A Brazilian-first crypto card with Bitcoin rewards, but most of the detail you would want is missing

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

Bipa is a Brazilian crypto platform that issues a Mastercard prepaid card and a credit card (Bipa Crédito), both available in virtual and physical form, with rewards paid in Bitcoin. The company behind it, Bipa Intermediação de Ativos Digitais LTDA, was founded in 2020 and is regulated by the Central Bank of Brazil; the card programme itself is run with Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento, which is named as the issuer. The idea is simple: you fund the card in reais, in Pix, or in crypto such as Bitcoin, USDT, USDC, SOL, XRP or ETH, and you earn “Satsback,” a share of every purchase back in Bitcoin, alongside a yield on any reais you keep as collateral for the credit card.

Conditions are current as of October 28, 2026.

That pitch sounds tidy, but the review that follows takes a cooler look. Bipa is built for Brazilian residents first, the public pages do not publish a fee schedule for card spending, and several basics, such as who exactly can apply, what FX costs, what ATM fees apply, and which digital wallets the card works with, are simply not stated. Before you decide, the most useful thing you can do is read the sections that match your situation: the “who” section if you are outside Brazil, the “costs” section if you plan to spend, the “top up” section if you want to pay from crypto, and the “risks” section no matter who you are.

The conditions described here are current as of October 2026.

Verdict

Bipa earns 5.9 out of 10, with the strongest marks for funding options and the weakest for accessibility. The card makes sense for a Brazilian resident who wants Bitcoin cashback in reais, will be paying in BRL most of the time, and is comfortable that several everyday costs are not publicly disclosed. It does not make sense for anyone outside Brazil, anyone who needs published FX and ATM fees before they apply, or anyone who wants a credit card they can take to a foreign country without surprises.

Here is the score broken down by criterion.

The single largest issue is not the card itself; it is the silence around it. The plan fees, the reward rates, the issuer, the company registration and the funding methods are all in the open, but the practical details, such as FX margin, ATM charges, credit limit, accepted documents, and the digital wallets you can add it to, are not. If you cannot live with that, the rest of the review will not change your mind.

Who will they give you the card

Bipa is built for Brazilian residents first. The company is registered in Brazil, the plans are priced in Brazilian reais, the credit card uses Brazilian risk criteria, and the only on-ramp that feels native to the product is Pix, Brazil’s instant-payment rail. The public pages do not state a formal eligibility checklist: there is no published list of accepted countries, documents, processing times, or minimum income. What the card’s terms do say is that the application is for an adult individual, that Bipa may ask for updated registration data from time to time, and that giving false information can lead to suspension and cancellation of the card.

In practice, that means a non-Brazilian reader is very likely to fall at the first hurdle. If you do not have a Brazilian address, a CPF (the Brazilian individual taxpayer number), and a way to verify your identity against Brazilian records, the sign-up flow is not going to reach the finish line. The card terms, which were not read in full, govern issuance, use, guarantees and disputes, and those terms are written in Portuguese for a Brazilian context.

For a Brazilian resident, the picture is friendlier. You can sign up, complete identity verification, and pick a plan. Credit-card approval depends on Bipa’s analysis of your risk profile, and Bipa Crédito lets you buy Bitcoin on credit in up to three installments, which is a distinct feature from the prepaid card. The prepaid card is the simpler product: you top it up, you spend what is on it, and the card cannot go overdrawn. The two cards sit in the same app, on the same Mastercard rails, with the same rewards structure, but they are not the same product.

The key thing to keep in mind is that the card’s published pages do not give you a list of countries or a list of accepted documents. If you are reading this from abroad, treat that as the answer: do not apply and assume the form will tell you; the form may simply refuse to proceed, or it may let you start and then stall. If you are in Brazil, the questions to check first are whether you have a CPF, a valid photo ID, and a working Pix key tied to a bank account in your name.

How to get it

The sign-up is a standard two-step flow: download the app, create an account, and complete identity verification with a selfie and a document. Bipa may ask you for updated registration data later, and Stark Bank and Bipa can both re-verify the data at any time. Credit-card approval is separate and depends on prior analysis; the prepaid card is tied to whatever balance you load, so it does not need that approval.

There is a virtual card and a physical card. The virtual card is the default, and the prepaid balance can be “enabled in crypto” — a phrase the card’s terms use for converting crypto into a spendable balance. The physical card is free on the Pro and Max plans and paid on the Free and Plus plans; the exact fee on Free and Plus is not stated. Delivery time is “per the periods informed by support channels,” which is another way of saying the company does not commit publicly to a number; a Brazilian delivery address is implied throughout.

