The Card Pay wallet is shut: what happened, what holders should do, and which cards still work

Updated October 2026

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If you landed here wondering whether the Pay card is worth getting, the short answer is that the question no longer applies. The Card Pay wallet is listed as “Manage your prepaid cards” on the App Store, but buying prepaid cards through Wyre was disabled on 5 December 2022, the last app version came on 18 February 2023, and Wyre — the rail that made the whole thing work — wound down in 2023. There is no application to complete, no way to top up, and no published plan for what happens to balances. I score it 1.8 out of 10, and almost all of that is not the card’s fault; it is the score of a product that stopped existing while its listing stayed live.

That is not a subtle judgement. Read on for the full breakdown, because “closed” and “your money is gone” are two very different statements, and the difference matters if you are one of the people who kept an old Card Pay wallet.

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

Verdict: 1.8 out of 10, and the marks are almost all zeroes

The score is not a verdict on prepaid cards in general. It is a verdict on one specific app that no longer issues anything. Here is the criterion-by-criterion picture, taken straight from what the card’s own public pages say.

So who does this suit? Honestly, almost nobody — and that is the plain reading of a table full of zeroes. The only group I can think of is holders of the old Card Pay wallet, and even for them the card is not a choice so much as a loose end. If you are starting from zero, there is nothing here for you.

What this page is for, then, is two groups of people. The first is anyone who found this wallet in a search or an app store and is wondering whether to bother — the answer is no, and I would rather you spend your time on one of the four live alternatives further down. The second is someone who already has a Card Pay balance and needs to know what the closure does to it. That section is short and, I am afraid, not reassuring.

What happened to the programme

The story is not dramatic; it is just a dependency disappearing. The Card Pay wallet was a DeFi payments wallet whose App Store listing describes “Manage your prepaid cards” — a management app for cards rather than a source of new ones. The network and currency the cards ran on were never stated publicly.

Then the purchasing rail went away. Version 1.1.12, released 5 December 2022, disabled prepaid card purchases with Wyre “until further notice.” That “until further notice” turned out to mean permanently: Wyre was reported to be closing as far back as January 2023 (MetaMask ceased Wyre support that month, per Benzinga), and the wind-down was announced in June 2023 (reported by The Block). Neither of those reports links Cardstack to Wyre’s shutdown, so I want to be careful about how I phrase this — the card’s own version notes show the switch-off, and third-party reporting shows Wyre was winding down, but no source on the card’s pages formally ties the two together.

After December 2022, the app kept ticking over for a while. Polygon support was removed in version 1.1.13, which also changed rewards so that each reward has to be claimed individually. The last version on record is 1.2.0, dated 18 February 2023. After that, nothing. Google Play availability is not stated. The app requires iOS 13.0+, macOS 11.0+ on Apple M1 or later, or visionOS 1.0+, and on the UK App Store it showed a rating of 5.0 out of 5 — from three ratings. Three.

Here is the thing about that 5.0 I would flag for you: it is technically the highest rating in this entire review. It is also three people’s opinions of a listing, not of a working card product. Treat it as noise.

Almost every other fact you might want is simply not published. The card’s public pages do not state who can get one, whether there was KYC, what card fees or all fees were, what wallets were supported, what the reward rate was, whether there were tiers, which currencies were involved, or how the cards were delivered. The listing describes prepaid cards living inside the wallet, and physical delivery is never mentioned. Verification requirements are not stated either. None of that is a scandal in itself — it is what the remains of a stopped programme look like. But it means that if you are trying to work out what your rights were, the public record will not tell you.

If you already have the card

This is the section I most want to be straight with you about, because the honest summary is that the public pages do not tell holders what happened to their money.

What is not stated: ATM access, spending limits, funding options, top-up methods, how to withdraw, and — the big one — anything about the balance after closure, or about withdrawing a card balance. The App Store listing links no support page, only the developer site cardstack.com and a privacy policy. There is no published route for a holder to contact anyone, and no published timeline for a wind-down of the balances themselves.

There are two small traces in the version notes that tell you the wallet did once have a reward-withdrawal mechanism: 1.0.11 mentions fixes for “Reward withdrawal” bugs, and 1.1.13 says each reward is now claimed individually. Neither tells you anything about withdrawing a card balance.

I want to be careful not to fill that silence with reassurance. I do not know that your money is gone, and I do not know that it is safe. I know only that this card’s own pages say nothing, and I would not want you reading a review as a guarantee either way. So here is what I would actually do if this were my balance, in order: check the app itself for any notice or in-app support button, because a stopped listing is not the same as a silent shutdown; contact Cardstack through whatever channel cardstack.com still offers and keep a written record of what you are told; and if you cannot get a clear answer about the balance and the timeline, take that to a consumer-protection body in your own country — the fact that the developer is a Singapore entity does not change which regulator protects you as a customer.

One thing worth knowing generally, since you are in this position: when card programmes close, the usual sequence is a notice period, then spending and loading stop, then users are asked to withdraw remaining balances. There is no guarantee you are told early. That is why I would not sit on it.

