The AQUA card was suspended in December 2025 — here is what that means in practice
Available in USThe AQUA card, also called the Dolphin Card inside the AQUA app, was a virtual Visa that you loaded with bitcoin, Liquid bitcoin or Liquid USDt. On 4 December 2025 JAN3, the company behind AQUA, suspended every Dolphin Card worldwide after a problem with the card provider it was using, and no replacement has been confirmed since. The card itself is no longer being issued, and the beta programme that ran from May 2025 is now closed. If you came here to find out whether to apply, the short answer is no. If you are still holding a balance, the rest of this review walks through what to do, what is not coming back, and which cards currently work for people who want a similar thing.
Conditions on this page are current as of October 28, 2026.
Verdict
AQUA scores 2.4 out of 10, and almost every mark on the scorecard is held down by the December 2025 suspension rather than by design flaws in the product itself. The card had a clean premise: a virtual Visa denominated in US dollars, top-up in BTC, L-BTC or Liquid USDt, managed inside the AQUA app, with sign-up that required nothing more than a JAN3 account and an email verification code during the beta. None of that mattered once the card provider pulled out, because a card that cannot be used is not really a card, and that is the situation every existing holder now faces.
Here is how the score breaks down, criterion by criterion, with the numbers exactly as JAN3 has reported them.
| Criterion | Mark | Why it scores that way |
|---|---|---|
| Who can get it | 0 / 10 | Dolphin Card was suspended worldwide on 4 December 2025 because of a card provider issue; no relaunch has been announced |
| Cost | 5 / 10 | Fees were not disclosed officially; a third-party review found no issuance or monthly fee mentioned |
| Top-up options | 4 / 10 | BTC, L-BTC or Liquid USDt, on the Liquid network only |
| Reliability and complaints | 1 / 10 | Suspended on 4 December 2025, balances refunded in USDT on Liquid, pending merchant refunds will not return to the card, card issuer unnamed |
| Everyday use | 2 / 10 | Virtual Visa only, Apple Pay and Google Pay were planned for later but were not active at launch |
The audience that this verdict is for, in practice, is the existing cardholder who is trying to recover a remaining balance. Anyone looking to apply will not be able to, and anyone evaluating a new card today should be looking at the alternatives further down this page rather than at AQUA itself.
What happened to the programme
To understand where AQUA stands now it helps to look at what it was, briefly, before the suspension. The Dolphin Card was announced in May 2025 as a beta for users outside the US and Canada, with a small note that cards for those two countries were hoped for “in the coming months”. It was always a virtual product, not a physical one, denominated in US dollars, and reloadable from inside the AQUA app. There was no separate sign-up form: opening a JAN3 account with an email verification code was enough to get into the beta, and identity documents were not part of that flow.
A few details about the beta are worth keeping in mind because they explain what the card was actually like to use. The only top-up options were BTC, L-BTC or Liquid USDt, all on the Liquid network, so anyone loading the card was already operating inside the Liquid ecosystem rather than the wider Bitcoin or Ethereum mainnets. Apple Pay and Google Pay were advertised as “in the coming months” but were not live at launch, and there was no tap-to-pay because the card was virtual. The card itself was managed in the AQUA app Marketplace, with the app reaching release 0.3.0 around 21 May 2025. The card was single-currency in US dollars; other currencies and any kind of multi-currency balance were not described.
Then the picture changes. On 30 November 2025 JAN3’s CEO said publicly that partners had told him all cards were being suspended, and on 4 December 2025 AQUA confirmed in a notice that all Dolphin Cards were suspended “effective immediately” worldwide, citing a problem with its card provider. The provider itself was not named. The same notice said that other Aqua wallet services were unaffected and that JAN3 was negotiating refunds and looking for alternative providers. The cardholder action it set in motion is described in the next section.
A few third-party points about the beta deserve a note because they come from a review by CriptoNoticias dated 24 October 2025, not from AQUA’s own pages, so they are unofficial and not confirmed by the card. That review described the card as “issued in the United States” and USD-denominated, which matches the official description of USD denomination. The same review said that a Spotify payment from Argentina was rejected because card and user country did not match, which is a useful real-world example of the country-mismatch issue that crypto cards often run into. It also said sign-up needed only an email and no identity documents, consistent with the official beta description, and that no issuance or monthly fee was mentioned in the review. That last point is not the same as “free”: it just means the review did not list a fee, and the card’s own pages also do not list a fee.
