Monolith scored 1.8 out of 10 — the cards stopped working two years ago

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

If you have arrived here looking for a way to spend crypto in a shop, a subscription or an app, I have to open with the least interesting sentence and the most useful one: the Monolith card programme no longer issues cards. The services were closed on 8 October 2024, the cards were deactivated and the accounts were shut. Nothing about that can be applied for or fixed. So the question this page answers is not “is this card good” but “what happened, what do I do if I am already inside it, and what else is there”.

I gave it 1.8 out of 10, and I want to be clear that the low mark is not a judgement about a product that competed badly. A programme that shut down and left a defined route for getting your money back is doing the least-bad thing it can at the end. The score reflects that there is nothing here left to use, and that for people who never held a card there is no product to review at all.

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

Verdict: 1.8 / 10, and that is the whole story

Two groups, then. If you were already inside, you have a seed phrase question and a leftover-balance question, and both are answered below — that is the part of this page I would read twice. If you were never inside, there is nothing to weigh up: no fees to compare, no limits to check, no network to look up. Reading a review of a dead card is a waste of your morning, so I have kept your part short and pointed you at three live alternatives.

A word on the history, since third-party write-ups of Monolith are still ranking in search and describe the card as if it works. Those pages are useful to me for context and useless to you as a description of what you can sign up for today. Everything about who could get the card, what it cost and which coins loaded it comes from unofficial sources, was written while the programme was running, and I mark it as such below.

What happened to the programme

The closure notice is plain about the sequence and the reason. On 8 October 2024 the services were closed, the cards were deactivated and the accounts were closed, and the stated reason was “increasing regulatory requirements in the EU and UK”. The notice does not mention MiCA by name, so I will not claim it did — what it says is a rise in regulatory requirements across those two jurisdictions, and that phrase is doing a lot of work in a short sentence. Programmes that depend on a licensed issuer and a card network do not survive that kind of pressure indefinitely.

The app was delisted from app stores on 17 February. The year is not stated on the page; the context points to 2025. Either way, the practical point for you is that there is no app to download, and that an app store search for “Monolith” will now return nothing resembling this card. One loose end remained at the time of writing: in an update dated 28 February 2025 the company promised details in April 2025 about the $TKN to $TOKEN swap, and that swap was still described as pending.

The entities behind it are still named, which matters if you need to address anyone. The card traded as the trading name of UAB “Belela”, a Lithuanian virtual currency deposit and exchange operator, code 305982313. The site carries a copyright for Token Group Ltd under licence to UAB “Belela”. The card issuer was Solaris, and Solaris is the party that still holds leftover card balances. The successor app is Token.com.

On the facts you would find in an old comparison table, the card’s currency was EUR or GBP — that matters for redemption, and I come back to it below. Network and card forms are not stated on the notice. Eligibility, identity verification, fees, rewards, tiers, delivery and KYC levels are all either “not applicable (closed)” or “not stated”. Where the card’s own public pages do not say, I say so once and do not fill the gap.

The unofficial history, for context only: Coin Bureau, updated 29 March 2023, described the card as available for the EEA — 31 European countries (a figure that is unofficial and not confirmed by the card) — with the note that it “can’t be used in the USA or Asia”; as a Visa debit card; with no monthly or shipping fee if used in the country where it was registered; with a 1% top-up fee (avoided by topping up with DAI), a 1% community contribution (avoided with TKN), up to 2% per top-up otherwise, a 1.75% FX fee outside the card currency and no crypto/fiat exchange fee; and no cashback. An earlier issuer, Contis Financial Services Ltd, appears in 2019 web coverage. None of this is confirmed by the card, and all of it describes a card that no longer exists.

If you already have the card

You have two separate assets, and they are handled by two separate parties. Confusing them is the expensive mistake here, so take them one at a time.

First, the crypto. It was never really in the card. Monolith spent from a non-custodial wallet, which means the wallet keys were yours, and your seed phrase is still the thing that controls the money. The card balance shown in the app is no longer accurate — the notice says so directly — but the crypto itself did not vanish with the app. Take your 12-word seed phrase and import it into another wallet: MetaMask, Trust Wallet and Coinbase Wallet are the ones named. If you never wrote the phrase down, it is shown in the app under Settings > Back up Seed. Read that carefully: the app was delisted, so if you still have the app on a device, get the phrase out of it before you do anything else with that phone. Once the phrase is in a wallet you control, the funds are yours again, independent of anything in this review.

