The Brazilian crypto card that pays you back in Bitcoin — and what it costs

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

Bipa is a Brazilian crypto card: a Mastercard that you spend from a crypto or reais balance, priced in Brazilian reais, with Bitcoin cashback on purchases and a prepaid side you can load in crypto. It sounds simple, and the parts of it that are documented are decent — good top-up options, a named issuer, no complaint record I could find, a Visa-free Mastercard rather than an experimental network. What I cannot find is just as important: Bipa’s public pages do not say who is eligible, do not publish the card’s foreign-exchange or conversion fees, do not list ATM charges, and do not give you a single limit figure. On top of that, the whole thing is built for Brazil. My score is 5.9 out of 10 — not because it is a bad card, but because you are being asked to make a decision on a product that publishes its prices and hides its rules.

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

If you are outside Brazil, this is not your card and I would not spend more of your attention on it. If you are in Brazil, cannot get a normal bank card, and do not mind checking prices in the app before you pay, it is a legitimate option — just not a no-thought one.

Verdict: 5.9 out of 10, and that number hides the shape of the problem

The single most useful thing in that table is the 2. Everything else sits between 6 and 8; the access mark sits at 2, and an access mark of 2 drags the total down more than the others lift it up.

Here is who it suits: Brazilian residents who want Bitcoin cashback in reais. That is the audience the card is built for, and it is the audience I would hand it to. The Satsback, the Pix integration, the plan prices in reais, the Brazilian risk criteria on the credit side — it all fits together. If you live in Brazil, spend mostly in reais, want a card that pays you back in Bitcoin, and have a habit of checking the app before you travel, it will do its job.

Here is who it does not suit: anyone outside Brazil. Anyone who needs to know the exact cost of a transaction in a foreign currency before they make it, because the FX rate is not published. Anyone who plans to use a digital wallet on a daily basis, because Apple Pay and Google Pay are not named. Anyone who wants a card with an unambiguous eligibility rule, because nobody will tell you who gets one.

Let me be honest about what my score is measuring. It is not a quality score. The card is competently made: the issuer is named, the regulator is named, the top-up menu is better than most, and there is no complaint wall. It is an *information* score, and information is what you need when you are deciding whether to trust a company with your money. Bipa publishes its plan prices — those are the good rows — and withholds its fees, its limits, and its eligibility conditions. That asymmetry is what produces a 5.9.

Will they give you the card?

The honest answer is: Bipa’s public pages do not say. There is no eligibility criteria published on the material I read — not stated, rather than a rule I could summarise for you. What I can tell you is the shape of it.

• The company is Brazilian. Bipa Intermediação de Ativos Digitais LTDA (CNPJ 37.008.710/0001-78) was founded in 2020 in Brazil.
• The plans are priced in reais. Free R$0, Plus R$14.90, Pro R$49.90, Max R$99.90.
• The credit card side is based on Brazilian risk criteria. So even the credit decision is made through a lens that assumes a Brazilian applicant.
• The card currency is BRL.

Now, the thing that has probably been nagging at you, because I have read it too: does it require KYC? Yes — that part is documented, and I have put it in the signup section. But the specific rules that would tell you *whether you* qualify are not the same as the KYC flow. A card that verifies your identity and then decides at random whether to approve you is worse for you than one that simply says no. That is the situation as far as the public information goes.

You will see Bipa described as both a payment institution and a VASP regulated by the Central Bank of Brazil — that is a company claim, not something I verified against the regulator’s register. The company also states that the card issuer is Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento, “responsible for the issuance of the BIPA Cards,” and that plans are offered with BIPA Instituicao de Pagamento Ltda (CNPJ 40.910.463/0001-05). The issuer’s own BIN sponsor is not named separately.

There is undated company news too: R$17 million in funding from Ego Death Capital, on the company’s own page. I found no dated events. That absence cuts both ways — no scandal, and no milestones to reassure you either.

What I would do: open the app and find out in ten minutes rather than reading another review. If you are not a Brazilian resident, stop here.

