The card that spends your USDT in tenge, and nothing more

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

CryptoPay is not really a crypto card in the way most people mean that phrase. It is a digital Mastercard World Black Edition debit card, issued by a Kazakh bank, that draws on a balance converted from USDT. There is no Bitcoin here, no multi-token wallet, no self-custody, and no cash. You spend it at a till in Kazakhstan, in tenge, from a USDT balance you topped up first. Everything about the product — good and bad — follows from that one design decision.

If that is what you needed, the card does that job cleanly. The exchange fee is 0%, top-ups are free, the issuing bank is a licensed Kazakh bank, and the exchange behind it holds a full AFSA licence. If you wanted something you could use abroad, at an online shop, or from an ATM, this is the wrong card, and the version that promises those things will disappoint you.

I scored it 5.0 out of 10. That is not a scolding of a bad product; it is a product that is genuinely narrow, sitting inside one country, one currency, one token, and one payment channel.

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

The score, criterion by criterion

Two of those marks deserve a note before we go further. The 9 for reliability and complaints is high because I found nothing bad — no official incident notices, no Trustpilot page, no Reddit thread — and because both the bank and the exchange are properly licensed. That is a mark for a clean record, not a mark for proven resilience, because the product is young and a quiet complaint record can simply mean people have not complained yet. The 2 for eligibility is the lowest score on the card and the one that decides whether any of this applies to you at all.

Let me say who this is really written for: Kazakhstan residents paying offline in tenge from USDT. If that sentence describes you, read on. If you are anywhere else, or you want a travel card, or you want to spend from more than one token, you can stop here and read the alternatives section instead — it will be more useful to you than anything else I write.

Who will they give the card to

The card is issued for Kazakhstan residents. The bank’s tariff table states card issue as 10,000 ₸ for residents of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and there is no published price for anyone else. Citizenship rules are not stated — the pages do not say whether a non-Kazakh citizen resident in Kazakhstan qualifies, and I am not going to guess at it.

On top of residency, you need an account with the exchange, ATAIX Eurasia, holding either “Investor” or “Premium” status. That is the gate, and it is a real one: the card cannot be opened without it. The card itself is opened inside the bank’s app, bcc.kz.

Here is the part that will decide your eligibility faster than anything else. ATAIX Eurasia asked users in certain regions, and companies registered there, to close their accounts — reported on 5 December 2023, with the exchange saying it follows EU sanctions. A later report said new users in those regions could no longer register at all. I want to be careful here: both of those are unofficial reports from third-party news sites citing the exchange’s support, not statements published by the card or the bank, and I could not confirm them against an official page. But if you are resident in a region subject to such restrictions, treat this as a serious practical obstacle rather than a formality, and check with ATAIX directly before you invest time in the rest of the process. The card’s own public pages do not restate the restriction.

If you are a Kazakhstan resident of another citizenship, or a resident holding a different residency document, the honest position is that the pages do not say. Ask before you pay the 10,000 ₸.

How to get it

The sequence is short, and the first step is the long one.

First, register with ATAIX Eurasia and pass identity verification (KYC) to reach “Investor” or “Premium” status. What each status requires, how long it takes, and what gets a request rejected are not stated on the pages I read, so do not expect a published checklist. One unofficial data point worth holding loosely: a 2023 news summary put ATAIX withdrawal limits without KYC at 20,000 USDT per day and 100,000 USDT per month, rising to 1 million USDT per day at KYC level 1 and 2 million USDT per day at level 2. Those figures are undated and unofficial — treat them as an indication of the shape of the tiering, not as current numbers.

Second, install the bcc.kz app and go to “New product or account”, then #CryptoPay, then “Open card”. Third, confirm the card by e-mail sent to the address you used at ATAIX — the ATAIX page puts that within 2 hours. Fourth, add the card to Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay.

What the card is: a digital (virtual) Mastercard, described as a “Mastercard World Black Edition debit card”. The account currency is tenge, and validity is 8 years. Documents, proof of address and age requirements are not stated. In practice you should expect identity checks, because the exchange’s KYC is the entry condition — but what will be asked for is not published.

