A Brazil-based crypto card with Bitcoin cashback and an unusually honest issuer — but most of the numbers you need are not published

Updated October 2026

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Available in US

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Bipa is a Brazilian crypto card product: a Mastercard that you load with crypto, spend like a normal payment card, and earn a little Bitcoin back on what you buy. It is aimed squarely at people in Brazil who want a card that works in the real world — in shops, online and at cash machines — and get paid in Bitcoin rather than in points. On paper it does several things well: the top-up options are broad, the company has a real Brazilian entity behind it with a named issuing bank, and I could not find a single complaint page about it on either Reclame Aqui or Trustpilot. What stops it from being an easy recommendation is transparency. The card’s public pages do not tell you the exchange rate, the foreign-currency fee, the cash-machine fee, or the daily spending limits. Nor do they set out plainly who is eligible. You can read the plans and the reward rates in full, but the things that decide what a payment actually costs are missing.

If you are outside Brazil, this is not your card: the company is Brazilian, the plans are priced in reais, and the credit side is underwritten on Brazilian risk criteria. If you are in Brazil and you want a crypto card with Bitcoin cashback that can also be used on credit against a deposit of money you hold, it deserves a serious look — but go in knowing you will be assembling part of the picture from the Card Terms yourself.

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

The score: 5.9 out of 10

Read that table as a shape rather than a verdict on quality. Bipa scores 8 out of 10 on the two criteria it is genuinely strong on — how you fund the card and how little goes wrong with the company — and 2 out of 10 on the one that should be the easiest to publish, which is who is allowed to have it. A card that will not tell you its eligibility rules is asking you for trust before it has earned any. The 5.9 is not a punishment for a bad product; it is the arithmetic of a good product with a large hole in its public documentation.

Will they give you the card

Short answer: if you are a Brazilian resident with a Brazilian address and a smartphone, probably yes — but the page I read does not say that, and you should notice the gap.

The public information on eligibility is, in substance, absent. The card’s own pages do not set out who can apply: no country list, no residency test, no age and identity requirements beyond the general statement that the service is for adults. What is stated is directional. The company is Brazilian — Bipa Intermediação de Ativos Digitais LTDA, CNPJ 37.008.710/0001-78, founded in 2020 in Brazil — the plans are priced in reais, and the credit card is based on Brazilian risk criteria. Those three facts together tell you the product is built for Brazil, and they are not the same as a published eligibility rule.

That matters if you are one of the many people who read about crypto cards and cannot get an ordinary bank card: someone under a local rule that requires Brazilian CPF and a Brazilian address, or someone whose bank has declined them. For those people a Brazilian-only crypto card is exactly the workaround they are looking for, and the lack of a published eligibility page is a documentation gap rather than a red flag. For someone abroad it is a closed door. Since I cannot find a country list, the honest position is that the card is a Brazilian product and anything beyond Brazil is outside what the card states.

There is one further structural point worth knowing before you apply, and it is not about Bipa at all. A payment card number starts with an issuer identification number of six or eight digits that identifies the card-issuing institution; merchants can look that number up and see which institution and country issued the card, and may apply extra scrutiny when the issuer country differs from the billing address. A Brazilian card in a foreign shop can look foreign, and some merchants decline prepaid or foreign BINs for exactly that reason. If your problem is being turned away at the counter abroad, a Brazilian card is not the answer.

How to get it

The application is a selfie plus a document. That is what the sign-up flow asks for, and the card also says Bipa may request updated registration data periodically from time to time.

Beyond that, the public page is thin, and I would rather tell you that than dress it up. The verification levels, the list of accepted documents and the processing time are not stated on the page I read. Nor are the terms that matter most once you hold the card: card issuance, use, guarantee and disputes are all governed “exclusively pelos Termos do Cartão”, a document I did not read. That is the single most useful thing you can do before applying — read the Card Terms, because the everyday numbers the website omits are supposed to live there.

What is clear on verification and eligibility:

• Selfie and document are submitted at sign-up.
• Stark Bank and Bipa may verify your data at any time.
• False information can lead to suspension and card cancellation.
• The service is for an adult individual only.
• Credit limit approval depends on a prior analysis, and the limit follows Bipa’s risk criteria and the Card Terms, with no amounts listed.