How to get it

The flow is: sign up, verify, choose a plan, receive the card. That much is straightforward. The details that trip people up are in the verification step and in the card itself.

Verification. At sign-up you send a selfie and a document. Bipa may ask for updated registration data periodically. The page I read does not state which documents are accepted, what the verification levels are, or how long processing takes — not stated, and I would not guess. After that, Stark Bank and Bipa may verify your data at any time. This is the sentence to sit with: false information can lead to suspension and cancellation of the card. There is a permanent record here. Get the details right.

Two more hard rules from the same source. You must be an adult individual. And credit limit approval depends on prior analysis — another non-answer, on a credit card.

The card itself. It is a Mastercard. There are four plans in three metal tiers:

• Gold: Free and Plus
• Platinum: Pro
• Black: Max

You get two products, not one. There is a prepaid card and a credit card, Bipa Crédito, which you can use to buy Bitcoin on up to 3 instalments. A virtual card exists, and the prepaid limit can be “enabled in crypto.” The currency is BRL.

Delivery. The physical card is free on Pro and Max and carries a fee on Free and Plus — the amount is not stated. Delivery time is “per the periods informed by support channels,” with no figure. A Brazilian address is implied. So on the two free-physical-card plans you save the issue and shipping fee; on the two cheaper plans you pay an unknown one and wait an unknown time.

The one useful comparison: Nexo, as an example of a card that publishes its own gate — its physical card has free shipping but requires a balance above $5,000 in digital assets and at least the Gold tier. Bipa does not put a number on its side of the line. If a physical card matters to you and you are on Free or Plus, that unstated fee is your first question to ask support before you sign up.

Fees and what a payment actually costs

Here is the part that made me hesitate most. Bipa lists plan fees and crypto trading fees. It does not list the card’s FX fee, its conversion fee, its ATM fee, or any of its transaction fees — not stated, on the pages I read. The numbers below are the ones the card actually publishes; the gaps are as informative as the numbers.

Read the FX line again: the rate “may be higher or lower than the BCB average rate.” The BCB is the Central Bank of Brazil, whose average rate is the reference most people assume they are getting. Bipa is telling you, in advance, that the number on your statement may not be that number, in either direction. That is not a bug in the disclosure — it is the disclosure.

Now three everyday payments, so you can see which of these lines actually bites.

One. A coffee in São Paulo, about R$8. No FX. No ATM. No conversion. You are spending BRL from a BRL balance, and if you are on Plus, Pro or Max you get 0.5%, 1% or 1.5% back in Bitcoin depending on the plan. This is the transaction Bipa is designed for and the one it prices best. The cashback, not the fee, is the point.

Two. A subscription bought online in a foreign currency. Here you are exposed to the two unstated numbers at once. There is no published conversion fee and no published FX rate. All you are told is the rate may sit above or below the BCB average and that taxes on remittance abroad are your own responsibility, with no IOF rate named. You cannot compute the cost of this payment before you make it. You can only look afterwards.

Three. Cash from an ATM in a city you are visiting. Two unknowns at once: whether a fee applies, which is set by the Tabela de Tarifas and your plan and not listed, and how much you can take out, because daily, weekly or monthly ATM limits may be imposed and no amount is published. Plan around the possibility of a declined or partial withdrawal on a foreign trip.

There is one more thing that only bites on some transactions. Some purchases are classified by the processor as MoneySend and are blocked, and there is no published list of which merchant categories those are. You will find out at the till.

For foreign use the card’s own rule is narrow: it is limited to travel and personal expenses, in credit mode only. That last clause matters more than it looks. If you are planning to spend abroad from your prepaid crypto balance rather than your credit line, the card as described does not support it. That single line does more to shape the card’s real usefulness than any fee.

Top up: Pix, Bitcoin, and stablecoins on specific networks

The top-up menu is the strongest thing about this card, and it is why the Top-up options mark is 8.

• Pix, natively. This is the everyday Brazilian rail and the reason a Brazilian user can actually use this card as a primary means of payment.
• Bitcoin, on-chain or Lightning.
• USDT, via the Ethereum (ERC-20) or Polygon networks only. Solana is not accepted for USDT.
• USDC, SOL, XRP, ETH, on networks that are also listed.