If you already have the card
If you already had a Dolphin Card, the December 2025 suspension notice set out a specific process for getting your money back, and the key things to know are the funding side and the refund side, because they run in opposite directions.
On the funding side, the card was reloadable from the Card Management page in the AQUA app, and the supported assets were BTC, L-BTC or Liquid USDt. The beta post recommended starting with a small test load because the balance may take a moment to update. The monthly spending cap was US$4,000, and there was no separate physical card or delivery because the product was virtual only. One unofficial detail from the CriptoNoticias review worth mentioning: on-chain BTC top-ups paid miner fees and needed three to four network confirmations before crediting, the BTC balance was converted automatically to USD, and the card itself was nameless in the sense of not carrying the holder’s printed name.
On the refund side, after 4 December 2025 the remaining balance on each card was returned in USDT on the Liquid network. Holders had to fill in a secure request form on the AQUA website, and the refund could be sent either to an AQUA wallet or to any Liquid-capable wallet. Processing started once AQUA received funds from its provider, with email confirmations along the way, and refund fees were not stated. The same notice warned that pending refunds from merchants would not return to the Dolphin Card after suspension, so if you are still waiting on a refund from a shop, that money is not coming back through this card. ATM withdrawals and a general support channel were not described in the beta post, and a chargeback process was not stated either, so the practical path for getting your money out is the form on the website rather than a chargeback.
In short: if you have a remaining balance, fill in the request form, decide which Liquid-capable wallet you want the USDT sent to, and be ready for processing to wait on AQUA’s provider. If you have a pending merchant refund, that is a separate matter to chase with the merchant directly.
What can go wrong
The biggest risk that actually happened is the one this page is built around. The card provider, who was never named publicly, pulled out, and that pulled the card down with it. That is the kind of risk that sits behind every programme a customer does not control: the card network sets the rules, the issuer holds the programme, and the crypto brand on the front is often only a programme manager rather than the institution that issues the card. When the issuer or its provider decides to leave, the card stops working, and the only thing left to negotiate is how the remaining balance is returned.
A few specific things flow from that picture. The card issuer is not named, which means the underlying institution behind the Visa number is not visible to a customer, and that is the layer that would normally be the one to handle a complaint or a chargeback. The security arrangements for the card are not stated in the beta post: the card was managed inside the AQUA app Marketplace, and JAN3’s CEO said publicly that user funds were safe, but no further detail on safeguards, fraud monitoring or account recovery is published. There were no customer complaints found on Reddit or Trustpilot, which is less a sign of satisfaction than a reflection of how small the user base was during the beta.
There is also a structural risk that the suspension made very real. Crypto card balances that sit in stablecoins or in pre-loaded fiat are not the same as bank deposits, and the protections that apply to a normal current account do not necessarily apply here. A card issuer can be wound down, a programme manager can lose its partner, and a stablecoin can in principle lose its peg. The AQUA situation is a concrete example of the first two happening in quick succession, and the lesson is that any card whose issuer is not visible, and whose provider can change without notice, carries that risk by design.
For completeness, two category-level risks are worth knowing about even if they did not happen with AQUA specifically. Card networks can suspend a programme outright, and there is recent precedent: in November 2022 Visa said it had “terminated our global agreements with FTX” and the FTX US debit card was wound down by its issuer, and in 2018 Visa suspended WaveCrest in Europe and closed every WaveCrest-issued Visa programme at once. Stablecoins can also depeg, as TerraUSD did in May 2022 and as USDC did briefly in March 2023, so a card that is funded in stablecoin inherits that exposure at the funding stage. None of this is unique to AQUA; it is the environment the card sat in.
