The Bipa card is a Brazilian crypto card that pays real money and hides its fee schedule

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

If you are the kind of reader who has tried to open a normal bank card and been turned down, or put on a waiting list, or told to visit a branch in a country you don’t live in, then this page is for you. That is the situation the Bipa card is usually discussed in, and it is the situation I read it in. The Bipa card is a Mastercard you spend from a crypto balance, issued by a Brazilian institution, priced in reais, and wrapped in a Brazilian app. I went through its public pages and weighed it against the other crypto cards that make similar promises. Here is what I found, including the parts where the card’s own pages tell you less than you would need to decide.

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

Verdict: 5.9 out of 10, and the two halves of that score pull in opposite directions

The Bipa card scores 5.9 out of 10. That number is not a shrug. It is the average of a card that does two things unusually well — bringing money in, and simply not generating complaints — and a card whose gate to entry and fee schedule are, on the public pages, largely invisible. If you already live in Brazil, hold Brazilian reais, and want to earn a little Bitcoin back on everyday spending, the pieces that are documented line up well. If you are anywhere else, or you are trying to work out in advance what a purchase will cost you, you are being asked to sign up before you have the numbers.

The audience the card is clearly built for is Brazilian residents who want Bitcoin cashback in reais. Read that as the card’s own centre of gravity, not a restriction — the pages never state who is eligible. The company is Brazilian, the plans are priced in reais, and the credit card is based on Brazilian risk criteria. Where that leaves a reader in, say, Kenya or Portugal is precisely the gap I could not close.

What the strong half looks like: top-up options are the best of any card I read, and there is no visible pile of unresolved complaints. What the weak half looks like: whether you get the card at all is not stated, and neither are the conversion fee, the foreign-exchange charge, the ATM fee, or the transaction limits. A card you cannot price is a card I have to mark down, however good its deposit rails are.

Will they give you the card

The Bipa card’s public pages do not state who is eligible for the card. There is no list of countries or residency test, and the published pages do not specify whether applicants outside Brazil are accepted.

What it does publish is its centre of gravity, and that is useful even if it is not an answer. The operating company is Brazilian, its plans are priced in Brazilian reais, and the credit card is underwritten against Brazilian risk criteria. The issuer is Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento, a Brazilian payment institution, and the plans are offered together with BIPA Instituicao de Pagamento Ltda. That is the shape of a card built for Brazilian residents.

For a reader outside Brazil, I would not read that as a prohibition. I would read it as: this card is designed around Brazilian banking rails, priced in reais, and supported in Portuguese only, and the pages decline to say whether any of that can be crossed. That is a different thing from being refused, and it is a different thing from being welcome. Anyone deciding whether to spend time on the sign-up is doing a cost-of-time calculation the card does not help with.

One more thing worth knowing before you try: the credit card’s limit, if you want that side rather than the prepaid side, depends on a prior analysis by Bipa. A credit limit is not something you request and receive; it is something granted after review, against criteria the pages do not publish. Anyone who needs a predictable credit line today should not count on one from this card tomorrow.

How to get it

The route is the straightforward one: sign up in the app, send a selfie and a document, and pass whatever verification the app and the issuer then apply. The detail that matters is that this is not a one-time gate. Verification is described as something the card’s companies may ask for periodically, and both Stark Bank and Bipa may check your data at any time. You are agreeing to an ongoing relationship, not a single upload.

The card itself comes in two forms, and the plan you pick decides which. There is a prepaid card and a credit card, called Bipa Crédito, and the credit card can buy Bitcoin on credit in up to three instalments. There is a virtual card and a physical card. Each plan tier is tied to a card tier: Gold for Free and Plus, Platinum for Pro, Black for Max.

The physical card is free on Pro and Max. On Free and Plus it carries a fee, and the amount of that fee is not published. Delivery time is given only as “per the periods informed by support channels,” which means the realistic answer is that you learn the date after you ask. The address implied is a Brazilian one.

The documents and selfie’s specifics — which documents qualify, how many levels of verification there are, how long processing takes — are not stated on the page I read. So are the terms that actually govern the card: the pages say issuance, use, guarantees and disputes are governed exclusively by the Card Terms, and those terms were not part of what I could examine. If your decision depends on the fine print, the fine print is where you have to go next.

