A self-custody Visa card, funded in USDC, that gives anyone a payment line without a traditional bank account

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

The Tuyo card is a Visa debit card that spends directly from a USDC balance on the Base network. It is built for people who already hold their own crypto in a self-custody wallet and want a way to spend that balance in the real world without first cashing out to a bank. There is no monthly fee, no issuance fee, and a virtual card lands in the app the moment identity checks pass. The trade-off is a card that does not yet exist in plastic, a closed list of countries where it can be issued, and a rewards programme that is changing while you read this.

Conditions are current as of October 28, 2026.

Verdict

Tuyo earns 7.3 out of 10 in my assessment. That score is a balance between the things the card does well and the parts that still need work. The full breakdown is below; here is the short version.

What this means for you: if you already run a self-custody wallet and hold USDC, Tuyo is one of the cleaner ways to turn that balance into a payment card without trusting a custodian with your coins. If you live in one of the closed countries, you are out of luck. If you want a metal card tomorrow, this is not the product yet.

Who will they give you the card

Tuyo issues cards by verified residence, not by citizenship. The list of closed jurisdictions is long and worth checking carefully before you sign up, because the rule is enforced through your address, not your passport.

The platform blocks applications from twenty-seven countries by residence: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, North Korea, Russia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Venezuela, and Vietnam. The card provider layers a second list on top of that, which adds further issuance restrictions for Belarus, mainland China, Cuba, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Vietnam.

Russia is shut across the board: platform, card issuance, and card payments are all unavailable. Belarus is platform-blocked and card issuance is unavailable, but card payments can still be processed. In other words, Tuyo sign-ups are blocked in Belarus.

The United States is its own story. Twenty-five states and territories are not served: Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Everywhere else in the US, the card can be issued.

To qualify you need to be at least eighteen (the Terms of Service say so) and pass a single KYC check on a government-issued ID, either a passport or a national ID card. Proof of address is not listed as a separate document, but “verified residence” is checked, so the system will look at where you actually live. Sometimes applications fail because of document issues, photos that are too blurry to read, or occupation codes the system does not support, and a rejected application is final, with no second-chance flow. The processing time is not stated on the public pages.

If this section is making you wonder whether your country is on a list, check the in-app registration screen first. Users have reported that the app will say a country is eligible, you deposit funds, and only then the card is denied, so the safest move is to wait until the virtual card is actually issued before you send any USDC.

How to get it

The sign-up path is short: download the Tuyo app on iOS or Android, register an account, pass the identity check with a government ID, deposit USDC on Base, and the virtual Visa is issued in the app. There is no waiting period, no card to wait for in the post, and no separate approval step after the KYC decision lands.

You should know two things going in. First, the only card form is virtual for now, so “getting the card” means opening the app and finding it sitting in your card list, not opening an envelope. Tuyo says a physical card is “coming soon” but gives no date, price, or shipping time, and there is no information about replacement costs. Second, there is one verification level, not a tiered system where enhanced checks unlock higher limits. One document, one decision, one outcome.

The app is rated 4.4 out of 5 on the App Store from 130 ratings and 3.9 out of 5 on Google Play from around 305 reviews with more than 10,000 downloads, so the experience is broadly positive for most people, with a steady stream of complaints from those who hit edge cases. If the app shows a generic setup error during registration, the right move is to contact support so they can check whether something in your profile data is missing or wrong. Support can be reached in-app or by email at [email protected].

Fees

Issuing the card is free. There is no monthly or annual fee, and there is only one tier, so there is no paid version of the product to upgrade to. The fees that do exist are tied to how and where you spend.

The cardholder agreement (International version, November 2025) names 3% as the legal maximum for the foreign-exchange fee and another 3% as the legal maximum for the cross-border fee. The 1% you actually see in the app sits well below those caps. Crypto-to-crypto swaps and bridging tokens are exempt from the 0.25% conversion fee, which is a quiet bonus for people who move assets around inside the app.