What to take instead
Because AQUA is not issuing cards, the practical question is which of the cards that are live today does a similar job. Three come up repeatedly, and the short version is that they each solve a different slice of what AQUA tried to do. None of them is a like-for-like replacement, because none of them combines AQUA’s specific funding mix of BTC, L-BTC and Liquid USDt, but each one is a working card with a published score, and the table below compares them on the points that matter most.
| Card | Score | Who can get it | Cost | Funding | Rewards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MetaMask Card | 7.1 / 10 | Sign-up open in 45 listed countries, others on a waitlist; proof of residency required | Virtual free, no annual fee; Metal $199/year | Spends directly from the connected wallet on Linea, Base, Monad, Solana | 1% cashback on Virtual, 3% on Metal up to $10,000 then 1%, in mUSD |
| KAST | 6.1 / 10 | Residence-based country check at KYC; supported-country list not published | Standard $0/year, Premium $1,000/year, Private $10,000/year | USDT, USDC, PYUSD, RLUSD on Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum, TRON | 1.5%–3% USD cashback depending on tier, plus KAST Points on Premium and Private |
| Zeal | 6.1 / 10 | Spend in 150+ countries; issuance depends on eligibility and regional availability | Fees not stated on zeal.app or App Store | Balances in EUR, USD, GBP stablecoin accounts on Gnosis Chain and Celo | Up to 4% cashback in GNO on Gnosis Chain; up to 5% variable APY on balances |
MetaMask Card is the closest fit if you want a card that spends directly from a self-custody wallet rather than from a pre-loaded fiat balance, and the published score of 7.1 puts it well above AQUA. Sign-up is open in 45 listed countries and territories including Andorra, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Spain and Uruguay, with other regions able to join a waitlist; proof of residency is required, and US and UK sign-ups are temporarily closed per the FAQ. The card itself is a Mastercard, virtual first and instant, with a Metal version that can be pre-ordered in-app after the virtual is approved; one card per user; the issuer is Monovate and the card provider is Crypto Life. Spending is from the connected wallet on Linea, Base, Monad and Solana, and the named tokens include mUSD, wETH, EURe, GBPe, USDC and USDT, with a page note that nine tokens are supported. On rewards, Virtual gives 1% cashback in mUSD into a Money Account and Metal gives 3% up to the first $10,000 spent then 1% afterwards, plus a $FLY bonus of 5x on Virtual and 7x on Metal via the Blackbird dining app.
KAST is the option if you want a multi-currency stablecoin balance and a choice of card tiers. The published score is 6.1. KYC happens against a residence-based country list that is shown inside the app, with the rule that if your country is not listed KAST is not available there, and a further rule that holding an ID from a restricted region can still keep you out even if you live in a supported country; the Restricted Locations list is referenced but no specific countries are named in the public material. The card comes in three tiers: Standard is a Visa Platinum, Premium is a Visa Infinite metal, and Private is a Visa Infinite gold-plated, with up to ten cards per user and account balance in US dollars with stablecoin deposits converted 1:1 at a 0% spread. Annual membership is $0 for Standard, $1,000 for Premium and $10,000 for Private, billed annually upfront. Funding is in USDT, USDC, PYUSD or RLUSD on Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum and TRON. Cashback is paid in US dollars: 1.5% on Standard up to the first $2,000 a month, 2% on Premium up to $10,000, and 3% on Private up to $40,000, with KAST Points of 1% on Premium and 2% on Private on top.
Zeal is the option if you want a Visa that spends from a Gnosis Pay-style stablecoin account in euros, US dollars or pounds. The published score is 6.1. Spend is accepted in 150-plus countries, and the card programme is live in the EU, UK, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. The card is virtual for online use, addable to Apple Pay, and accounts are in EUR, USD and GBP on Gnosis Chain and Celo. No fee schedule is published on zeal.app or in the App Store listing, Zeal charges no additional FX fee and converts at the Visa wholesale rate, and rewards are up to 4% cashback paid in GNO on Gnosis Chain, with GNO held in the card Safe to qualify and rates that can change. The App Store listing also advertises up to 5% variable APY on EUR and USD balances.