One thing to know about plastic: it is a digital card, but a plastic card ordered in advance can be collected, and a reissued one can be picked up by power of attorney if that power of attorney is notarised and valid for up to 3 years. Delivery time, delivery cost and replacement cost are not stated. So if you want a physical card in your hand, the price and wait are a question for the bank, not something I can quote.

What it really costs: Fees

The headline numbers look good. The monthly servicing fee is the one that will actually bite you every month.

Read that servicing line twice. 5,000 ₸ per month is an ongoing cost, not a one-off, and it is charged whether or not you use the card. Against a 500,000 ₸ base monthly limit, the card needs meaningful spending to be worth keeping on the basis of the fee alone. If you are opening it as a spare payment method for the occasional shop, you are paying a subscription for the privilege.

There is only one card, and the limits move with your ATAIX status rather than with card tiers. Confirming the “Investor” qualification is what raises the monthly limit from 500,000 ₸ to 45,000,000 ₸ — a large jump, and the reason the status matters beyond simply unlocking the card.

Now, three everyday payments, and which fees actually apply.

Buying lunch for 8,000 ₸ at a café POS terminal. Card servicing 5,000 ₸ applies as always; the payment itself is fee-free; USDT is converted to KZT at the exchange rate; no FX fee is listed. There is no multi-currency balance — the account is in KZT, the card writes off in KZT, so nothing is being converted twice.

Paying a modest invoice at a merchant’s terminal, with your ATAIX status at Investor. Payment fee-free, exchange 0%, well inside the raised 45,000,000 ₸ limit. The same purchase on the base limit is still fine at 500,000 ₸ per month, but if you spend more than that across the month without Investor confirmed, the month simply stops.

Trying to take out 20,000 ₸ in cash. This does not work. Cash withdrawal at ATMs is not available, and neither is withdrawal to a bank account — see the top-up and refunds section below, because getting your money back out is where this design really shows its edges.

What I could not find: any FX fee, which is not the same as there being none. The pages do not publish one, so if you are outside Kazakhstan the card does not work anyway, but do not quote me “no FX fee” as a fact — quote “not stated”.

How to top it up

Only one token funds the card: USDT. That is the whole funding story, and if you hold Bitcoin, ETH pairs, or anything else, your first job is selling it on the exchange before the card can help.

There are two routes in. You can top up via your ATAIX wallet balance: either with crypto, or with a fiat transfer to the exchange followed by conversion to USDT. Or you can use the “Cryptocurrency” section of the bcc.kz app. ATAIX lists USDT on three networks — BSC, ETH and TRON — with a deposit fee of 0.00 and a minimum deposit of 0.01 USDT. That minimum is genuinely tiny, which makes small test deposits easy.

Two practical points on networks. First, network fees for your deposit are charged by the blockchain, not by ATAIX: on ERC-20 networks gas is paid in ETH, so a wallet holding USDT but no ETH cannot send. Second, Tron prices its fees with bandwidth and energy, often burning TRX. The 0.00 figure above is the exchange’s own deposit fee; what the network takes on the way in is separate and is not stated for the sender.

Wallet top-up and payment are both free, confirmed by bank statement. That 0% exchange rate plus 0% payment fee is genuinely the strongest part of the offer — you can convert and spend without the two-layer fee drag most cards apply.

The catch is getting money back. Refunds from purchases are credited to your crypto wallet, and you can then convert them to USDT in the ATAIX app or on the website. Withdrawal to a bank account is not available, and neither is ATM withdrawal. What happens to any balance left when you close the account is not stated. So think of this as an outbound card: money goes in through the exchange and comes out only as card payments, unless the bank lets you transfer out some other way.

Paying with it every day

Everyday use is where the 5 / 10 comes from, and the reason is in one sentence: online payment is not available — only offline purchases at POS terminals. Online payments are NOT available, so this is a physical-world card for shops, and only shops.

You add it to Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay — the bank confirms the card supports binding to all three — and pay by tapping or by card-present terminal. Which merchant categories are blocked is not stated, so I cannot tell you whether gambling or other sensitive MCCs are blocked by policy here; assume nothing and find out from the bank if it matters.