A few everyday situations are worth walking through, because the totals depend on where you are and what currency you are spending in:

• A 50 USD coffee in New York paid in USD: zero card fees. The merchant pays its own processing rate, but nothing is added to your side of the transaction.
• A 50 EUR dinner in Berlin paid in EUR: 1% FX fee, no abroad fee (well, technically the 1% abroad fee does apply outside the US, so 2% total). On 50 EUR that is roughly 1 EUR.
• A 50 GBP supermarket shop in London paid in GBP: same 2% combined because you are outside the US spending in a non-USD currency. On 50 GBP that is about 1 GBP.
• A 30 USD ATM withdrawal in a country that does not use US dollars: the ATM operator’s own surcharge is added to the 30 USD, and the combined 30 USD plus any surcharge counts toward the 250 USD per-pull cap. Tuyo does not charge its own ATM fee.
• Converting 1,000 USDC to spend: 0.25% volume fee, so 2.50 USD on a 1,000 USD top-up. If the network is congested, the actual fee can be higher.

The “abroad” definition is US-centric, so any purchase settled outside the US picks up the additional 1%, even if the currency is USD. That is worth knowing for people who travel often or live near the US border and shop in US dollars across the line.

Top up

Funding the card is where Tuyo behaves differently from most crypto cards. The native fuel is USDC on Base, and the card spends from the USDC balance it calls Cash, which can include funds that are sitting in an active interest strategy. You are not converting into a hidden internal balance that you cannot see; the app shows the eligible dollar balance and draws from it at the moment of payment.

Crypto top-up works like this: you can deposit USDC directly on Base, or you can send any token on Base, Ethereum, Arbitrum, BNB Smart Chain, or Polygon, and the app will convert it to USDC inside Tuyo. Receiving USDC on Base is free for Tuyo, so the only cost is the network fee you pay on the sending side, which is what your wallet charges to push the transaction through Base. If you are sending from another network, the token arrives and the app converts it; if you are sending USDC on a different network, the app still expects the right network and address, and a mismatch is a one-way mistake.

Fiat top-up is covered in more ways than most cards bother with:

• Apple Pay and Google Pay from a linked debit or credit card.
• ACH or domestic USD wire from a US bank account (no SWIFT for USD).
• SEPA or SEPA Instant for EUR, from an account in your own name (no SWIFT for EUR either).
• SPEI for MXN from a Mexican bank account.
• USD bank transfer routing details, EUR IBAN, and MXN CLABE for the relevant currencies.

The FAQ describes the fiat-to-crypto conversion as carrying a “small FX spread (usually under 1%),” which is a useful number to keep in mind when you are comparing routes. If a 1% spread on a 1,000 USD top-up is fine, Apple Pay and Google Pay are usually the fastest. If a fraction of a percent matters, sending USDC on Base from your own wallet is cheaper. The minimum top-up amount is not stated anywhere in the public materials, so the practical floor is whatever your sending network or payment rail will let you push.

Withdrawals are where Tuyo’s self-custody story pays off: you can always withdraw your crypto back to your own wallet, even if KYC fails or your account is restricted. Tuyo describes this as “no lock-ups, no exceptions.” Fiat withdrawals go out by bank transfer using the same USD, EUR, and MXN account details. No specific withdrawal fee is stated, so the only cost is the standard trading or network fee that applies to any on-chain move.

Paying with it every day

Once the card is in the app, you can add it to Apple Pay or Google Pay and start spending immediately, online and in stores. The app also exposes a card-freeze toggle, a PIN, and a daily spending limit you can adjust, which is the kind of control you want when the card is a hot wallet attached to a phone.

A few patterns are worth knowing in advance. Some merchant categories are blocked, and if a transaction is rejected the app shows a generic “Merchant not supported” message without telling you which category triggered the block. Gambling merchants fall into this bucket on many cards, but Tuyo does not publish its full blocked list, so the only way to find out is to try. Apple or Google can also reject the addition of a card to their wallet based on their own risk checks, looking at the device, the location, or the account history, which is outside Tuyo’s control.

The physical card is the missing piece. Tuyo describes it as “coming soon” without a date, a price, or a delivery time. If you want a card you can hand to a waiter or insert into an ATM, this is not that product yet. The virtual card works everywhere Visa debit is accepted online, and in stores when added to a phone wallet, which covers most everyday situations in 2026.

There is no traditional cashback programme right now, and that is going to change twice in the next few months. The current programme is called BNPM, which stands for Buy Now Pay Maybe, and it works like this: at Tuyo’s sole discretion, some purchases are randomly made free. The co-founder announced on 20 October 2026 that BNPM is shutting down on 31 October 2026, citing user exploitation, mounting costs, and team distraction. From 1 November 2026, a 1.5% cashback on every purchase globally replaces it, with no minimums, caps, categories, or membership requirements, and the offer is guaranteed only through the end of 2026. A token launch is expected in 2026, and at least 20% of the supply is earmarked for users and the community.