On the card itself, there are two products and four plan tiers. Bipa offers a prepaid card and a credit card — Bipa Crédito, which can also let you buy Bitcoin on credit in up to three instalments. Both are Mastercard. The tiers are grouped as Gold (Free, Plus), Platinum (Pro) and Black (Max), and the card exists in virtual and physical form; the prepaid limit can be “enabled in crypto”. The currency is BRL, the plans are priced in reais.

Getting the physical card is where the plans separate. It is free on Pro and Max and carries a fee on Free and Plus, though the amount is not stated. Delivery time is “per the periods informed by support channels”, with no figure published — so if the card is going to a Brazilian address, ask support what the current wait is before you upgrade a plan for the physical card. Cancelling is cleaner than you might expect: there is no plan cancellation fee and no card cancellation fee.

Support, when you need it, is Portuguese only, which is worth weighing if you are not comfortable reading the Card Terms in Portuguese — which you should be, since that is where the numbers are.

Fees: what a Bipa payment actually costs

This is the section where I have to be most careful, because the card publishes almost everything except the parts that determine the cost of a purchase. The plan fees are clear. The exchange rate, the foreign-currency fee, the cash-machine fee and the spending limits are not stated.

The one thing the card does tell you about foreign use is worth reading closely, because it is the kind of sentence that gets missed and later regretted. The FX rate “may be higher or lower than the BCB average rate” — the average published by the Central Bank of Brazil. That is an open-ended statement in both directions, and it tells you the direction of the possible difference without telling you how large it can get. Foreign use is limited to travel and personal expenses, and only in credit mode. Taxes on remittance abroad are your own responsibility, and the IOF rate is not named in the card terms.

The card also references a Tabela de Tarifas — a fee schedule — as the place where FX, cash-machine and other charges are set, with amounts depending on your plan. That schedule is where you need to go. Everything below marked “not stated” is genuinely not on the pages I read, not withheld deliberately and not something I chose to omit.

Three everyday payments, and which fees actually touch them:

Coffee in São Paulo, R$9. On a Plus plan, the R$14.90 monthly fee applies unless your usage waives it, and nothing else in this purchase is charged — the card spends a balance you have already loaded, and there is no conversion fee published to add on top. This is the cleanest case, and the case the card is designed for.

A €40 hotel night abroad, on credit. This is the one that can cost you the most, because it hits three separate unknowns at once. The FX rate may sit above or below the BCB average by an amount the card does not name, the card does not name an FX fee on top of that, and any tax on the remittance is yours. You also need to be in credit mode, and the card does not publish your credit limit. Before a trip abroad, read the fee schedule and check the limit — this is the purchase most likely to surprise you.

Withdrawing 500 reais at a cash machine. Not stated what it costs, and limits may be imposed daily, weekly or monthly that are also not stated. If a cash machine is part of how you actually live — and for a lot of people in Brazil it is — treat this as a must-check item, not a detail. Ask support what the limit on your plan is before you need it.

One more structural cost that is easy to miss: when you cancel, Bipa may deduct amounts owed from the available balance, and cancelling the card does not cancel the plan. Clear your balance and cancel the plan separately.

Top up: how the money gets in

This is where Bipa is strongest, and the 8 out of 10 in the table is earned. The options are genuinely broad for a Brazilian card.

• Pix — native, which for a Brazilian card means no friction at all.
• Bitcoin — on-chain or Lightning.
• USDT — via Ethereum (ERC-20) or Polygon only. Solana is not accepted for USDT.
• USDC, SOL, XRP, ETH — networks also listed.
• Cofrinho — a minimum of R$50.

Two warnings, both about networks. First, on Ethereum (ERC-20) the gas fee is paid only in ETH, so a wallet holding USDT and no ETH cannot send — a small detail that costs people real money on their first attempt. Second, and more seriously: blockchain transfers are irreversible, so a deposit sent on a network the provider does not support, or to an address belonging to a different network, can be lost or need manual support recovery with no guarantee. USDT on Solana looks exactly like USDT on Polygon in a transfer screen. Check the network twice.

The prepaid card limit may be enabled in crypto, settled per clause 5.9 of the Card Terms. The credit card is backed by reais held as collateral or guarantee. Plan fees are debited from the prepaid limit or from your reais balance. Specific coins and networks beyond those listed above are not stated, and deposit fees are not stated.

If you withdraw, there is a guide titled “Como sacar ou transferir Dolar (USDT)” and a stated limit of US$100,000 on international crypto transfers — I saw those titles, not the contents. The US$100,000 figure is worth noting for what it is: a ceiling, not a typical amount, and not an indication that ordinary withdrawals are generous.