Two constraints are stated plainly, and they are worth holding onto. The service is for adults; individual persons only. And false information can lead to suspension and cancellation of the card, which tells you something about how seriously the identity data is treated on the other side of the sign-up.

Fees: what it really costs you

The uncomfortable truth about the Bipa card’s pricing is that the pages show you the monthly plan fees clearly and then go quiet on almost everything else. The plan fee is the part they want you to compare. The conversion fee, the foreign-exchange rate treatment, the ATM fee, the limits — these are all either “not stated” or deferred to a fee table the pages do not reproduce. I have put the gaps in the table rather than smoothing them over, because a blank cell here is information: it means you will not be able to work out your effective cost from the public page alone.

Here is every cost and limit the card actually names:

Now let me walk three ordinary payments through that table, because a fee you cannot predict is the thing that actually costs you money over a year.

Buying coffee in reais, in Brazil. This is the cleanest case and the one the card is built for. You are spending in BRL, your plan’s own currency, so there is no foreign exchange and no conversion penalty in the ordinary sense. If you are on a plan that charges monthly, that fee is debited from your prepaid limit or your reais balance. Satsback applies: your cashback in Bitcoin is credited on the purchase, with crypto bought with the card itself excluded. So the fee you actually pay here is your plan fee, and possibly a crypto trading fee if you also trade. This is the scenario where Bipa is easy to reason about.

Buying something online from a foreign store, in reais. Still your own currency, so no FX, but you are now in online-payment territory, where a different kind of check exists. The pages mention a seven-day right of withdrawal for online purchases, and 3-D Secure is the industry mechanism that adds an identity step to online card payments. Neither of these is a fee, but both can change whether a payment goes through. The thing to check before you rely on this is whether the transaction is one the card’s own systems will pass; the pages say some transactions are blocked when the payment processor classifies them as MoneySend, and they do not publish a list. You are not told in advance which ones those are.

Withdrawing cash abroad, or spending abroad. This is where the pricing stops being clean. Foreign use is limited to travel and personal expenses, and it is available in credit mode only, not on the prepaid balance. The exchange rate may be higher or lower than the Central Bank of Brazil’s average rate — the card is explicit that it is not promising you the mid-market rate. On top of that sits an IOF tax on remittance abroad, at a rate the card terms do not name, and it is your responsibility. Taxes on remittance abroad are yours to bear. Add an ATM fee from the unlisted fee table and a possible daily, weekly or monthly cash-withdrawal cap, and a holiday cash withdrawal abroad can cost a meaningful share of what you took out. If your plan includes spending abroad, this is the row in the table to hold in your head.

There is also a limit-related cost that is not a fee: if you hold reais as a guarantee for the credit card and want the credit limit raised, that requires an extra deposit and the guarantee being enabled. Bipa may set a maximum per active plan and reviews limits periodically. That deposit is your money parked, not a charge, but it is not available money while it sits there.

My honest summary of the cost picture: the monthly fee is a known quantity you can plan around, and the rest is a known unknown. That is survivable if you spend mostly in reais in Brazil. It is not survivable if you are budgeting tightly for a foreign purchase, because you cannot compute it from what the card publishes.

Top up: the part Bipa does better than anyone else I read

Top-up is where this card earns its 8 out of 10, and if you are comparing crypto cards on anything other than access, this is the section that decides it. The list is long and it is specific, which matters more than it sounds: a deposit sent on a network the provider does not support can be lost or need manual recovery with no guarantee, so every correctly-listed network is one class of mistake you cannot make.

Here is what you can send:

• Pix. Native Brazilian instant payments, in reais.
• Bitcoin, on-chain or over Lightning.
• USDT, but only on the Ethereum (ERC-20) network or Polygon. Solana is not accepted for USDT, which is the one exclusion here worth internalising because Solana is a popular default for USDT elsewhere.
• USDC, SOL, XRP and ETH, on their respective networks, also listed as accepted.