That list is the single most useful operational warning in this review. If you hold USDT on Solana, you cannot load it here, and that is a design decision rather than a temporary outage. Send it on the wrong network and, as with any blockchain transfer, it is gone or it becomes a support ticket with no guarantee.

The networks also have mechanics you should understand before you move money. ERC-20 is the Ethereum token standard, and its fees are paid only in ETH — so a wallet holding USDT and no ETH cannot send it. Tron prices its transactions with bandwidth and energy resources, often burning TRX. Neither of those is a Bipa fee; on-chain network fees are charged by the blockchain, not by the card provider. Bipa’s own deposit fees are not stated.

One thing to know about the deposit options: Cofrinho has a minimum of R$50. If you are testing the waters with a small amount, that is the floor.

On how the balance itself works, the prepaid limit may be enabled in crypto, with settlement per clause 5.9 of the Card Terms. The credit card is backed by reais kept as collateral or guarantee. Plan fees are debited from the prepaid limit or from your reais balance. Which specific coins and networks back a given plan is not stated — a detail I would want answered before I committed a large balance.

Getting money back out. There is a guide titled “Como sacar ou transferir Dolar (USDT)” and a US$100,000 limit on international crypto transfers; both are page titles only, so I have not read their contents. On cancellation there is no fee, but Bipa may deduct amounts owed from the available balance — and cancelling the card does not cancel the plan. Those two sentences together are the ones to screenshot: the plan keeps billing after you think you have left.

Paying with it every day

This is where the card works, and it works better than the score suggests. Let me take you through a normal day.

The card is a Mastercard, both prepaid and credit, virtual and physical. Virtual is the one you can get in seconds and use for online subscriptions immediately. Physical is the one you need for a shop that wants to tap, and on Pro and Max it is free.

Digital wallets. The card “may be enabled in digital wallets according to eligibility.” Note both halves of that sentence. Some digital wallets, yes. Eligibility, unspecified. And Apple Pay and Google Pay are not named at all. If your daily routine is tap-to-pay at a turnstile or a coffee counter, this is the thing to verify before you sign up, and it is worth asking support directly rather than inferring it.

Satsback. Bitcoin back on card purchases, with crypto bought with the card itself excluded — you cannot buy Bitcoin with the card and earn Bitcoin on that purchase. Free 0%, Plus 0.5%, Pro 1%, Max 1.5%. On the credit card the reward posts after the invoice is paid; on the prepaid it posts after settlement. So the timing of your cashback depends on which of the two cards you used, which is a small thing that only matters once you are actually watching for it.

The second reward is the one I find genuinely interesting, and I have not seen its like on many cards. Bipa pays a separate reward in BTC on the reais you keep as guarantee: Free 75% of CDI; Plus 100% of CDI up to R$3,000, and 90% above that; Pro 110% up to R$5,000, and 100% above; Max 115% up to R$5,000, and 100% above. It requires an active card. If you hold a collateral balance, that balance earns. This is closer to a savings rate on your guarantee than to a cashback rate, and it is the sort of thing that quietly rewards people who leave money parked.

The app. Bipa claims an App Store rating of 4.8 and a Google Play rating of 4.7 across 20,000+ ratings, with 300,000+ downloads. That is a company claim read on 2026-10-20, and I did not verify it independently.

Disputes, which nobody reads until they need them. Unrecognised transactions must be reported within 5 days of the transaction. That window is short — set a reminder for yourself, because missing it is how disputes are lost. Stark Bank does a preliminary analysis, then a final one “within the period defined by Stark Bank,” with no number of days stated. You have a 7-day right of withdrawal on online purchases. Bipa does not assume responsibility for the dispute outcome. And a chargeback reverses your Satsback.

That last point is the one I would underline. If you are going to bank cashback on this card, a successful chargeback takes it back. Bipa is not offering you a reward; it is offering you a conditional one.