Tier-wise, the four plans map onto Mastercard tiers: Free and Plus are Gold, Pro is Platinum, and Max is Black. The plan is what you pay each month; the card tier is what you carry. Choosing the right plan is mostly a question of how much you plan to spend, because plan fees are partly waived by usage, and the cashback rate rises with the plan.

If you want the credit card, the practical sequence is: complete KYC, then await approval, then request a virtual or physical card. If you only want the prepaid card, you can fund it as soon as the account is open. In both cases, the card is denominated in BRL, the country’s real, which matters for anyone who was hoping for a multi-currency card.

Fees: what it really costs

This is where the review has to be honest about what is, and is not, in the public materials. The plan fees are clear, the cashback rates are clear, and the existence of certain costs is clear, but the actual numbers for the card’s spending fees are not. The official fee table, the Tabela de Tarifas, is referenced in the terms but was not read in full, so the card’s public pages do not tell you what you will pay to spend in a foreign currency, what an ATM withdrawal costs, or what the credit-card interest is.

Here is what is published, organised as a single reference.

CDI is the Brazilian interbank rate, a local benchmark. Saying you earn “110% of CDI” on collateral means your reais, kept as a guarantee against the credit card, earn that share of the local benchmark. The cap is the amount above which the rate drops: on Pro, you get 110% on the first R$5,000 and a lower share above that.

Three everyday scenarios will give you a feel for the cost picture, with the caveat that the fees themselves are not published.

A coffee bought in São Paulo. The merchant settles in BRL, the card settles in BRL, and there is no foreign-currency step. The Satsback rate depends on your plan: nothing on Free, 0.5% on Plus, 1% on Pro, 1.5% on Max. Crypto bought with the card is excluded from Satsback, so if you are using the credit card to buy Bitcoin in three installments, that purchase is not rewarded. There is no public conversion fee for this scenario because the currency is the same.

A meal paid in US dollars while travelling. The card is a BRL card, the merchant settles in USD, and the card has to convert. The card’s terms say only that the FX rate “may be higher or lower than the BCB average rate” and that the user is responsible for any remittance taxes; the IOF rate, a Brazilian financial-transaction tax, is not named. So you can expect a spread on the FX, plus a tax the card does not spell out, and you will not know either number until you see the statement. This is the scenario where “not stated” hurts the most.

An ATM withdrawal. Daily, weekly or monthly limits may be imposed, the fees follow the Tabela de Tarifas and your plan, and the amounts are not listed. There is no published cap on cash withdrawals, no published fee per withdrawal, and no published note on whether the ATM operator adds its own surcharge. The conservative read is to assume a fee plus a limit; the exact numbers are only known after you have the card.

The one cost the card does not seem to charge is a plan or card cancellation fee, which is small comfort but worth noting. If you cancel the card, the plan stays active, and Bipa may deduct amounts you owe from the available balance.

Top up: how to fund the card

Funding is the strongest part of the product. Pix is supported natively, which is what a Brazilian user expects, and the crypto list is unusually broad for a regional card: Bitcoin, both on-chain and on the Lightning Network, USDT on Ethereum (ERC-20) or Polygon, plus USDC, SOL, XRP and ETH, on their own networks. The card terms are explicit that USDT on Solana is not accepted, which is a useful detail because it stops you from sending a deposit you cannot recover.

There is also a “Cofrinho” feature, a small savings pocket, with a minimum of R$50. Crypto is converted and credited to the prepaid balance per the card terms (clause 5.9), and the credit card is backed by reais you keep as collateral, which is where the CDI yield comes in. Plan fees are debited from the prepaid limit or from your reais balance.

A few practical things to know if you are about to send crypto. First, the network matters: USDT on Ethereum and Polygon only, USDT on Solana is rejected, USDC has its own network rules, and so on. Second, blockchain transfers are irreversible, so a deposit sent on the wrong network can be lost or stuck in support with no guarantee. Third, on Ethereum, the gas fee is paid in ETH, so a wallet that holds only USDT and no ETH will not be able to send; this is a feature of the network, not of Bipa, but it surprises people.

A separate guide on the Bipa site covers how to withdraw or transfer dollars (USDT), and there is a US$100,000 limit on international crypto transfers; the figures come from the title of a help-centre article, not from the body text, so treat them as the stated cap rather than a detailed explanation. There is no published fee on deposits themselves, and the cost you pay is the network’s, such as Ethereum gas or Lightning routing fees, not Bipa’s.