Paying with it every day

It is a Mastercard, virtual and physical, prepaid and credit. That combination covers most of what a daily card needs to do, and the virtual card can be added to digital wallets subject to eligibility.

What is missing is specific: Apple Pay and Google Pay are not named on the pages I read. You should not assume either works. The card “may be enabled in digital wallets according to eligibility”, and where digital wallets are supported the number is tokenised rather than stored in the clear — a device-specific Device Account Number held in the Secure Element, with a one-time dynamic security code on every payment — and the issuer can restrict a tokenised number to specific channels.

Two practical frictions to expect. Some transactions classified as MoneySend by the processor are blocked, and there is no published list of blocked merchant categories. And merchants can set their own minimum and maximum amounts, so a small purchase may simply not go through. For context on that last one, a merchant category code is the four-digit number that classifies a business, assigned when it starts accepting cards; gambling is MCC 7995, and many issuers block it by policy rather than by law, with the blocked list varying by issuer.

The rewards are the sharpest part of the offer, and there are two of them, which is where people get confused.

Satsback is Bitcoin returned on card purchases, with purchases of crypto with the card excluded: Free 0%, Plus 0.5%, Pro 1%, Max 1.5%. On the credit card the reward posts after you pay the invoice; on the prepaid card after settlement. A chargeback reverses the Satsback.

The collateral reward is separate and often better: BTC on the reais you keep as guarantee — Free 75% of CDI; Plus 100% of CDI up to R$3,000 and 90% above that; Pro 110% up to R$5,000 and 100% above; Max 115% up to R$5,000 and 100% above. It requires an active card. If you are going to hold a deposit with Bipa anyway, this is the number to look at, and on Plus and above it is more generous than the Satsback.

The app’s own store ratings, as the company states them, read App Store 4.8 and Google Play 4.7 across 20,000+ ratings, with 300,000+ downloads. Treat these as a company claim rather than an independent measure.

If a payment goes wrong, the process is set out: report an unrecognised transaction within 5 days of the transaction, Stark Bank makes a preliminary analysis and a final analysis “within the period defined by Stark Bank” — no number of days is published — online purchases carry a 7-day right of withdrawal, Bipa does not assume responsibility for the outcome of the dispute, and a chargeback reverses your Satsback. Five days is short. Note the date of anything you dispute immediately.

What can go wrong

Start with the risk nobody can rank for you: a card that does not publish its FX rate, its conversion fee or its spending limits. You are being asked to take an unknown amount of risk on every purchase, and the size of that unknown is the card’s choice, not yours. In Brazil, where FX inside the card terms can sit either side of the BCB average with no figure given, this is the finding that most affects people who actually use the card daily.

Then the network risk, which is the one that ends transactions permanently. Blockchain transfers are irreversible. A wrong network is a lost deposit or a support ticket with no guarantee of recovery. The card naming Ethereum and Polygon for USDT and not accepting Solana is helpful — if you read it — and helpful only if you read it.

Then counterparty risk, which is structural rather than a complaint. Custodial platforms have a record of failures: Mt. Gox, about US$350 million reported stolen between 2011 and 2014; Coincheck, about US$400 million in 2018; Ronin Network, US$625 million in 2022. Card programmes have closed too — Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX on 13 November 2022 and the FTX US debit card was wound down by its issuer, and WaveCrest, a Visa issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended in Europe in 2018, closing all its programmes. Closures follow a pattern: a notice period, spending and loading stop, then you are asked to withdraw remaining balances. That is the shape of the risk you carry with any custodial balance.

On complaints, the honest finding is genuinely good: I found no Reclame Aqui and no Trustpilot page about Bipa. That is worth knowing, and it is not the same as a track record. Absence of complaint pages is also what a young, small company looks like. The company claims a 4.8 rating from 26,000+ reviews, which is marketing and unverified. Funding of R$17 million from Ego Death Capital appears on the company’s own page, undated, and no dated events were found.

Who is actually behind the card matters more than the brand. The issuer is Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento, named as responsible for issuing Bipa cards, with plans also offered through BIPA Instituicao de Pagamento Ltda (CNPJ 40.910.463/0001-05). The card is described as both a payment institution and a VASP, regulated by the Central Bank of Brazil — a company claim. Understanding why these are different matters: a payment card is a payment service regulated separately from the crypto side of the business, so a crypto card often rests on two licences. Here the crypto side is a Brazilian company under central-bank regulation as a payment institution, and the card side is a Brazilian issuing bank. That is a more conventional structure than the worst cases in this category.