On rewards: basic cashback is 0.5% on all purchases, capped at 20,000 ₸ per month, according to the ATAIX page. The cashback currency is not stated. On a small card like this, 0.5% back is a rounding error against a 5,000 ₸ monthly fee — I would not open this card for the cashback.

The Mastercard World Black Edition label does bring real perks, and this is the most underrated part of the offer: up to 10 Lounge Key visits per year, up to 10 Fast Track passes, and travel insurance up to $1.5 million, per the bank page. For someone who does fly out of Kazakhstan and pays in tenge at home, lounge access can be worth more than the fee. That is a legitimate reason to hold this card, and probably the strongest one.

The apps: bcc.kz for the card, and the ATAIX Eurasia app for the exchange. I did not read the bcc.kz store ratings. The ATAIX Eurasia app shows 3.5 in the Kazakhstan App Store from 8 ratings, read on 2026-10-21 — eight ratings is a very small sample, so treat that number as a hint, not a verdict.

What can go wrong

Start with the biggest structural risk, because it is not specific to this card: your crypto sits in a custodial wallet. ATAIX is licensed to provide custody, meaning it holds the credentials, so the exchange — not you — controls the keys. Transfers are irreversible, there is no built-in recovery if a key is lost, and custodians have a real history of failure: Mt. Gox, Coincheck and the Ronin Network hack between them represent billions in reported losses. That background risk is not a knock on this particular operator; it is what holding funds with any custodian means.

What the pages do not tell me is whether this specific product has card freeze, two-factor authentication, or safeguarding arrangements. Safeguarding is not stated. For an EU e-money institution it would be a legal requirement to segregate or insure customer funds — but this is a Kazakh bank issuing a debit card linked to a Kazakh exchange, and I am not going to transplant EU rules onto it. Ask the bank directly what protections attach to the balance you are spending.

Where does the money actually sit? Two separate regulated entities. The card is issued by Bank CenterCredit in Kazakhstan under general banking licence No. 1.1.856.145 dated 05.08.2026, from the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market. The exchange side is ATAIX Eurasia Ltd., Astana, at Mangilik El 55/17, under AFSA licence AFSA-A-LA-2025-0022 dated 15 October 2025, covering a digital asset trading facility, custody, and dealing in digital assets as principal and agent. Two licences, two regulators, two support desks — and a complaint that touches both.

On disputes, this is the part I find genuinely thin. Purchase refunds go to the crypto wallet, which is at least predictable. But the dispute and chargeback procedure and time frames are not stated, and that is a real gap: if a terminal charges you twice or a purchase does not arrive, the published path for getting it reversed is not on the page. Factor in that you cannot convert out to a bank account, and a stuck dispute has nowhere comfortable to go.

There is a further category of risk that applies to this card’s design rather than its operator. A card issued in one country can look “foreign” to a shop in another: merchants can look up the issuer from the card number and apply extra scrutiny if it differs from the billing address. Since this card is tenge-denominated and Kazakhstan-issued, that friction is theoretical here — but if you were planning to use it on a trip, it is the reason to stop reading and pick something else.

And the closure risk, which belongs to the category: card programmes do get wound down. Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX on 13 November 2022, and WaveCrest, a card issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018, closing all its Visa programmes. Shutdowns typically run in an order — a notice period, then loading and spending stop, then you are asked to withdraw remaining balances. Secondary reporting has described at least one 2026 closure on that pattern. I mention it not to alarm you about this issuer, which shows no sign of it, but because a custodial balance plus a card with no withdrawal path is a combination where a closure would leave you negotiating rather than withdrawing. That is why the unstated question — what happens to the balance on closure — is the one I would press hardest on.

On the record I did find: no official incident notices, and searches for reviews of CryptoPay or ATAIX returned no Trustpilot or Reddit pages. The 2023 account-closure request to Russian residents is the only public controversy, and it is an account-policy decision, not a security incident.

Support, if you need it: the bank has a 24-hour line 505 for individuals, Telegram chat, [email protected], and branches. ATAIX has a support page, Telegram at t.me/ataixeurasia, and +7 (727) 356 11 70. The bank’s site runs in Russian, Kazakh and English, so Russian is supported. Two channels, two organisations — keep straight which one you are dealing with before you start explaining your problem to the wrong desk.