A note on choosing between them: if you already use MetaMask as your wallet, the MetaMask Card is the most natural fit because it spends from the wallet you already have; if you want a multi-currency stablecoin balance with tiered rewards, KAST is the most structured option; if you want a euro-and-pound stablecoin balance with GNO rewards, Zeal is the one to look at. None of the three uses the BTC, L-BTC and Liquid USDt mix that AQUA used, so the experience of funding will be different in any case.
Who I would recommend it to
I would not recommend AQUA to anyone today, because the card is not being issued and the programme is closed. The audience this verdict is genuinely useful for is small and specific. If you are an existing cardholder with a remaining balance, the right next step is the refund form on the AQUA website, and the rest of this review is mainly there to confirm that there is no other path back in. If you are a prospective applicant who arrived here through search, the right next step is to look at MetaMask Card, KAST or Zeal instead, depending on which of their funding models and reward structures match what you wanted from AQUA in the first place.
A few small things to check first, in order, before you do anything else. Check whether you have a remaining balance inside the AQUA app, and if so, decide which Liquid-capable wallet you want the USDT refund sent to before you fill in the request form. Check whether you have any pending refunds from merchants, because those will not return to the card after the suspension and you will need to chase them with the merchant directly. Check whether your AQUA app is on the current version, because the refund process is run through the website rather than the app. And check whether the country you are in is on the supported list of whichever alternative card you are considering, because the three alternatives above each have a different country footprint and the easy mistakes to make are around residency versus citizenship and around waitlists versus hard blocks.
Frequently asked questions
What is the AQUA card?
The AQUA card, also called the Dolphin Card inside the AQUA app, was a virtual Visa denominated in US dollars, top-up with bitcoin, Liquid bitcoin or Liquid USDt, managed from the AQUA app and announced in May 2025. The card was put on hold worldwide on 4 December 2025 and is no longer being issued.
How does the AQUA card work?
You would open a JAN3 account with an email verification code, request a virtual Visa from inside the AQUA app, and load it with BTC, L-BTC or Liquid USDt on the Liquid network. The card was a single-currency USD card with a US$4,000 monthly cap and no physical version, and Apple Pay and Google Pay were planned but not live at launch.
Is AQUA a bank?
AQUA is not described as a bank in its public material; it is the wallet product from JAN3, and the card was a virtual Visa programme run with an unnamed card provider. The institution that actually issued the card is not named in the beta post.
Who owns AQUA?
AQUA is built and operated by JAN3, the same company that built the Aqua bitcoin wallet. The card programme itself was a partnership with a card provider whose name was not published.
Is the AQUA card available in my country?
During the beta, the card was for users outside the US and Canada, with US and Canada hoped for “in the coming months”; some merchants in certain countries were not supported even within that. Since the December 2025 suspension the card is not available in any country, and no relaunch date has been announced.
Can I still use the AQUA card?
No. All Dolphin Cards were suspended worldwide on 4 December 2025 and the refund process is the only active path. Pending merchant refunds will not return to the card, and the website’s request form is the only way to receive a remaining balance in USDT on Liquid.
How do I get my money back from the AQUA card?
Fill in the secure request form on the AQUA website and choose a destination wallet that can receive USDT on the Liquid network, either an AQUA wallet or any other Liquid-capable wallet. Processing begins once AQUA receives funds from its provider, and you will get email confirmations along the way; refund fees are not stated.
Does the AQUA card require KYC?
During the beta, sign-up needed only a JAN3 account with email verification, and identity documents were not part of that flow. A third-party review from 24 October 2025 said the same. Whether stricter KYC would have been required at a wider rollout is not stated, because the wider rollout did not happen.
Is the AQUA card safe?
The card was managed inside the AQUA app, and JAN3’s CEO said publicly that user funds were safe. The bigger point for a reader is the structural one: the card issuer was not named, the card provider was not named, and the programme was suspended after a provider issue, so the practical lesson is that a card whose underlying institutions are not visible carries that risk by design.
Is the AQUA card worth it?
At launch the proposition was a simple, no-photo-ID virtual Visa funded with bitcoin, which had real appeal for the audience it was aimed at. Today, with the card suspended and no replacement confirmed, the honest answer is that the question is moot for new applicants and a refund question for existing holders; for anyone looking at a live card, the alternatives in this review are the right place to start.
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