A second, smaller programme is the TUYOs points system, which earns points from card spend, trading, and Earn strategies. TUYOs are off-chain points rather than a tradable token, so you cannot send or sell them, and the expected 2026 token generation event will turn some of them into a real token. The details of that conversion have not been published.

What can go wrong

Tuyo Inc. is a financial technology company, not a bank. Fiat currency services, which cover the fiat-to-stablecoin conversion and the virtual bank account numbers you get in USD, EUR, and MXN, are run by Bridge Ventures, Inc., a licensed money transmitter in the United States that is also compliant in the US and EEA. The card itself is issued through a partner called Rain, which sits under Signify Holdings, Inc., under a Visa licence, with the actual issuer being a licensed partner institution. Tuyo Inc.’s own registration jurisdiction is not stated on its site; a third-party directory, tracxn.com, lists it as Delaware, but that is unofficial and not confirmed by the card issuer.

The security model leans heavily on self-custody. The user holds the private keys, and Tuyo never takes custody of funds, so losing your seed phrase or sending to a phishing address is on you, not the company. The app uses biometrics (Face ID on iOS) and the device secure enclave for key storage, with iCloud or Google Drive backup. A card-freeze toggle, a settable PIN, and a daily spending limit you can adjust from the app round out the controls. Funds are not FDIC-insured, and there is no insurance wrapper around your USDC if Tuyo or one of its partners fails.

A small set of recurring complaints is worth taking seriously. The first is app behaviour after KYC: a Trustpilot review from September 2026 described the app freezing after verification, requiring a reinstall, then locking the user out, with support taking days to respond. The second is the BNPM programme itself: a Trustpilot user wrote in October 2026 that the random free-purchase frequency “dropped sharply after the first couple of months” and that charges stopped being covered entirely after a while, which is a sentiment that has come up in multiple reviews. The third is country eligibility: a Google Play reviewer in July 2026 said the app showed their country as eligible, they deposited 110 USDC, and the card was then denied, with support telling them their country was not on the list. The pattern in those stories is the same: the app gives an early green light, the user funds the account, and the system reverses the decision later.

The status page at status.tuyo.com shows no service incidents for August through October 2026, which is good news, but the public help centre does not address chargebacks, disputed transactions, or refunds, and time frames for those processes are not stated. The international cardholder agreement (November 2025) is on Notion, and the page is not readable as HTML, so the practical recourse if something goes wrong with a purchase is the in-app support channel.

A separate story worth knowing is the June 2026 Forbes interview with the Rain CEO, who said his company was “not looking at or doing” probabilistic rewards like BNPM, citing legal and regulatory concerns. That interview is one of the reasons BNPM is being shut down rather than relaunched in a different form.

What to take instead

If Tuyo does not fit your situation, three other cards are worth comparing against. They cover different angles: TokenPocket for a wallet-led experience in Europe and parts of Asia-Pacific, MetaMask for a wallet-native card on Linea and Base, and KAST for a tiered programme that runs on stablecoins.

What the comparison shows: TokenPocket is the wallet-led option for people who already use TokenPocket, but the absence of a stated FX fee and the dependence on a refundable 1% deposit fee make it harder to budget for. MetaMask is the closer competitor for the self-custody crowd, with a Metal tier that has a price tag and a rewards structure that is more transparent than Tuyo’s transitional setup. KAST is the only one in the group with stablecoin deposits on Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Tron, and the only one with a physical card, but the entry-level price for a Premium card is 1,000 USD per year, which puts it in a different category altogether.

If the deciding factor for you is keeping your own keys, both Tuyo and MetaMask keep the funds in your own wallet until the moment of payment. If the deciding factor is the rewards, MetaMask’s 1% on the free Virtual card and 3% on Metal is more predictable than the BNPM-to-cashback transition Tuyo is running right now. If the deciding factor is a physical card today, KAST is the one that ships it, with a Standard physical card at a 40 USD delivery fee on top of the 0 USD card cost.

Who I would recommend it to

Tuyo is a good fit if you are already a self-custody user, hold USDC, and want a card that draws from your own balance without trusting a custodian. The 0.25% conversion fee, the free USDC-on-Base receiving, and the in-app support for sending any token on five major networks make it a clean bridge between your wallet and a payment terminal. The virtual card is ready the moment KYC clears, and Apple Pay and Google Pay extend that into the real world.