What to take instead

Three alternatives came up in the same shortlist, and I am scoring them here on the same ten-point scale so you can compare like with like: Young Card at 5.7, Coinbase Card at 6.4, OKX at 6.2. Note that none of them beats CryptoPay’s 5.0 by much, which tells you something about how narrow this category is.

A few things that comparison table cannot carry.

Young Card publishes almost nothing verifiable where CryptoPay does: eligibility, card format and cost are not stated officially, and its cashback is paid in YNG tokens, with rates by Club tier — Essential 0.1%, Gold 1.8%, Platinum 3.6%, while Bronze and Silver are not stated. Paying cashback in a platform token means your reward is priced in something that moves.

Coinbase Card is the cleanest of the three for anyone in the US: all states except Hawaii, identity rules under the USA PATRIOT Act (name, address, date of birth, ID), no annual fee and zero spending fees, funding by linking a bank account or depositing part of a paycheck at zero fees. The catch is the spread — there are no Coinbase transaction fees, but a spread applies when Coinbase buys, sells or trades, which is the cost of the conversion at payment. Rewards are optional crypto rewards on every purchase, variable and shown in the app, US users only.

OKX is the nearest thing to a rival in spirit. Mastercard, euro-denominated virtual, launched 28 January 2026 for the EU plus Norway — Iceland and Liechtenstein are excluded, and I should flag that the explainer’s own conclusion says “entire EEA”, which contradicts the exclusions; where sources conflict I trust the narrower statement and note the inconsistency. The rule applies to an EEA user of OKX Europe Ltd., a MiCAR-licensed entity. No transaction fee and no OKX FX fee; the conversion spread is where to look: 0.1% per the explainer as of May 2026 versus 0.4% in the launch press release, and the explainer is the newer of the two. Funding is USDC or USDG held in OKX Pay, other coins must be converted first, no auto top-up, and a payment is declined if the balance is short. Its cashback structure is tiered and, honestly, inconsistent across sources — the table lists Regular 2% capped at 10 EUR, VIP1 4% at 300, VIP2 4.5% at 450, VIP3 5% at 1,000, VIP4+ 10% at 1,000, while the text says 2–5% and a launch release advertised a 30-day promo of up to 20% for VIP and 15% for regular. Only USDG purchases earn; USDC earns none.

Set beside CryptoPay: if you are in the US, Coinbase Card is a broader product with a cleaner fee statement. If you are in the EEA and want euro, OKX gives you a card with cashback tiers CryptoPay cannot match. If you are in Kazakhstan, none of the three are available to you and CryptoPay’s narrowness is simply the price of being the only option in the room.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend CryptoPay to one person: a Kazakhstan resident who already holds USDT, spends regularly at physical shops in tenge, wants to convert and pay at 0% with no spread layered on, and values lounge access or Fast Track passes enough to earn back some of the 5,000 ₸ monthly fee. If you travel, that World Black benefit set is the real reason to keep it open.

I would not recommend it to you if any of these are true.

You are not a Kazakhstan resident, or your residency status does not clearly cover you — because the card is simply not issued to you.

You are a Russian citizen resident in Russia — because of the account-closure requests reported in 2023. Unofficial as those reports are, the risk is not worth testing.

You need cash — because there are no ATM withdrawals at all, and that is not a gap being worked on, it is a stated unavailability.

You shop online — because online payment is not available.

You want to spend anything other than USDT — because USDT is the only token that funds the card, so your Bitcoin, your ETH, everything else has to be sold first, at whatever the exchange gives you that day.

You are in the US or the EEA — because Coinbase Card or OKX will do more for you, and you can have cash.

You are nervous about custodianship — because your crypto sits in a wallet ATAIX controls, and the specific safeguards for this product are not stated on the pages I read.

And if you are simply looking for the cheapest way to spend crypto: this is not it. The 5,000 ₸ monthly servicing fee is the number that decides whether this card is worth anything to you at all, and it is the number to look at before any of the perks.

Frequently asked questions

What is the CryptoPay card?

