Prepaid card

A prepaid card holds a balance you’ve loaded in advance. Unlike a debit card (wired to a bank account) or a credit card (a line you borrow against), it can only spend what you’ve already put on it.

Why it matters: the “load first” model shapes how a crypto card feels day to day. You top it up — often by converting crypto to a spendable balance — and that balance is your hard ceiling, which makes overspending almost impossible but means a forgotten top-up can leave a payment declined at the till. Reload mechanics are worth reading too: minimum top-up amounts, a fee on some funding methods, sometimes an inactivity fee on a dormant balance. None of that is a dealbreaker, but it’s a different rhythm from tapping a card that pulls straight from your bank.

For example: the Crypto.com Visa is a reloadable prepaid card — you top it up before you use it, and spend down from that balance. It’s custodial (Crypto.com holds the funds and your topped-up balance), and any cashback is paid in the CRO reward token rather than added back to your spendable balance as cash. So the card caps your spending at what you’ve loaded, while the rewards arrive separately, in crypto.