What can go wrong

There is one confirmed incident and then a lot of unknowns.

The confirmed incident is the Wyre switch-off on 5 December 2022. Behind it sits a structural risk that is not specific to this card: the developer is CARDSTACK SERVICES PTE. LTD. on the App Store, and the Cardstack homepage footer names the Cardstack Foundation — but the issuer is never stated. Nobody named is accountable in the public pages for issuing your card, holding your balance, or reversing a transaction. When you cannot name the institution that owes you the money, “who do I complain to” becomes the hardest question in the whole relationship.

Wyre’s wind-down in mid-2023, as reported by The Block, is the same story. When a card depends on a single regulated partner for issuing or funding, that partner’s health becomes the card’s health. This has happened repeatedly in the category: Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX in November 2022 and the FTX US debit card was wound down by its issuer; WaveCrest, a Visa issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018 and every WaveCrest-issued Visa programme closed. A brand can promise you a card and a licence can vanish, and neither is fraud — they are just the ordinary risk of this business.

On security, the card’s pages are thin in a way that cuts both ways. Self-custody is not stated — so I cannot tell you whether your funds ever sat in your own wallet. What the listing does say is that transactions are confirmed with Touch ID or Face ID. That is a real convenience control and it is worth having; it is just not the same as holding the keys yourself.

What I found nothing on: no Trustpilot page for Card Pay, no Reddit threads, and searches on 20 October 2026 turned up unrelated companies with similar names. No user reports of harm, and equally no user reports vouching for it. There is no complaints detail published, no dispute process stated, and no information on what happens to a disputed transaction now. Silence in both directions — that is what a closed programme looks like from the outside, and I would not want you to read my inability to find complaints as reassurance.

One more general point about balances, since it is the thing that should worry you most if you hold one. A stored balance in a prepaid card is not the same as a bank deposit. Electronic money institutions must safeguard customer funds by segregating them in dedicated accounts or insuring them, but such funds are not bank deposits and may not be covered by a deposit guarantee scheme. Ask about your balance where it is actually held, not where the brand is incorporated.

What to take instead

Here are four cards that are running now, with what each one actually states about eligibility, cost and fees. I am not ranking them for you — the right choice depends on which country you are in and how you fund the card, and I have laid the options out side by side so you can weigh them.

A few things stand out once you put them next to each other.

TokenPocket is the most geographically awkward of the three for most people: Visa debit covers a list of European countries and territories, Mastercard debit a different and longer list including the UK, Canada, Australia and parts of Asia, and the Americas were only “planned for Q2 2025.” That 1% deposit fee is unusual — it is described as refunded later through rewards or reduced transaction fees, which is a promise about the future in exchange for money now, so I would want to see it work before treating it as free. Its cards also run on Arbitrum with balances in EUR24 and USD24, and Fiat24 cards are virtual with no physical card mentioned.

MetaMask has the most transparent pricing of the three: free virtual card with no annual fee, a published rewards scheme, and no foreign transaction fee. But it is also the most restricted in who can actually sign up. It needs proof of residency, sign-up is open in 45 listed countries and territories with everything else on a waitlist, and US and UK sign-ups are temporarily closed per its FAQ. It spends directly from a connected wallet across Linea, Base, Monad and Solana, with mUSD, wETH, EURe, GBPe, USDC and USDT named among the tokens. Its cashback is 1% on the virtual card; the metal card’s headline rate is 3% with a footnote limiting that to the first $10,000 spent and 1% after, plus a $FLY bonus of 5X or 7X through the Blackbird dining app. The issuer is Monovate and the card provider Crypto Life — named entities, which is more than Pay offers. One catch worth noting: Solana-only wallets cannot withdraw credit.

KAST is the one with the most tiers, and tiers mean the cheapest option is not the most generous one. Standard costs nothing and gives 1.5% USD cashback on the first 2,000 USD per month; Premium costs 1,000 USD a year and gives 2% on the first 10,000 USD per month; Private costs 10,000 USD a year and gives 3% on the first 40,000 USD per month. It is billed annually upfront with no monthly option, which changes the calculation entirely depending on how long you would keep it. Fees are unusually explicit for the category: stablecoin top-up 0%, spend in USD 0%, Apple and Google Pay 0%, but 0.5%–1.75% on non-USD transactions, 0.10 USD on non-USD transactions under 25 USD, and 0.50 USD for a declined transaction on insufficient balance. Note that “declined transaction” money is charged for your card being short — that is a fee for not having enough, which is worth thinking about. It funds from USDT, USDC, PYUSD and RLUSD, with USDT and USDC on Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum and TRON; its Terms say acceptable tokens are “currently USDT and USDC”, which conflicts with the PYUSD and RLUSD the app lists. Spending is from your own balance, deducted immediately per purchase, not credit.

And if none of these fit where you live, that is a normal outcome, not a failure. Country rules here are not mine — they are how each card states its own eligibility, and they change. I am not going to suggest a way around any of them, because the honest answer for anyone in an unsupported country is that these cards are not for you right now.