The CryptoPay card is a digital Mastercard World Black Edition debit card issued by the Kazakh bank Bank CenterCredit and linked to an ATAIX Eurasia exchange account. It is not a card in your wallet from an exchange you have never heard of, nor a self-custody card: it is a bank card whose balance comes from crypto you convert on the exchange first. The account currency is tenge, and USDT is converted to KZT automatically at the exchange rate when you pay.

How does the CryptoPay card work?

You top up a balance, and the card spends from it. USDT goes into your ATAIX wallet over BSC, ETH or TRON, and the exchange converts it to tenge at the rate in effect at the moment of payment, at a stated 0% crypto-to-fiat exchange fee. The payment itself carries no fee. It behaves much like a prepaid card: the card cannot overdraw because there is only the balance you loaded to spend from.

Who owns CryptoPay?

Two companies, with separate licences. The card is issued by Bank CenterCredit in Kazakhstan, under general banking licence No. 1.1.856.145 dated 05.08.2026. The exchange behind the balance is ATAIX Eurasia Ltd. in Astana, licensed by the AFSA under AFSA-A-LA-2025-0022 dated 15 October 2025 for a digital asset trading facility, custody, and dealing as principal and agent. Forbes Kazakhstan reported on 3 March 2026 that BCC had launched the first premium crypto card with ATAIX Eurasia.

Which countries is the CryptoPay card available in?

Kazakhstan, on the published terms: the bank’s tariff table prices card issue at 10,000 ₸ for residents of the Republic of Kazakhstan. No other country is offered. Citizenship rules are not stated, so if you are a resident of Kazakhstan with another citizenship, you need to ask the bank rather than assume. Note that ATAIX Eurasia asked users in certain regions to close their accounts in December 2023 — unofficial reports, but a serious practical hurdle.

How do I get the CryptoPay card?

Four steps, and the first is the slow one: register with ATAIX Eurasia and pass KYC to reach “Investor” or “Premium” status; install the bcc.kz app and choose “New product or account”, then #CryptoPay, then “Open card”; confirm by e-mail at the address used at ATAIX, which the ATAIX page says arrives within 2 hours; then add the card to Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay. What KYC documents you need, and how long approval takes, are not stated.

Does the CryptoPay card require KYC?

Yes, and it is not a formality you can skip: the Investor or Premium status on your ATAIX Eurasia account is a precondition for opening the card, and that status requires identity verification. Confirming the Investor qualification is also what raises your monthly card limit from 500,000 ₸ to 45,000,000 ₸. One unofficial 2023 data point: without KYC, ATAIX withdrawals were reported at 20,000 USDT a day and 100,000 a month — dated figures, but they show the direction of travel.

Can I withdraw cash from the CryptoPay card?

No. Cash withdrawal at ATMs is explicitly unavailable — the bank’s own wording is “No, cash withdrawal at ATMs is unavailable” — and withdrawal to a bank account is not available either. Refunds from purchases go back to your crypto wallet, where you can convert them to USDT in the ATAIX app or website. If being able to take cash out matters to you, this card does not work for you.

Where can I use the CryptoPay card?

At physical point-of-sale terminals in Kazakhstan, and only there. Online payment is not available, so online shops, subscriptions and anything web-based are out. You can pay by adding the card to Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay and tapping, or at a card terminal. Which merchant categories are blocked is not stated.

How do I top up the CryptoPay card?

With USDT, which is the only token the card accepts. You deposit to your ATAIX wallet over BSC, ETH or TRON — deposit fee 0.00, minimum 0.01 USDT — or you send fiat to the exchange by transfer and convert it to USDT, or use the “Cryptocurrency” section of the bcc.kz app. Network fees are separate: on Ethereum-based chains gas is paid in ETH, on Tron in bandwidth and TRX. A deposit to the wrong network can be lost.

Is the CryptoPay card safe?

There is no incident record I could find, and both the bank and the exchange are licensed, which is the strongest thing I can say. But two things deserve care. First, your crypto is held in a custodial wallet that ATAIX controls, which is the standard counterparty risk every custodial wallet carries. Second, safeguards specific to this product — freeze, two-factor authentication, fund safeguarding, what happens to a balance on closure — are not stated on the pages I read, so ask the bank before you fund it.

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