Security is handled in a plain way. The issuer is Stark Bank; three wrong PIN attempts block the card and you unlock it in the app; you report loss or theft to support to block it; the card states that Bipa and Stark Bank never ask for passwords. Read the last point carefully in context: Bipa answers for third-party misuse only after the block has been requested. Block first, argue afterwards. Custody and insurance are not stated.

Two limits on money and money movement worth carrying in your head. To raise your credit limit you make an additional deposit and enable the guarantee, and Bipa may set a maximum per active plan and review limits periodically — no numbers published. And Tether, which issues USDT, says it disables tokens in wallets on the OFAC sanctions list and has frozen funds tied to illicit activity. Stablecoins are not censorship-proof, and neither is a card funded by one.

What to take instead

The honest framing: none of these is a like-for-like substitute for a card that is squarely built for Brazil. They are comparisons on the dimensions Bipa leaves blank, and each has its own catch.

Xplace scores highest here, and the reason is transparency rather than feature count: it publishes a tiered fee structure — Basic free, Silver $99/year, Gold $249/year, Platinum $999/year, no origination fee on borrowing, “0% FX on Platinum” and stablecoin spending with “no hidden spread”, deposits in BTC (cbBTC), ETH (wETH), SOL, JitoSOL, USDC, USDT and xStocks on the Solana network, and credit-mode cashback of 0.5% to 2% by tier paid in USDC. What it does not publish: the country list, FX for the tiers below Platinum, and the conversion fee. And the physical card exists only on Silver, with Gold and Platinum described as coming soon at a 7–14 business-day delivery.

ether.fi is the one to look at if you are in one of its jurisdictions. It publishes real numbers — cashback in ETHFI locked for 7 days and then claimable, Core 3% up to $2,000 a month then 1% to $3,000 then 0.5%; Luxe 3% up to $10,000; Pinnacle 3% up to $50,000; EUR purchases on lower ladders; FX on top of base rate by tier, Core 0.5%, Luxe 0.25%, none on Pinnacle and VIP, and a 0% FX article on EUR purchases. One free virtual card for core members, $10 for the first virtual card in regional-pricing countries. But the list is a closed one — Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and 31 US states, with Belgium and Ireland eligible without physical delivery — and if your jurisdiction is not on it you cannot apply. ATM withdrawals are blocked in North Korea, Iran and Myanmar, and ATM, cash advances, P2P and gambling merchant categories are excluded from the cashback.

Nexo is the European option, for residents and citizens of selected European countries including the EEA and the UK, with excluded jurisdictions not named. It has no monthly, annual or inactivity fee, and cashback in NEXO token or Bitcoin — but only on Credit Mode purchases, only with more than $5,000 in digital assets, and only by tier: Platinum 2%/0.5%, Gold 1%/0.3%, Silver 0.7%/0.2%, Base 0.5%/0.1%. The FX fee is published and varies sharply: 0.2% on weekdays in the EEA, UK and Switzerland against 0.7% at weekends, and 2% or 2.5% for the rest of the world. That weekend figure is exactly the number a Bipa user wishes were printed. Unofficially, and not confirmed by the company, Cointelegraph reported a 2025-era Bulgarian police raid on Nexo’s Sofia office over alleged Russia-sanctions and AML violations, with no official Nexo statement on Russians found. Reported, not adjudicated — but it belongs in the comparison.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend it to a Brazilian resident who already uses crypto regularly, spends most of their money inside Brazil where the FX question does not arise, and wants a Mastercard that pays a little Bitcoin back on ordinary purchases. I would particularly like it for someone comfortable holding a reais deposit with Bipa: on Plus and above, the collateral reward of 100% to 115% of CDI is the more interesting number in the whole offer, and it is easy to overlook next to the Satsback headline.

I would not recommend it as your first crypto card, or as a card that has to work everywhere. The published FX position is too thin for the second, and a reader who has not yet learned to move funds across networks will find the network rules too sharp an edge for a first attempt. Nor would I recommend it to anyone whose reason for wanting a card is being able to spend somewhere they otherwise could not — if that is your situation, this is a Brazilian card with Brazilian risk criteria, and the eligibility page does not even tell you whether you qualify.