The Coin piggyback, Cofrinho, has a minimum of R$50. Deposit fees are not stated.

Two structural notes on where the money sits. The prepaid card’s limit can be enabled in crypto, with settlement governed by a clause in the Card Terms. The credit card is backed by reais you keep as collateral or guarantee. And your plan fees are debited from either the prepaid limit or your reais balance, so the plan has to be funded from somewhere even before you spend anything.

On the way out, there is a guide titled “Como sacar ou transferir Dolar (USDT)” and a stated limit of US$100,000 on international crypto transfers. I want to be careful here: those are titles and a limit, and I did not read the guide bodies. There is no plan or card cancellation fee, but if you cancel, Bipa may deduct amounts owed from your available balance, and cancelling the card does not cancel the plan. Those are two separate things, and conflating them is how people end up still paying a monthly fee for a card they think they have shut down.

Paying with it every day

Day-to-day, the Bipa card behaves like a prepaid card: you load value, and the card spends that value. It cannot overdraw, in the model where the balance is pre-loaded. You get a Mastercard, virtual and physical, on prepaid and credit, with the virtual card’s prepaid limit enabled in crypto. That is a reasonable everyday card for someone who wants to spend without a bank account in the traditional sense.

The reward is the headline feature, and it is a real one but a small one. Satsback pays you Bitcoin on card purchases, at 0% on Free, 0.5% on Plus, 1% on Pro and 1.5% on Max, with crypto bought using the card itself excluded. Timing depends on the mode: credit-card rewards post after you pay the invoice, prepaid rewards after settlement. There is a second, separate reward on the reais you hold as guarantee, expressed as a share of CDI: 75% of CDI on Free, 100% of CDI up to R$3,000 on Plus, 110% up to R$5,000 on Pro, and 115% up to R$5,000 on Max, requiring an active card. Read that second table as a rate on a balance you are holding anyway, not as a reward for spending.

Three practical realities of daily use. First, digital wallets: the card says it may be enabled in digital wallets according to eligibility. Apple Pay and Google Pay are not named, so do not assume your phone will accept it. Second, some merchants refuse prepaid or foreign BINs, because the merchant’s lookup reveals the card type and issuer country and the shop applies its own scrutiny when those disagree with your billing address. A Brazilian card can therefore look “foreign” in another country. Third, ATM use: cash withdrawal limits may be imposed daily, weekly or monthly, and the fee follows the unlisted table, so treat the ATM as the feature you plan rather than the one you improvise.

The app is where most of this is managed. The company claims an App Store rating of 4.8 and a Google Play rating of 4.7 across 20,000+ ratings and 300,000+ downloads. Treat those as the company’s own marketing numbers rather than independently verified ones, but they are at least a signal that people use the app.

If a payment goes wrong, the process is short and worth memorising before you need it. Report an unrecognised transaction within five days of the transaction. Stark Bank does a preliminary analysis and a final one “within the period defined by Stark Bank,” which is not a number. There is a seven-day right of withdrawal on online purchases. Bipa does not take responsibility for the dispute outcome, and a chargeback reverses the Satsback you earned on that purchase. So the reward is not protected if the purchase is clawed back.

What can go wrong

I want to separate two different kinds of risk here: what can go wrong with this card in particular, and what is true of crypto cards as a category. The category risks are not Bipa’s fault, but you are exposed to them if you use any card like this.

Company and issuer. The operating company is Bipa Intermediação de Ativos Digitais LTDA, CNPJ 37.008.710/0001-78, founded in 2020 in Brazil, described as both a payment institution and a virtual asset service provider, regulated by the Central Bank of Brazil as a company claim. The card issuer and BIN sponsor are named as Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento. The structure matters: the crypto brand is often only a programme manager or front end, while a licensed issuer holds the actual card programme. On security, the issuer is Stark Bank, a wrong PIN three times blocks the card, and you unlock it in the app; you report loss or theft to support to block; Bipa and Stark Bank say they never ask for your passwords; and Bipa answers for third-party misuse only after a block has been requested. Custody arrangements and any insurance are not stated, so I cannot tell you what happens to the crypto itself if something goes wrong at the provider.