Second, the card balance. Any money left sitting on the Monolith card is not in your wallet — it is with the issuer, Solaris. The route is the Solaris Redemptions page: you submit a request there, with the subject line “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, your payout account details in EUR or GBP — the currency of your card — and a copy of your colour ID if the email on the request differs from the one you registered with. Solaris aims to respond within 14 days. That is the whole procedure, and it is worth doing it through the form rather than a Telegram message: a form leaves you a written record with a date on it.

Support now splits along the same line. For card funds, Solaris Redemptions Support, by form and email. For the TKN/TOKEN questionnaire, Monolith via Telegram and email. Languages and opening hours are not stated anywhere.

What is not stated is as important as what is. There are no withdrawal instructions, because there was nothing to withdraw — the crypto was always yours. No ATM limits, no spending limits, no top-up options: all “not applicable (closed)”. No disputes: the notice mentions none, and no compensation — only the Solaris redemption route. If you are someone who paid real money into the card and feels the closure cost you something, I am not going to dress that up: the published route is a refund of the card balance through Solaris, and that is what the notice offers.

The unofficial historical numbers, kept here so you can recognise old screenshots in other articles: cash withdrawal limit £350 (€378) per day with the ATM fee not stated; spending limit £7,500 (€8,113) per day; and top-up with ETH, TKN, DAI, DGD, DGX, MKR, SAI or USDT. That last list is also the reason the “top-up options” score in the table is 2 rather than 0 — the methods were unusually good for the category while they lasted.

One thing to be clear about, because it is the sentence people quote back at me: the notice says Lithuanian deposit insurance and the UK FSCS do not cover crypto activities, or funds in the non-custodial wallet. That was true while the card ran and it is still the position. Your seed phrase is your protection, and no deposit scheme stands behind it.

What can go wrong

Let me split this by whose money is at risk, because the two halves behave nothing alike.

With the crypto in your own wallet, the risks are the classic ones and they are entirely yours. A seed phrase — typically 12 to 24 words — is an unencrypted form of your private key; anyone who gets it can restore the wallet and spend the balance. Transfers are typically irreversible, and a stolen key has no recovery path, because the network cannot freeze or return anything. Crypto transfers with a custodian have a poor track record: Mt. Gox (about US$350 million reported stolen, 2011-2014), Coincheck (about US$400 million, 2018), Ronin Network (US$625 million, 2022). Using a self-custody-linked card flips the trade-off: funds stay yours until the moment of payment, and in exchange you carry sole responsibility for key loss, phishing and clipboard-hijacking malware that swaps a copied address. That responsibility does not shrink because an app is gone — it is larger, because there is no app to notice anything for you.

With the card balance, the risk is procedural. Money is sitting with an issuer that has already closed the programme on its own users once. Solaris aims to respond to redemption requests within 14 days. An aim is not a guarantee, and the sibling closures by the same issuer drew Trustpilot complaints about slow refunds — that is context from other programmes, not a Monolith finding. Worth knowing, as background, that programme shutdowns normally follow a shape: a notice period, then loading and spending stop, then users are asked to withdraw. One 2026 closure reported by a single secondary source — so unconfirmed — ended new loads on 8 July 2026 and spending on 8 August 2026.

On complaints specifically about Monolith: I found none. No Monolith Trustpilot page exists that I could find, and a search on 20 October 2026 returned only unrelated card shutdowns. Absence of complaints about a service that no longer runs tells you very little, which is why I put it next to the closure reason rather than as reassurance.

The regulatory picture behind all this, since you will meet it in other reviews. MiCA, the EU’s markets-in-crypto-assets regulation, took legal effect in June 2023 under ESMA; its rules on asset-referenced and e-money tokens applied from 30 June 2024, and the remaining provisions, including the crypto-asset service provider rules, from 30 December 2024. Under it, e-money tokens may be issued only by a credit institution or an electronic money institution. Providers already operating under national law can continue on a transitional basis only until 1 July 2026 or until they are authorised or refused authorisation, whichever comes first — and ESMA keeps an interim register of authorised providers and white papers that you can check. A card is a payment service regulated separately from the crypto side, so a crypto card often depends on two licences. And the networks themselves are not neutral bystanders: Visa and Mastercard do not issue crypto cards to consumers, they license issuers and can suspend a programme — in November 2022 Visa said it had “terminated our global agreements with FTX”, and WaveCrest, an issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing every WaveCrest-issued Visa programme.