The card is not a good fit if you live in one of the twenty-seven closed countries, in any of the twenty-five closed US states or territories, or if you need a physical card today. The 1% abroad fee and the 1% FX fee together can add up to 2% on every foreign-currency purchase outside the US, which is fine for occasional travel but expensive if you live abroad and pay in a non-USD currency daily. The rewards programme is in transition, with BNPM ending on 31 October 2026 and 1.5% cashback from 1 November 2026 being standard, so anyone signing up now is buying into a moving target.

If you are the kind of reader who already runs a hardware wallet and keeps a USDC balance for spending, the 7.3 I scored Tuyo lines up with the experience you should expect: a card that does the obvious thing well, with caveats around geography and the absence of plastic.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Tuyo card?

The Tuyo card is a Visa debit card that spends directly from a USDC balance held on the Base network. You top it up with USDC or any token on Base, Ethereum, Arbitrum, BNB Smart Chain, or Polygon, and the app converts what you send into USDC, which is what the card draws from. A virtual card is issued the moment KYC clears.

How does the Tuyo card work?

You download the app, register, verify your identity with a government-issued ID, deposit USDC on Base, and the virtual card is added to your account. When you pay, the card converts USDC to the currency you need, applies a 1% FX fee on non-USD spend, and an extra 1% on purchases outside the US, then routes the payment through Visa. You can also add the card to Apple Pay or Google Pay.

Is Tuyo a bank?

No. Tuyo Inc. is a financial technology company, not a bank. Fiat currency services are provided by Bridge Ventures, Inc., a licensed money transmitter in the US. The card itself is issued through a partner called Rain (Signify Holdings, Inc.) under a Visa licence, with the actual issuer being a licensed partner institution. Funds are not FDIC-insured.

Who owns Tuyo?

Tuyo is owned by Tuyo Inc., whose registration jurisdiction is not stated on its own site. A third-party business directory, tracxn.com, lists it as a Delaware company, but that is unofficial and not confirmed by the card issuer. Fiat flows through Bridge Ventures, and cards are issued by licensed partners under the Rain brand.

Is the Tuyo card available in my country?

Tuyo issues cards based on verified residence. The platform blocks twenty-seven countries, including Russia, Belarus, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, India, China, and Vietnam, and the card provider adds its own issuance restrictions on top of that. Twenty-five US states and territories are also excluded. The only way to know for sure is to start the sign-up flow and see what the app says before you deposit any funds.

How do I get the Tuyo card?

Download the Tuyo app on iOS or Android, register, complete identity verification with a government-issued ID such as a passport or national ID card, deposit USDC on Base, and the virtual card is issued instantly in the app. A physical card is described as “coming soon” with no announced date, price, or delivery time.

Does the Tuyo card require KYC?

Yes. Tuyo runs a single KYC check on a government-issued ID document, either a passport or a national ID card. There is no tiered system with basic and enhanced levels. The minimum age is 18, and a rejected application is final, with the stated reasons being document issues, unclear photos, or unsupported occupation codes.

How do I top up the Tuyo card?

The native route is USDC on Base, which is free to receive. You can also send any token on Base, Ethereum, Arbitrum, BNB Smart Chain, or Polygon and convert it to USDC inside the app. Fiat routes include Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, domestic USD wire, SEPA, SEPA Instant, and SPEI for MXN. The FAQ describes the fiat-to-crypto spread as “usually under 1%,” and the minimum top-up is not stated.

How do I add the Tuyo card to Apple Wallet or Google Pay?

Once the virtual card is in the app, open the card details, choose the add-to-wallet option, and follow your phone’s prompts. Apple or Google can reject the addition based on their own risk checks, which look at the device, the location, or the account history, and that decision is outside Tuyo’s control. If the wallet addition fails, contact the wallet provider first.

Is the Tuyo card safe?

The card is self-custodial, which means the user controls the private keys and Tuyo never takes custody of the funds. The app uses biometrics and the device secure enclave for key storage, with iCloud or Google Drive backup. There is a card-freeze toggle, a settable PIN, and an adjustable daily spending limit, and the card supports tokenised payments through Apple Pay and Google Pay. Funds are not FDIC-insured, and chargeback and dispute processes are not described in the public help centre, so for any major purchase the usual caution applies.

Content created by the «cryptocardtested» team