What can go wrong

Let me take the risks in order of how likely they are to actually bite you.

Using the card where you cannot get one. Brazil-oriented company, reais pricing, Brazilian risk criteria, Brazilian address implied. If you are not a Brazilian resident, the honest answer is that you should look at something built for your country instead. Everything below assumes Brazil.

Spending abroad from your prepaid balance. The card’s own rule limits foreign use to travel and personal expenses, in credit mode only. Prepaid crypto spend abroad is not what this card does.

Paying abroad and not knowing the cost. Unstated conversion fee, unstated FX rate, an IOF rate not named, and an explicit warning that the rate may differ from the BCB average in either direction.

Cash abroad, twice over. Unstated ATM fees plus unstated daily, weekly or monthly ATM limits.

Blocked transactions you cannot predict. Some transactions classified as MoneySend by the processor are blocked, with no published merchant category list. This is also the general pattern across this whole category: a card can be declined at a merchant because of what the merchant category code reveals, and blocked categories vary by issuer. If a payment is refused, the category is often the reason, not your balance.

Card security. The issuer is Stark Bank. Three wrong PIN entries block the card, and you unlock it in the app — so if your PIN fails three times at a shop, you are locked out until you open the app. Report loss or theft to support to block it. Bipa and Stark Bank never ask for passwords. And note the last one carefully: Bipa answers for third-party misuse only after you have requested the block. That means the moment you report it is the moment responsibility starts. Custody and insurance are not stated.

Account and plan termination. False information leads to suspension and cancellation. On cancellation Bipa may deduct amounts owed from the available balance. Cancelling the card does not cancel the plan.

Sending crypto to the wrong network or an unsupported one. Blockchain transfers are irreversible. This is not a Bipa risk but it is the risk you take the moment you press send, and it is why the Solana-for-USDT exclusion is worth reading twice.

Custody risk generally. Whether your balance sits with Bipa or elsewhere, holding funds with a provider carries counterparty and hack risk. This category has a documented history: Mt. Gox (about US$350 million reported stolen 2011-2014), Coincheck (about US$400 million, 2018) and Ronin Network (US$625 million, 2022) are the reference points. If a provider is compromised, the network cannot freeze or return what left.

Programme risk. Card programmes do close. Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX on 13 November 2022 and the FTX US debit card was wound down; WaveCrest was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing all its Visa programmes. A closure typically means a notice period, then spending and loading stop, then you are asked to withdraw what is left.

On complaints specifically. I looked for Bipa on Reclame Aqui and Trustpilot and found no page for Bipa on either. That is genuinely good, and I want to give it its weight. The counterweight: Bipa claims a 4.8 rating from 26,000+ reviews, which is marketing and unverified. And an absence of complaints is not the same as a track record — for a company of this age, it partly reflects that not many people are using it.

Support, if any of this happens. App chat, a Help Center chat or form with a reply promised up to 24 business hours, social media, and [email protected]. Hours are Mon-Fri 09h-21h and Sat-Sun 09h-15h, with the time zone not stated. Portuguese only. If you do not read Portuguese, that is a real limitation of this card and you should weigh it before you sign up.

Declines and holds. A declined authorisation can leave a hold on your funds for several days, typically up to 7. On a prepaid card with a balance you are watching, a stuck hold is more noticeable than on a bank account.

One background point that applies to every card here, not just this one: merchants can look up your card’s issuing institution and country and apply extra scrutiny when it differs from your billing address. That is why a card issued in one country can look foreign in another shop. And prepaid cards in particular get declined for that reason.

What to take instead

I want to be careful here. These alternatives score higher than Bipa — 6.3, 6.3 and 6.2 against 5.9 — but each for different reasons, and the score is not a reason to switch. It is a reason to look.