None of that tells you Monolith failed on the merits. It tells you that this category has a structural fragility: the licence and the network sit above the brand, and when they move the brand has nothing left to stand on.

What to take instead

I am not going to recommend any of these warmly, and I am not going to pretend a different card is risk-free. What I can do is lay out the four live programmes with their published numbers side by side, so you can see which one is shaped like what you need.

RedotPay is the most explicitly policy-driven of the three, which cuts both ways. Its KYC list says you cannot complete identity verification or use the services if you are a citizen of a listed country — Afghanistan, Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bouvet Island, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo (DR), Croatia, Cuba, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Mainland China, Mali, Montenegro, Myanmar, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, North Korea, North Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, United States, Venezuela, Yemen, Zimbabwe — and states the restrictions are “based on local regulations and sanction policies—not on individuals”. Its card-issuance list, dated 28 August 2026 and covering 47 places, adds India, Indonesia, Morocco, Nepal, Singapore and Turkey as ineligible for both virtual and physical cards and unusable as billing addresses, without mentioning citizenship. Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Serbia are on both lists; Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan and the UAE are on neither. Check which list applies to you before you start. Funding is on-chain crypto deposit, or buying crypto with a credit card in the app (ETH, USDC, USDT, region-dependent); USDT-TRC20 has a 1 USDT minimum after network fees; each asset is accepted only on the networks shown on the Deposit page, which RedotPay may change. Some merchants add 1.5% (min 0.50 USD) — Gulf Health Counsel, Free Fire, PUBG Mobile, Brawl Stars, eFootball, Facebook Ads, Discord — with the first three per month waived. A 5 USD welcome reward is usable only on spending and valid 30 days, and cannot offset the issuance fee.

Bybit Card is the one with the most detailed published economics, and also the most jurisdictional. It states plainly: “This product is not meant for European Economic Area customers. All European Economic Area customer participation is strictly prohibited.” Its fiat-service restricted list — which covers deposits, withdrawals and One-Click Buy, not the card itself — includes Belarus, the Russian Federation, Serbia, China and the United States, with Russian users able to make only RUB transactions in fiat. No card-specific statement on Russian or Belarusian citizens was found, and no citizenship-versus-residence rule is stated, so do not infer one. The card has no balance of its own: it draws on the Funding Account and the Flexible Easy Earn balance, fiat first, selling crypto at the One-Click Sell rate plus the conversion fee if that is short; supported assets are BTC, ETH, XRP, USDT, USDC and GRAM, with priority USDT > USDC > GRAM > BTC > ETH > XRP, reorderable in the Card Dashboard. The rewards structure is the most intricate of the three: from 5 October 2026 at 10:00 UTC only crypto-funded transactions earn points or cashback, with tiers from Base at 2.00% (5 USD monthly cap) to Infinite at 10.00% (600 USD cap), a 10% welcome cashback up to 110 USDT in the first 30 days, and a referral of 20 USDT / 10 USDT. If you are an EEA resident, this one is simply not for you.

MetaMask is the smallest and, in structure, the one closest to what Monolith used to be: it spends directly from the connected wallet. Networks are Linea, Base, Monad and Solana; the token page names mUSD, wETH, EURe, GBPe, USDC and USDT and says nine; Solana-only wallets cannot withdraw credit. The cost structure is the cleanest — virtual free with no annual or maintenance fee, Metal $199/year — and fees are described only as a “minimal fee for each transaction” with the amount not stated on the pages read, plus no foreign transaction fee. Rewards are paid in mUSD into the Money Account: 1% on Virtual; on Metal the headline is 3% but the footnote limits 3% to the first $10,000 spent and 1% after that, plus a $FLY bonus of 5X or 7X through the Blackbird dining app. Sign-up is open in 45 listed countries and territories — Andorra, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Spain, Uruguay among them — with other regions on a waitlist and proof of residency required; the FAQ says ineligible regions limit sign-ups, not spending, and US and UK sign-ups are temporarily closed.

If your priority is spending without a monthly fee and you are inside one of these regions’ rules, MetaMask’s virtual tier is the least expensive of the three as published. If your priority is raw geography — card issuance in more places — RedotPay publishes the clearest country lists. If your priority is a wider asset list and a tiered rewards programme, Bybit publishes the most detail, and also the most exclusions. Check the register ESMA keeps before you sign up with any of them.