Disputes and reversals. Report unrecognised transactions within five days. Bipa does not assume responsibility for the dispute outcome. Chargebacks reverse Satsback. Prepaid-card reversal rights vary by jurisdiction and should not be assumed.

Support. In-app chat under profile and Help Center, with replies promised up to 24 business hours; social media; email at [email protected]; hours Monday to Friday 09h–21h and Saturday to Sunday 09h–15h, time zone not stated. Portuguese only. If you do not read Portuguese, that is a real friction for this card.

The category risks, stated plainly. Crypto transferred to a custodial platform is controlled by the provider, so you are trusting them with the credentials entirely. Crypto transfers are typically irreversible and a stolen key has no built-in recovery; the network cannot freeze or return funds. Custodial platforms have a real record of failures, from Mt. Gox and Coincheck to Ronin Network. Stablecoins can and do depeg. A deposit on a network the provider does not support, or to an address of another network, can be lost. Card programmes get cancelled, sometimes with a notice period, then spending and loading stop and users are asked to withdraw. And on tax, in the US the IRS treats digital assets as property, so spending from crypto is generally a disposal measured in local fiat at the date of the transaction; I am not giving you tax advice, only telling you the rule exists in some jurisdictions.

None of that is a reason to avoid this card specifically. It is a reason to hold it with the same eyes you would hold any custodial crypto product.

What to take instead

I read the two closest alternatives to see whether Bipa’s gaps are gaps in the category or gaps in this card. Here is the comparison, honestly, including where the alternatives are also blank.

Where the alternatives beat Bipa. Nexo and Xplace state their foreign-exchange fees outright — Nexo quotes weekday and weekend percentages by region, Xplace advertises 0% FX on Platinum — while Bipa’s pages leave the FX rate treatment vague. Both also state their annual or monthly fee at zero. Xplace, the strongest of the set at 7.7, names a country-facing card acceptance footprint and a clear annual-fee ladder, and pays credit-mode cashback in USDC. If your priority is being able to compute your cost per payment before you make it, these are more forthcoming than Bipa.

Where Bipa holds its own. Top-up is Bipa’s genuine edge: Pix plus Bitcoin on-chain and Lightning plus USDT on two networks plus four more assets, none of which the others match in breadth. And Bipa is the only one of the four with no complaints page found on the complaint sites I checked, and with a named Brazilian issuer.

Where they are all still blank. Sponge states no fee, no FX, no eligibility at all; if you are comparing on transparency, it is as opaque as Bipa on the numbers and has less on the deposit rails. Nexo’s eligibility wording is residents and citizens of selected European countries, including the EEA and the UK, which is a firmer answer than Bipa’s silence but still not a country list, and excluded jurisdictions are not named. Xplace says only that services are not available in all jurisdictions, with Visa accepted in 160+ countries. Nobody in this set hands you a complete, unambiguous answer to “will you issue to me, and what will this cost.” That is a property of this corner of the market right now, not a flaw of one card.

My read: if you are a Brazilian resident who wants Bitcoin cashback and a broad set of deposit rails, Bipa is a reasonable pick. If you are elsewhere, or you need a predictable cost per transaction, one of the more transparent European or multi-jurisdiction options may serve you better — accepting that they trade away the Pix-and-Bitcoin convenience for stated fee schedules.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend the Bipa card to someone who already lives in Brazil, holds reais, plans to spend mostly in reais, and wants a small Bitcoin yield on ordinary purchases without giving up a Mastercard. The Satsback is real and it is paid automatically, the deposit options are the broadest I saw, and there is no visible complaint history to worry about. If you also want the credit line, Bipa Crédito with Bitcoin bought in up to three instalments is a distinctive feature.

I would not recommend it as a first card for someone who needs to know the exact cost of a foreign transaction, who plans to use ATMs abroad, or who needs support in a language other than Portuguese. Not because the card is bad, but because the pages will not tell you those things, and a card whose costs you cannot price is a poor fit for someone budgeting tightly.

