nigeria even if the marketing is wider.
Funding comes from USDT, USDC and BTC wallets; the networks are not stated. Conversion is described as “AI-Powered Conversion Rate” — the site says the system scans global exchange rates and picks the best one at the moment of payment. The actual fee percentage is not stated on the page I read. Rewards are not stated either. Cardex fits a reader who needs a multi-network crypto card in markets where UnionPay and VERVE matter and is comfortable taking the fee structure on trust.
Young Card (5.7 / 10)
Young Card is structured around a token, YNG, in which cashback is paid. The rate depends on the Club tier: Essential 0.1%, Gold 1.8%, Platinum 3.6%; Bronze and Silver are not stated. Eligibility, card form, fees and funding are not stated officially. Young Card suits a reader who actively wants exposure to YNG and is willing to take the lower tiers (or the unstated ones) on the published rate.
International Visa Card (6.7 / 10)
This is the strongest of the three for a non-US reader who wants a plain USD card. It is a U.S.-issued Platinum Visa, virtual, that pays in USD; a physical card is described as “Coming soon”. The plan is free at the Classic tier, $9.00/month at Pro, $19.00/month at Max, with a $5 one-time issuance fee on the virtual card and no maintenance fee. Card use in USD is free on every plan; spending in other currencies uses the Visa exchange rate plus a 2% FX fee. Deposits of any kind are free.
Eligibility is the long list. The account and the card are not available to residents or legal registrants of: Belarus, mainland China, North Korea, Cuba, India, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela and Vietnam. Purchases are blocked in North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela. The rule is by residence or registration; citizenship is not mentioned. FATF grey-list countries are reviewed case by case with compliance approval. Funding is USDC or USDT into a USD account at 1:1, plus USD, EUR, SEPA, SWIFT and FedNow deposits, with networks not stated. No cashback is stated.
| Card | Score | Where it works | Cashback | Funding | Main catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cardex | 5.6 / 10 | 200+ countries stated, Naira-focused listing | Not stated | USDT, USDC, BTC; networks not stated | Fee percentage not stated; Naira-shaped product |
| Young Card | 5.7 / 10 | Not stated | 0.1% – 3.6% in YNG, by tier | Not stated | Card form, fees, eligibility not stated officially |
| International Visa Card | 6.7 / 10 | Most countries; large exclusion list | None stated | USDC, USDT 1:1, plus USD/EUR wires | Hard residence and purchase blocklists; $5 issuance |
For a reader who is unbanked or underbanked and was drawn to Monolith precisely because of the self-custody model, the honest answer is that there is no off-the-shelf replacement that keeps the same shape. International Visa Card is the closest in day-to-day behaviour — virtual USD card, free deposits, USDC/USDT funding — at the cost of the long residence blocklist. Cardex is the broadest geographically, with a fee structure that is not on the page. Young Card is the most rewarding in token terms if YNG matters to you, and the least published everywhere else.
Who I would recommend it to
No one.
The Monolith card is not on sale, not on application, and not on order. It is not a question of fit. There is no version of “the right reader” for a card that has been deactivated, where the app has been delisted, and where the only thing left to do is redeem the balance. If a reader is here to choose a card today, Monolith is not a candidate, and the previous sections explain which cards are.
The narrow audience for the rest of the page is people who held a Monolith card before 8 October 2024. For them the recommendation is narrow and procedural: import the seed into a wallet you control, submit a Solaris redemption request for any leftover card balance, complete the $TKN to $TOKEN questionnaire when Monolith sends it, and ignore any number still shown inside a cached app. None of that is a recommendation of Monolith as a product. It is the cleanest path through the closure.
For a reader who never had a Monolith card and is comparing cards, the recommendation is to look at International Visa Card if a US-issued USD Visa works for your country, at Cardex if multi-network and broad geographic reach matter, and at Young Card if you actively want token-denominated cashback. The score table and the section above lay out the trade-offs. None of those three cards is a Monolith clone, and pretending otherwise would be misleading.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Monolith card?
The Monolith card was a debit card linked to a non-custodial crypto wallet, issued by Solaris and operated by UAB “Belela” in Lithuania. The programme is closed as of 8 October 2024 and is no longer issuing cards.
How does the Monolith card work?
Historically, the card drew on a converted balance that the user topped up from a self-custody wallet, with the user holding the private keys rather than a custodian. The model is similar to a pre-loaded balance: fiat is loaded first, and the card spends only what is on it.
Is Monolith a bank?
No. Monolith operated as UAB “Belela”, a Lithuanian virtual currency deposit and exchange operator, and the card was issued by Solaris. Neither is a high-street retail bank, and the closure notice says Lithuanian deposit insurance does not cover the wallet funds.
Who owns Monolith?
The trading entity is UAB “Belela” (Lithuania, code 305982313). The site copyright is held by Token Group Ltd under licence to UAB “Belela”, with Token.com named as the successor app after the closure.
Is the Monolith card available in my country?
The programme is closed, so the card is not available in any country. Historically, per Coin Bureau (updated 29 March 2023), the card was limited to the EEA — 31 European countries — and was not usable in the USA or Asia, though that source is unofficial and not confirmed by the card itself.
How do I get a Monolith card?
You cannot. New applications are not being accepted because the programme shut down on 8 October 2024. Anyone offering to issue a Monolith card today is not part of the original programme.
How do I top up the Monolith card?
You cannot. The closure notice says top-up of cards through Monolith is no longer possible, and the app used to do it has been delisted from app stores.
How do I withdraw money from the Monolith card?
The official path for any leftover card balance in EUR or GBP is a redemption request on the Solaris Redemptions Support page, with the subject line “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, payout account details, and a colour ID copy if the email is new. Solaris aims to respond within 14 days.
How do I get my crypto back from Monolith?
Import the 12-word seed phrase into another wallet such as MetaMask, Trust Wallet or Coinbase Wallet. Monolith never held the keys, and the closure does not affect crypto held in the non-custodial wallet; only the card balance runs through Solaris.
Is the Monolith card safe?
The card is no longer active. The closure notice says Lithuanian deposit insurance and the UK FSCS do not cover crypto activities or funds in the non-custodial wallet, so the wallet funds are not a bank deposit and are not covered by a public backstop.
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