For a Brazilian user, the everyday flow is Pix in, prepaid balance up, spend. For a crypto user, the flow is convert or transfer in, prepaid balance up in BRL, spend. In both cases, the prepaid card cannot go overdrawn, which is one of the main reasons a prepaid model exists at all.

Paying with it every day

The card is a Mastercard, prepaid and credit, virtual and physical, with a tier ladder that follows the plan. The tier mostly affects the look and feel of the card, the support channel, and the Satsback rate, not the underlying acceptance: a Gold and a Black both run on Mastercard rails and both work where Mastercard is taken.

There are practical limits to that. The prepaid card is a stored-balance product, so it cannot spend what is not on it, and some merchants decline prepaid cards outright; the public page does not name a blocked merchant category code (MCC) list, which is a four-digit number that classifies a business, so you would have to test it. The credit card uses Brazilian risk criteria for the limit, and the limit can be raised with an extra deposit and a guarantee, but the numbers are not published. Merchants may also set their own minimum and maximum per transaction, which is normal and not a Bipa-specific issue.

Mobile wallets are partly supported. The card “may be enabled in digital wallets according to eligibility,” and Apple Pay and Google Pay are not named. Some transactions classified as MoneySend by the processor, which is a Mastercard person-to-person transfer type, are blocked, but no broader MCC blocklist is published. The reasonable read is that tokenised mobile-wallet support is best-effort and varies by region, so you should test it with a small transaction before relying on it.

Rewards in practice work like this. Satsback posts in Bitcoin on card purchases; crypto bought with the card is excluded. On the credit card, Satsback posts after the invoice is paid; on the prepaid card, it posts after the purchase is settled. A separate reward, the collateral reward, pays BTC on the reais you keep as a guarantee against the credit card, at the rates in the table above, and requires an active card.

App ratings, taken as a company claim, are App Store 4.8 and Google Play 4.7 across more than 20,000 ratings and 300,000+ downloads, read on 2026-10-20. Ratings are not a guarantee, but a 4.7+ across both stores is a respectable signal.

Disputes follow a published path: you have five days from a transaction you do not recognise to report it, Stark Bank runs a preliminary analysis, the final analysis happens within a period defined by Stark Bank, and the number of days is not stated. Brazilian consumer law gives a 7-day right of withdrawal for online purchases. Chargebacks reverse any Satsback tied to the disputed transaction, and Bipa does not guarantee the outcome of the dispute. If you rely on a fast dispute window, that five-day rule is the most important number to remember.

What can go wrong

The first risk to understand is country. The card is built for Brazil and is not presented as a global product; the public pages do not list accepted countries. If you are outside Brazil, you should not assume you can apply or, if you do get a card, that you can spend freely in a foreign currency. Foreign use is described as limited to travel and personal expenses and is available on the credit mode only, which is narrower than a typical travel card.

The second risk is the fee gap. FX margin, ATM fees, and crypto-conversion fees are not published. You can know that you will pay them, because the terms reference the Tabela de Tarifas, but you cannot know how much. This is not a hidden fee, exactly, but it is a fee you cannot price before you start.

The third risk is the credit-card mechanics. Bipa Crédito lets you buy Bitcoin on credit in up to three installments, which is convenient but also a credit product. The interest rate and the total cost of credit are not stated in the public materials, so any reader who treats the credit card as a free Bitcoin piggy bank is making a category error. If the rates are higher than the BTC yield, the trade is negative.

The fourth risk is the company behind it. Bipa Intermediação de Ativos Digitais LTDA (CNPJ 37.008.710/0001-78) was founded in 2020 in Brazil and is described as both a payment institution and a VASP, a virtual-asset service provider, regulated by the Central Bank of Brazil. The card issuer is Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento. The card’s BIN sponsor, which is the bank whose identifier number is stamped on the card, is not named on the public pages. The company reports an R$17 million funding round from Ego Death Capital; this is undated and presented on the company page.

The fifth risk is operational. PIN wrong three times blocks the card, which you can unlock in the app. Loss and theft should be reported to support so the card can be blocked; until the block is in place, Bipa answers only for third-party misuse after the block is requested. Custody insurance is not stated. Support channels are an in-app chat, a help-centre form with up to 24 business hours’ reply, social media, and email at [email protected], on Monday to Friday 09h-21h and weekends 09h-15h; the time zone is not stated, and Portuguese is the only listed language.