Nexo — 6.3 / 10. For residents and citizens of selected European countries, including the EEA and the United Kingdom. The wording is citizens *and* residents, which is stricter than Bipa’s silence. No country list is published and excluded jurisdictions are simply “not available in certain jurisdictions.” Virtual and physical Mastercard, issued by DiPocket UAB, card currency not stated. No monthly, annual or inactivity fee — but the virtual card needs at least $50 in the account to activate, and the physical card requires a balance above $5,000 in digital assets and at least Gold tier. FX fee 0.2% on weekdays for the EEA, UK and Switzerland and 2% elsewhere; 0.7% and 2.5% at weekends. Over 100 digital assets supported. Cashback only on Credit Mode purchases with more than $5,000 held, paid in NEXO tokens or Bitcoin, from Platinum 2%/0.5% down to Base 0.5%/0.1%. Unrelated to your decision, but you should know: Cointelegraph reported a 2025-era Bulgarian police raid on Nexo’s Sofia office over alleged sanctions and AML violations; no official Nexo statement on Russians found. Unofficial reporting, and I would weigh it accordingly.

Pay3 — 6.3 / 10. The most geographically open of the three. Open to users outside “Restricted Locations” — countries under trade sanctions, export controls or crypto or fintech prohibitions — but the list is not published and may change without notice, and users, citizens or residents of Restricted Locations are excluded. The terms require you to attest you are not a US citizen and not OFAC-blocked. Virtual, physical, and Apple Pay and Google Pay cards, Visa. Issuance “starts at $5” and card spend from $0.15 per transaction, with fees varying by card type, currency and location. But conversion “from 1.15%” and then a foreign exchange fee on non-USD up to 3%, a cross-border fee up to 3%, and a foreign transaction fee up to 3%. That stack is the reason its cost score is not higher than Bipa’s. Backed by collateral, funded by stablecoins or fiat.

Exa — 6.2 / 10. Widest issue geography of the group: 45 countries including Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa and the UAE, plus 31 US states, with Nigeria conditional. 18 countries are ineligible, including Belarus, China, India, Iran, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam and Russia; Russian residents cannot be issued a card, and spending is blocked in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela. The rule is by residence. Virtual Visa Signature, accepted at over 150 million merchants in more than 150 countries. Marketed as free with no amounts on the page, and a help-centre article on associated fees whose contents I did not read — the same pattern as Bipa, though. Card currency USD implied by a non-USD conversion article that I also did not read. Spending is via Pay Now or instalments against collateral. No cashback is stated; the “Earn while you spend” wording refers to yield on assets. Help-centre benefits include 20% off Airalo eSIMs and a US activation reward: spend $100, get $20 in XRP via Uphold.

And a comparison on the one axis that matters most to you if you are outside Brazil:

The pattern across all four is worth naming: not one of them publishes everything. Every card in this comparison leaves something unstated — for Bipa it is eligibility and fees, for Nexo it is the country list, for Pay3 it is the restricted list and the monthly fee, for Exa it is the fee amounts. That is the category, not the outlier, and it is why I read fee tables and limit pages myself before I trust any of them.

If you are in Brazil and comfortable with that, Bipa remains a reasonable choice. If you are not, Exa has the widest map and Nexo the clearest fee schedule. If you need mobile wallets named and stated, Pay3 is the only one of the four that says so.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend Bipa to a person in this specific shape: living in Brazil, unable to open an ordinary bank card, spending mostly in reais, comfortable with a Brazilian-only product, and willing to check the FX rate in the app before any purchase abroad rather than after. If you keep reais as collateral, the Bitcoin reward on that balance is the feature that makes this card worth more than its score suggests — it is the closest thing here to being paid to hold your own money.

I would not recommend it to you if you are outside Brazil; there is nothing here for you. I would not recommend it if your main worry is knowing what a transaction costs before you make it, because the card’s central numbers are unpublished and the FX warning runs in both directions. I would not recommend it if you need Apple Pay or Google Pay named on the tin. I would not recommend it if you do not read Portuguese, since support is Portuguese only. And I would not recommend it on the strength of the complaint record — the absence of complaints on Reclame Aqui and Trustpilot is encouraging, but Bipa claims a 4.8 rating from 26,000+ reviews that is marketing and unverified, and a young company with a low profile can look quiet simply because it is small.