And I would tell anyone outside Brazil, or anyone without a reliable banking relationship, to set expectations before they spend an afternoon on the sign-up. This is a Brazilian card. The application is Brazilian, the currency is Brazilian, the support is Portuguese, and the criteria for who gets issued are not published. If your plan B is a card that works where you live, Bipa may not be it, and the sign-up will cost you more time than the answer is worth.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Bipa card?

The Bipa card is a Mastercard you spend from a crypto balance, offered by a Brazilian company in four monthly plans from Free at R$0 to Max at R$99.90. It comes as a prepaid card and a credit card, each in virtual and physical form, and pays a small Bitcoin reward, called Satsback, on card purchases. The prepaid side draws on a balance you load; the credit side is backed by reais you hold as guarantee.

How does the Bipa card work day to day?

You top up the balance — in reais, Bitcoin, USDT, USDC, SOL, XRP or ETH — and then spend it like any Mastercard, in a shop or online. Purchases in crypto are converted and loaded as fiat value, so the card behaves like a prepaid card and cannot overdraw. Bitcoin cashback accrues on purchases, excluded for crypto bought with the card itself, and posts after settlement on prepaid or after the invoice is paid on credit.

Is Bipa a bank?

No — Bipa is a fintech, not a bank. The company is Bipa Intermediação de Ativos Digitais LTDA, a Brazilian firm founded in 2020 that describes itself as a payment institution and virtual asset service provider regulated by the Central Bank of Brazil. The card itself is issued by Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento, a licensed payment institution that holds the card programme. So your money and your card sit with licensed institutions, but Bipa is not a deposit-taking bank.

Can I get the Bipa card in my country?

The card’s public pages do not state who is eligible, so there is no published answer to give you. What they do make clear is that Bipa is Brazilian, its plans are priced in reais, and its credit card uses Brazilian risk criteria — it is designed for Brazilian residents. If you live elsewhere, expect to spend time finding out, and check whether your country is affected by restrictions on crypto services before you go further.

How do I get and apply for the Bipa card?

You sign up in the app, send a selfie and an identity document, and pass verification. The card may ask for updated registration data periodically, and the company may verify your information at any time. The service is for adults. After approval you choose a plan, which decides your card tier, whether the physical card is free, and your support level.

What does the Bipa card cost?

The monthly plan fees are Free R$0, Plus R$14.90, Pro R$49.90 and Max R$99.90, some waived by spending. The physical card is free on Pro and Max and carries an unstated fee on Free and Plus. The card conversion fee, the foreign-exchange charge, the ATM fee and deposit fees are not stated on the pages, and there is no plan or card cancellation fee. Budget the known plan fee, but treat the rest as unknown until you ask.

How do I top up the Bipa card?

You can send Brazilian Pix, Bitcoin on-chain or over Lightning, and USDT on the Ethereum or Polygon network — Solana is not accepted for USDT. USDC, SOL, XRP and ETH are also listed. The Cofrinho feature has a minimum of R$50. Deposit a coin only on a network the card explicitly supports, because a transfer on an unsupported network or to a wrong-network address can be lost.

Is the Bipa card safe?

The card uses standard safeguards: a PIN that blocks after three wrong tries, an app lock, and reporting loss to support. Bipa and Stark Bank say they never ask for your passwords. But this is a custodial card — the provider holds your crypto credentials — and crypto transfers are typically irreversible, so it carries the same counterparty and hack risk as any custodial platform. Custody and insurance arrangements are not stated.

Can I add the Bipa card to Apple Wallet or Google Pay?

The card says it may be enabled in digital wallets according to eligibility, but it does not name Apple Pay or Google Pay specifically. So the safest assumption is that your phone wallet support is not guaranteed, and you should confirm before relying on tap-to-pay. If you do add it to a digital wallet, the wallet replaces your card number with a device-specific token, which is safer than handing over the number itself.

What should I do if a payment on my Bipa card is wrong?

Report an unrecognised transaction to support within five days of the transaction. Stark Bank does a preliminary analysis and a final one within a period the card does not specify. For online purchases you have a seven-day right of withdrawal. Note that Bipa does not take responsibility for the dispute outcome, and if a chargeback succeeds, the Satsback you earned on that purchase is reversed.

Content created by the «cryptocardtested» team