The sixth risk is the public complaint picture. A targeted search for Bipa card complaints on Reclame Aqui, a major Brazilian consumer-complaints site, and Trustpilot, a global review platform, found no pages. That is not a clean bill of health — the absence of complaints is not the same as the presence of satisfied users — but it is also not a red flag. Bipa’s own marketing material claims a 4.8 rating from more than 26,000 reviews; that number is the company’s own claim, unverified by the review process here.

The seventh risk is a category risk: a card programme can be closed. Programmes are usually wound down with a notice period, after which new loads stop, then spending stops, then you withdraw your balance. This is a generic risk for any card product and not a Bipa-specific finding.

What to take instead

Three alternatives cover the cases Bipa does not serve well. The numbers below are scores from the same research effort, not from this review.

Nexo, 6.3 / 10

Nexo is for European and UK residents and citizens of “selected European countries, including the EEA and the United Kingdom.” The card is virtual and physical, issued by DiPocket UAB; the card network is implied by a Mastercard trademark notice on the page but not stated explicitly, and the card currency is not stated (ATM allowances are quoted in EUR and GBP). There is no monthly, annual, or inactivity fee, the virtual card needs at least $50 in the account to activate, and the physical card is free to ship but requires more than $5,000 in digital assets and at least Gold tier to get.

The fee structure is more transparent than Bipa’s. FX on weekdays is 0.2% in the EEA, UK and Switzerland and 2% elsewhere; on weekends, 0.7% and 2.5%. Crypto-conversion fees are not stated. Cashback is paid in NEXO tokens or Bitcoin and only in Credit Mode, with a $5,000 holding requirement, and the rate depends on the share of NEXO in the portfolio. The pitch is “European, transparent fees, credit-mode cashback.” The catch is that cashback needs a meaningful NEXO balance, and the credit-mode logic is not for everyone.

Worth flagging: a 2025-era news report (Cointelegraph, unofficial) describes a Bulgarian police raid on Nexo’s Sofia office over alleged Russia-sanctions and AML violations. No official Nexo statement on Russian users was found in public records. This is an unofficial report and not a confirmed sanction action, but it is part of the picture for any reader worried about regulatory exposure.

Pay3, 6.3 / 10

Pay3 is open to users outside its “Restricted Locations,” a list of countries under trade sanctions, export controls, or crypto/fintech prohibitions; the list is not published and can change. The card-terms require users to attest that they are not a US citizen and not OFAC-blocked, which is the US sanctions list, so US persons are excluded by the user’s own attestation.

The card is virtual, physical, and supports Apple Pay and Google Pay, and runs on Visa. Card issuance “starts at $5,” and card spend starts at $0.15 per transaction; monthly and annual fees are not stated, and fees vary by card type, currency, and location. Currency conversion starts at 1.15%, foreign-exchange on non-USD transactions up to 3%, cross-border up to 3%, foreign-transaction up to 3%, so the realistic worst-case spread is meaningful. Cashback is not stated. The pitch is “global, low-friction issuance, mobile wallets out of the box.” The catch is that the eligibility list is opaque and US users are excluded.

Exa, 6.2 / 10

Exa is the most international of the four cards in this review. The card is issued in 45 countries (including Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, and the UAE; Nigeria is conditional) and 31 US states, with 18 ineligible countries including Belarus, China, India, Iran, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Russia. The rule is by residence: “Russian residents cannot be issued a card,” and spending is blocked in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela. That explicit country-level transparency is unusual and worth knowing.

The card is a virtual Visa (Visa Signature Exa Credit Card), accepted at more than 150 million merchants in more than 150 countries; the help centre has an article titled “Is there a physical card?” whose answer was not read. The card is marketed as free, but the help-centre article on associated fees and costs was not read, so the page does not publish amounts. Funding comes from the user’s self-custody Exa App, with the card spending via Pay Now or installments against collateral. No cashback is stated; “Earn while you spend” refers to yield on assets, not purchase rewards, and there is a US activation reward (spend $100, get $20 in XRP via Uphold) and a 20% off Airalo eSIM deal.

The pitch is “global, self-custody-backed, country-list transparency.” The catch is that fees and the existence of a physical card are not visible on the public page; you have to read the help centre, and the data was not read for this review.

A short summary of how the four compare.

Who I would recommend it to

Bipa is a reasonable second card or first crypto card for a Brazilian resident who plans to spend mostly in reais, will earn Satsback on everyday purchases, and is comfortable with a credit-card product whose interest rate and total cost of credit are not publicly stated. The prepaid side is the easier recommendation: top up via Pix, spend in BRL, and collect small Bitcoin rewards; the limits and fees you can live with, because most of what you would do is in BRL with no FX step. The credit side is the harder recommendation: it is convenient, especially the option to buy Bitcoin in up to three installments, but it is also a credit product, and the published materials do not show the APR or the IOF.