My actual advice, if you want a number in your head before you commit: open the app, look at the Tabela de Tarifas for your plan, confirm whether Apple Pay or Google Pay is supported, and try one small prepaid payment. That is thirty minutes and it replaces every unknown in this review.

And one thing to keep in mind regardless of which card you pick: a card is a payment service and the crypto side is regulated separately, so a product like this depends on two licences working together. If you spend crypto through any of these, each payment funded from crypto may be a separate taxable disposal in your local currency — how that applies to you is a question for a qualified professional in your country, not for me and not for a card review.

Frequently asked questions

What is Bipa card?

Bipa is a Brazilian crypto card built on Mastercard. It works as a prepaid card you can top up in crypto or reais, and as a credit card, Bipa Crédito, that can buy Bitcoin on up to three instalments. Plans are priced in Brazilian reais and the card currency is BRL. The card issuer is Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento.

Is Bipa a bank?

No — Bipa describes itself as a payment institution and a VASP regulated by the Central Bank of Brazil, which is a company claim. The entity behind it is Bipa Intermediação de Ativos Digitais LTDA, founded in Brazil in 2020. The bank-like part is the card: Stark Bank S.A. Instituicao de Pagamento issues it and holds the programme.

Who can get the Bipa card?

Bipa’s public pages do not say — the eligibility conditions are not stated. What is clear is the orientation: a Brazilian company, plans priced in reais, Brazilian risk criteria on the credit card, and a Brazilian address implied for physical card delivery. If you are not a Brazilian resident, I would not spend long on this card.

Does Bipa card require KYC?

Yes. At sign-up you send a selfie and a document, and Bipa may request updated registration data periodically. Stark Bank and Bipa may verify your data at any time, and false information can lead to suspension and card cancellation. You must be an adult individual. The accepted documents and verification levels are not stated on the pages I read.

How do I top up the Bipa card?

By Pix, natively, or in crypto: Bitcoin on-chain or Lightning, USDT on the Ethereum (ERC-20) or Polygon networks only — not Solana — and USDC, SOL, XRP and ETH on listed networks. Cofrinho has a minimum of R$50. Deposit fees are not stated, and on-chain network fees are charged by the blockchain rather than by Bipa.

How much does the Bipa card cost?

Plans are Free R$0, Plus R$14.90, Pro R$49.90 and Max R$99.90 per month, waived by usage. The physical card is free on Pro and Max and costs an unstated fee on Free and Plus. There is no cancellation fee. The conversion fee, FX fee and ATM fees are not stated, and the FX rate may sit above or below the BCB average.

Can I use Bipa card abroad?

Within the card’s own rules, foreign use is limited to travel and personal expenses and in credit mode only — so prepaid crypto spend abroad is not supported. Your costs are also the least predictable part: the FX rate may differ from the BCB average, the IOF rate is not named, and taxes on remittance abroad are your own responsibility. ATM fees and ATM limits are also unpublished.

Is the Bipa card safe?

The issuer is Stark Bank. Three wrong PIN entries block the card, unlocked in the app; loss or theft must be reported to support to block it; and Bipa and Stark Bank never ask for passwords. The catch is that Bipa answers for third-party misuse only after you have requested the block. Custody and insurance are not stated, so do not treat the balance as deposit-guaranteed.

Where can I use Bipa card?

Anywhere Mastercard is accepted, on a prepaid or credit basis, virtual or physical. One caveat: some transactions classified as MoneySend by the processor are blocked and there is no published list of affected merchant categories. The card may be enabled in digital wallets subject to eligibility, but Apple Pay and Google Pay are not named.

Is the Bipa card worth it?

For Brazilian residents who want Bitcoin cashback in reais, I think yes — especially on Pro or Max, where the physical card is free and the collateral reward pays up to 115% of CDI on the first R$5,000. Outside Brazil, no. And judge it on published numbers, not on the absence of complaints: I found no Bipa pages on Reclame Aqui or Trustpilot, but Bipa’s claimed 4.8 rating from 26,000+ reviews is unverified marketing.

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