Who I would recommend it to

Honestly, I would recommend the Monolith card to nobody, in the present tense, because there is nothing to apply for.

I would recommend it to exactly two groups, for different reasons. To former holders who still have a Monolith wallet app on a phone and have never written down their 12-word seed phrase: open it, go to Settings, back up the seed, and move it into a wallet you control. That is the single most valuable thing left in this whole story, and it is worth doing today rather than when you next remember it. And to former holders with a positive card balance who have not filed a redemption request: go to the Solaris Redemptions page, use the subject line “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, give EUR or GBP payout details, attach a colour ID copy if your email differs, and keep the confirmation.

For anyone still planning which crypto card to get, this page has done its job if it sent you to the comparison table. What Monolith demonstrates, and what I would want a reader to walk away with, is that the durable part of a crypto card is rarely the card. It is the seed phrase and, where the money is custodial, the licence behind it. Choose a provider for who holds the funds and under which regulator, then pick the card within that. If the provider disappears one day, a card you cannot use is an inconvenience; a wallet you cannot reach is a loss.

Frequently asked questions

What was the Monolith card?

It was a debit card issued by Solaris that spent from a non-custodial crypto wallet, historically a Visa card covering, per third-party sources, 31 European countries in the EEA (this figure is unofficial and not confirmed by the card). Its trading name was UAB “Belela” in Lithuania, code 305982313, with a successor app at Token.com. Services closed on 8 October 2024, so there is nothing left to sign up for.

Why did Monolith close?

The closure notice cites “increasing regulatory requirements in the EU and UK” as the reason, effective 8 October 2024, with cards deactivated and accounts closed. The notice does not mention MiCA by name, so it would be speculation on my part to say it closed because of that regulation specifically. A separate loose end was a $TKN to $TOKEN swap whose details were promised for April 2025.

My Monolith card stopped working. What do I do?

The card is deactivated, so it will not start again, and topping up through Monolith is no longer possible. Split your money in two: crypto lives in your own non-custodial wallet and comes back through your 12-word seed phrase imported into another wallet such as MetaMask, Trust Wallet or Coinbase Wallet; leftover card funds are with Solaris and come back through the Solaris Redemptions page.

Where is my seed phrase if I never saved it?

The closure notice says it is shown in the app under Settings > Back up Seed. Because the app was delisted from app stores on 17 February, write the phrase down or import it into a wallet you control now, while the app still opens on your device. Anyone who has those words can spend the balance, so treat the phone as sensitive until this is done.

How do I get my remaining card balance back?

Submit a request on the Solaris Redemptions page with the subject “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, giving payout account details in EUR or GBP, the currency of your card, and a copy of your colour ID if the email on the request differs from your registered one. Solaris aims to respond within 14 days. There is no separate Monolith dispute or compensation route published.

Is Monolith safe?

It no longer exists as a service, so the question is where your money sits. Crypto in the non-custodial wallet is yours, protected only by your seed phrase — Lithuanian deposit insurance and the UK FSCS do not cover crypto activities or those funds. Card balances sit with the issuer, and the published remedy is the Solaris redemption route.

Was Monolith a bank?

No. It was a crypto card programme built on a licensed issuer, Solaris, which held the card balance. In EU terms an electronic money institution can issue e-money and payment cards but cannot lend, and a crypto card programme often depends on two licences — one for payments, one for crypto services. Monolith was the programme manager in front, not the institution behind it.

What can I use instead of Monolith?

The live options I compared are RedotPay (6.9 / 10), MetaMask (7.1 / 10) and Bybit Card (6.0 / 10). They differ sharply on eligibility: RedotPay publishes two country lists with different wording, Bybit Card states it is not meant for European Economic Area customers, and MetaMask lists 45 open sign-up countries with proof of residency required.

Can I still top up a Monolith card?

No. Users can no longer top up cards through Monolith. The historical list of supported assets — ETH, TKN, DAI, DGD, DGX, MKR, SAI and USDT, from third-party coverage and not confirmed by the card — is only there so you can recognise it in old articles; none of those routes remains open.

Is it worth switching my money to one of these cards instead?

That depends on which side of the risk you are on. Self-custody-linked cards keep your funds yours until you pay, at the cost of full responsibility for the seed phrase; custodial ones are simpler and add counterparty risk. Compare published fees, country lists and licensing before you move anything, and do not read any score here as a promise.

Content created by the «cryptocardpedia.com» team