Bipa is a poor fit for anyone outside Brazil, anyone who needs a published FX margin before they apply, anyone who needs explicit Apple Pay or Google Pay support, anyone who needs to see a fee schedule before they take a card to a foreign country, and anyone who needs an ATM cost in writing. For those readers, the alternatives in the previous section cover the ground that Bipa leaves empty: Nexo for transparent European fees with a holding requirement, Pay3 for mobile-wallet reach outside the US, and Exa for an explicit country list and a self-custody model.

If you are inside Brazil and want to try Bipa, the practical advice is to start on the Free or Plus plan, load a small prepaid balance, test a Pix top-up, test a small crypto top-up on a network you control, and watch the statement for FX, ATM and conversion entries. The published fee schedule, the Tabela de Tarifas, is referenced in the card terms, and you should ask support for it before you commit to a higher plan or a meaningful balance.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Bipa card?

The Bipa card is a Mastercard prepaid card and a Mastercard credit card (Bipa Crédito) issued through Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento, marketed by Brazilian crypto company Bipa Intermediação de Ativos Digitais LTDA. You fund it in reais (BRL), Pix, or supported crypto such as Bitcoin, USDT, USDC, SOL, XRP and ETH, and you earn “Satsback” rewards paid in Bitcoin on card purchases, at rates that depend on your plan.

How does the Bipa card work?

You sign up, complete identity verification, and either load a prepaid balance or apply for the credit card. The prepaid card spends only what is on it, the credit card spends against a limit set by Bipa. When you pay, the merchant receives BRL through Mastercard rails, and a share of the purchase is rewarded to you in Bitcoin, excluding crypto bought with the card.

Is Bipa a bank?

Bipa is not a bank. The company is registered as a payment institution and a VASP (virtual-asset service provider) in Brazil. The card programme is run with Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento, which is the named issuer. Brazilian financial-sector rules apply, but this is not a banking licence in the traditional sense.

Who owns Bipa?

Bipa is operated by Bipa Intermediação de Ativos Digitais LTDA (CNPJ 37.008.710/0001-78), founded in 2020 in Brazil. The company describes itself as regulated by the Central Bank of Brazil. The card is offered jointly with BIPA Instituicao de Pagamento Ltda (CNPJ 40.910.463/0001-05) and Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento. Investor details beyond an R$17 million round from Ego Death Capital are not stated in the public materials.

Is the Bipa card available outside Brazil?

The public pages do not state an accepted-country list. The product is built for Brazilian residents, with plans priced in reais, Pix as the primary top-up, and a credit-card analysis based on Brazilian risk criteria. If you live outside Brazil, you should not assume you can apply; check the sign-up form for your country before you start.

Does the Bipa card require KYC?

Yes. The sign-up asks for a selfie and a document, and Bipa and Stark Bank may re-verify the data at any time. The card’s terms say that false information can lead to suspension and cancellation. Accepted documents, processing times and verification levels are not stated on the public pages.

How do I top up the Bipa card?

You can top up the prepaid card in reais via Pix, in Bitcoin (on-chain or Lightning), in USDT on Ethereum (ERC-20) or Polygon, or in USDC, SOL, XRP or ETH on their own networks. USDT on Solana is not accepted. The credit card is backed by reais you keep as collateral. On-chain transfer fees are charged by the network, not by Bipa, and irreversible.

Is the Bipa card free?

The Free plan has a R$0 monthly fee. The Plus plan is R$14.90, Pro is R$49.90, and Max is R$99.90, and these are partly waived by usage. The physical card is free on Pro and Max and paid on Free and Plus; the exact fee on Free and Plus is not stated. Card spending fees (FX, ATM, conversion) are referenced in the Tabela de Tarifas but the amounts are not published.

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

The card “may be enabled in digital wallets according to eligibility,” and Apple Pay and Google Pay are not named on the public pages. Treat mobile-wallet support as best-effort: try a small transaction in your region before relying on it for everyday spending, and check the help centre for the latest list of supported wallets.

Is the Bipa card worth it?

For a Brazilian resident who spends mostly in BRL, the answer is “probably, on the prepaid side, once you have read the Tabela de Tarifas.” For anyone outside Brazil, or anyone who needs published FX and ATM fees, the answer is “no, the published materials are not enough to make a confident decision.” Use the alternatives section to compare cards whose fees and eligibility are clearer.

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