Before you commit to anything, do this: read the Card Terms, because issuance, use, guarantee and disputes are governed by them exclusively; read the Tabela de Tarifas and fill in the blank cells — FX, conversion, ATM, daily and monthly limits — with figures from your own plan; and ask support, in writing, what your current ATM and daily spending limits are. Support answers Monday to Friday 09h–21h, Saturday and Sunday 09h–15h, in Portuguese.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Bipa card?

The Bipa card is a Brazilian crypto payment card product from Bipa Intermediação de Ativos Digitais LTDA, a company founded in 2020 in Brazil. It gives you a Mastercard — virtual and physical, available as a prepaid card and as a credit card called Bipa Crédito — that you load with crypto or with reais and then spend like any other payment card. Card purchases earn Bitcoin back through a scheme the company calls Satsback.

Is Bipa a bank?

No. Bipa describes itself as both a payment institution and a virtual asset service provider regulated by the Central Bank of Brazil, which is a company claim rather than an independently verified fact. The card itself is issued by Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento, named as responsible for issuing the Bipa cards, with plans also offered through BIPA Instituicao de Pagamento Ltda. So the card you hold is issued by a bank; Bipa is the company that built the app and manages the crypto side.

Who can get a Bipa card?

The card’s public pages do not state the eligibility conditions — no country list, no residency test. What is clear is that it is a Brazilian product: a Brazilian company, plans priced in reais, and a credit card underwritten on Brazilian risk criteria. In practice expect a Brazilian address to be required, and expect the service to be for adults only.

How do I apply for the Bipa card?

Sign-up asks for a selfie plus a document, and Bipa may request updated registration data periodically afterwards. The accepted documents, the verification levels and the processing time are not stated on the page I read. Stark Bank and Bipa may verify your data at any time, and false information can lead to suspension and card cancellation. Credit limit approval is separate and depends on prior analysis.

Does the Bipa card require KYC?

Yes. The service operates under anti-money-laundering rules, which require regulated businesses to verify customers and monitor transactions, including after you have signed up — Stark Bank and Bipa may verify your data at any time. Note that Bipa’s own pages do not give the full detail, so the governing document to read is the Card Terms, which the card says exclusively govern issuance, use, guarantee and disputes.

What does the Bipa card cost per month?

Plan fees are Free R$0, Plus R$14.90, Pro R$49.90 and Max R$99.90, and the plan fee can be waived by usage. The physical card is free on Pro and Max and carries a fee on Free and Plus, though that amount is not stated. There is no plan or card cancellation fee, though Bipa may deduct amounts owed from your available balance.

What are the Bipa card’s FX and conversion fees?

Not stated, and this is the most important gap to know about. The card says the FX rate may be higher or lower than the BCB average rate without giving a figure, foreign use is limited to travel and personal expenses in credit mode only, and taxes on remittance abroad are your responsibility with no IOF rate named. The fees follow a Tabela de Tarifas and your plan. Read that schedule before your first foreign purchase.

How do I top up the Bipa card?

Through Pix, which is native; Bitcoin on-chain or Lightning; USDT via Ethereum (ERC-20) or Polygon only — Solana is not accepted for USDT; and also USDC, SOL, XRP and ETH on listed networks. The Cofrinho minimum is R$50. Two cautions: gas on Ethereum must be paid in ETH, so a wallet with USDT but no ETH cannot send, and blockchain transfers are irreversible if you pick the wrong network.

Can I use the Bipa card abroad and is it safe?

Abroad, use is restricted to travel and personal expenses and only in credit mode, and the FX rate can sit either side of the BCB average by an unstated amount, so I would not rely on it for spending abroad. For security, the issuer is Stark Bank, three wrong PIN attempts block the card until you unlock it in the app, and loss or theft should be reported to support immediately — Bipa answers for third-party misuse only after the block has been requested.

Is Bipa free, and is it worth it?

The Free plan costs R$0 per month and gives 0% Satsback, though the physical card costs extra on it. Whether it is worth it depends entirely on what you would pay elsewhere: the free tier is reasonable as a prepaid card for spending a balance you have already loaded, and the real value at Plus and above is the collateral reward of 100% to 115% of CDI on reais you hold as guarantee, which is more generous than the Satsback itself. The catch remains that the FX rate, conversion fee and limits are not published anywhere on the public pages.

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