Who I would recommend it to

Nobody, for the purpose of getting a card. That is the recommendation, and I would rather say it plainly than dress it up.

I would recommend this page to you if you have an old Card Pay wallet and are trying to work out what to do with it — the section on holders is the one that matters most, and it is mostly about what nobody has published. I would also recommend it if you were about to install the app, because the App Store listing is active and looks convincing enough to fool someone who has not checked the version date.

If you are choosing a crypto card today, go straight to the comparison above and start from your country and how you want to fund it, not from the brand name. Two general points that apply to all four and to anything that comes after them. First, name the issuer: MetaMask names Monovate and Crypto Life, TokenPocket names its Visa and Mastercard debit arrangements, KAST names its Visa tiers — and Pay names nobody, which is the whole problem in miniature. Second, understand that your card is only as strong as its weakest partner. The FTX card ended because a partner ended; Wyre’s wind-down is why this card ended; and networks can restrict a tokenised card number by channel, so a card that works in a shop can still fail online.

Whatever you pick, keep the distinction straight between a stored balance and a bank deposit, and between spending your own crypto and spending someone else’s credit. Those two gaps are where the losses in this category live. I am not offering tax or legal advice, and you should check your own position with a qualified adviser in your country — in the US, for instance, digital assets are treated as property, so each payment funded from crypto can be a separate taxable disposal measured at fair market value on the date.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Pay card?

Pay is the prepaid card feature of the Card Pay wallet, listed on the App Store as an app for “Manage your prepaid cards.” It sat in a DeFi payments wallet rather than being issued by a bank. The programme is closed: buying prepaid cards through Wyre was disabled on 5 December 2022, and the last app version, 1.2.0, came on 18 February 2023. The network and currency were never stated publicly.

Can I still apply for a Pay card?

No. Cards are no longer issued through the app, and physical delivery is not mentioned anywhere in the listing. There is nothing to apply for. The listing remains live on the App Store, which is why this question still gets asked — the app being downloadable is not the same as the card programme being open. I would not spend time on an application path that does not exist.

Does the Pay card require KYC?

The card’s public pages do not state whether identity verification was required; verification requirements are not stated. For context, KYC rules generally require regulated businesses to verify customers and assess risk under anti-money-laundering law, and in the EU that covers name, address, date of birth, nationality and identity documents, a sanctions check, and politically-exposed-person screening. If due diligence cannot be completed, EU rules require the institution to decline the relationship.

Who owns Pay, and who issues the card?

The developer is CARDSTACK SERVICES PTE. LTD. on the App Store, and the Cardstack homepage footer names the Cardstack Foundation. The issuer is not stated — and that absence matters more than the names that are given. Without a named issuer there is no institution publicly identified as responsible for your balance or for refunding a disputed transaction.

Is Pay card free, and what are the fees?

The app is free to download. The only in-app purchase listed is “Account on Gnosis Chain” for GBP 0.99. Card fees are not stated and fees are not stated either — the pages simply do not name them. That is why cost is the one non-zero mark in my scoring: not because the card was cheap, but because nobody published what it would have cost you.

How do I top up the Pay card, or withdraw my balance?

Top-up methods are not stated and the programme is closed; Polygon was removed in version 1.1.13, and the only in-app purchase listed is the GBP 0.99 Gnosis Chain account. Withdrawing a card balance is also not stated, and there is no published information on the balance after closure. Version notes mention reward-withdrawal bug fixes in 1.0.11 and individual reward claims in 1.1.13, but neither addresses your funds. If you hold a balance, contact Cardstack in writing and keep the record.

Is the Pay card safe?

I cannot tell you that, and I would be misleading you if I implied otherwise. Self-custody is not stated — the pages do not say whether your funds were ever in your own wallet. The listing does say transactions are confirmed with Touch ID or Face ID, which is a genuine safeguard but a different thing entirely. For holders, the bigger question is where the money is actually held.

Where can I use the Pay card?

That question is now moot — spending stopped when the purchasing rail was disabled and Wyre wound down in 2023. If you want a general answer for another card, note that some merchants decline prepaid or foreign-issued cards because the issuer BIN lookup reveals the card type and issuer country, and that a merchant category code of 7995 (gambling) is blocked by many issuers as policy rather than law, with the blocked list varying by issuer.

Is there an alternative to the Pay card?

Yes, four are covered above: TokenPocket, MetaMask, KAST and, for readers whose country is on none of their lists, simply waiting for a programme that is actually open. MetaMask is free at the virtual tier but sign-up is restricted to 45 listed countries and territories; KAST has a free Standard tier but charges for Premium and Private; TokenPocket’s coverage is split across Visa and Mastercard country lists. Start from your country and your funding method.

Is Pay card worth it, and how do I delete my Pay account?

Not worth it — you cannot get a card, and you cannot top one up. On deletion: the pages do not describe how to close an account or what happens to any remaining balance, and there is no published support page beyond the developer site cardstack.com and a privacy policy. Check inside the app for a support route, and if you get no clear answer, take it to a consumer-protection body in your country rather than letting the app sit there indefinitely.

Content created by the «cryptocardfacts» team