The Monolith card is closed, and this is what that means if you still have money sitting on it
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If you found your way to a Monolith card review, you are probably in one of two situations. Either you still have a balance on an old Monolith card, or you were thinking of getting one and want to know what happened to it. The short answer is that the programme shut down on 8 October 2024 and no new cards are being issued. The rest of this page walks through what that means in practice, where the money sits, what is recoverable and which cards have stepped into the space Monolith used to fill.
The conditions described here are current as of October 28, 2026.
Verdict
The Monolith card scores 1.8 out of 10. That is not a number to take lightly: the programme is closed, the app has been removed from app stores, and there is no way to top up a card through Monolith any longer. The only reason the score is not zero is that there is still a redemption path for leftover card funds, and the crypto sitting in users’ non-custodial wallets has not been touched. But for someone choosing a card today, Monolith is not an option.
The breakdown tells the story:
| Criterion | Mark | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Who can get it | 0 / 10 | The service closed on 8 October 2024, cards are deactivated and accounts are closed. |
| Cost | 5 / 10 | Closed; the historical pricing, from unofficial third-party sources, was a 1% top-up fee, up to 2% in total, 1.75% FX outside the card currency, and no monthly fee. |
| Top-up options | 2 / 10 | Topping up cards through Monolith is no longer possible; historically, ETH, TKN, DAI, DGD, DGX, MKR, SAI and USDT were supported. |
| Reliability and complaints | 1 / 10 | Closure was due to rising EU and UK regulatory demands; the remaining balance is held by the issuer Solaris, refundable through the Solaris Redemptions page within 14 days; the app has been pulled from stores. |
| Everyday use | 0 / 10 | Cards were deactivated on 8 October 2024 and the app has been removed from stores. |
If you are a former holder trying to redeem a leftover balance through Solaris, the programme is still useful in that narrow sense. For anyone else, there is nothing to sign up for. The rest of the page is built around those two readers.
What Happened to the Programme
Monolith was a crypto debit card. The company behind it trades as UAB “Belela”, a Lithuanian-registered virtual currency deposit and exchange operator (company code 305982313). The site copyright is held by Token Group Ltd under licence to that Lithuanian entity, and the cards were issued by Solaris, a regulated European card issuer.
On 8 October 2024, Monolith announced that it was closing its services. The wording on the closure notice points to “increasing regulatory requirements in the EU and UK” as the reason. The notice does not mention MiCA, the EU’s markets-in-crypto-assets regulation, by name. The practical effect of the announcement was that cards were deactivated, accounts were closed, and topping up became impossible. The card currency, where it matters for the redemption process, was either EUR or GBP.
A few dates and follow-ups are worth knowing:
- 8 October 2024: services closed, cards deactivated, accounts closed.
- 17 February (the closure notice does not give a year, though context points to 2025): the app was delisted from app stores.
- 28 February 2025: an update promised details of the $TKN to $TOKEN swap in April 2025.
- The successor app is named in the closure materials.
If you are reading this and still have the app installed, that may explain why. It will not be updated and it is no longer in stores, but it may still show your old balances, which the closure notice warns are no longer accurate. The on-chain balances in your non-custodial wallet are the ones that matter now.
A note on what the card used to be, drawn from unofficial third-party sources, not from the closure notice. Coin Bureau, in coverage updated 29 March 2023, described Monolith as a Visa debit card available to the EEA (31 European countries) and stated it “can’t be used in the USA or Asia.” Earlier coverage from 2019 named Contis Financial Services Ltd as the issuer, before Solaris took over. The original card had no monthly or shipping fee, per Coin Bureau, “if you’re using the card in the country where it’s registered.” None of that matters for getting a card today, but it explains what the product was and where it sat in the market.
If You Already Have the Card
If you held a Monolith card, you have two things to deal with: the crypto in your non-custodial wallet, and any leftover fiat balance on the card itself. They are handled differently.
Your crypto is still yours
Monolith ran on a non-custodial model. The crypto did not sit on the company’s books; it sat in a wallet that only you controlled. The closure of Monolith does not affect that wallet. The access you have is the 12-word seed phrase, and it works in any compatible wallet.
The closure notice says you can recover your wallet by importing the seed phrase into another wallet such as MetaMask, Trust Wallet or Coinbase Wallet. If you did not save the seed phrase while the app was still in stores, the notice says it can be found in the app under Settings > Back up Seed. The phrase is the only thing standing between you and the funds, so the moment you realise you have not backed it up is the moment to do it, even if the app feels slow or off.
Leftover card funds go through Solaris
The fiat balance that used to sit on the card itself is held by Solaris, the card issuer, not by Monolith. To get it back, you submit a request through the Solaris Redemptions Support page. The subject line to use is “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”. The form asks for payout account details in EUR or GBP, which means you need a bank account in one of those currencies to receive the money. If the email you use on the form is different from the one on your Monolith account, you also need to attach a colour copy of your ID. Solaris aims to respond within 14 days.
There is no mention of disputes, chargebacks, or compensation in the closure notice, only the redemption route. The notice does not set out a chargeback or formal complaint process, and the closure announcement does not state one.
For support, the notice points former cardholders to two channels. Card-fund questions go to Solaris Redemptions Support, by form or email. TKN-related questions, including the questionnaire about the $TKN to $TOKEN swap, go to Monolith through Telegram and email. Hours and supported languages are not stated on the notice.
What is not stated
A few things that you might expect a closure page to cover are simply not stated. These include the legal grounds for refusing a redemption, the timeline for sunsetting the legacy Solaris ledger, whether the EUR/GBP payout rule covers customers whose card was registered in a different currency, and what happens to a redemption request that arrives after Solaris has wound the Monolith ledger down. The notice also does not give a date by which Solaris will stop holding the funds, which is a real gap if you are sitting on a small balance and wondering whether to act now or later.
What Can Go Wrong
A closed programme has its own risk profile, and it is different from the risks of an open one. With an open card, the risks are about the card’s design: high fees, poor acceptance, weak security. With a closed card, the risks are about recovering what is left.
The central risk is that Solaris, the issuer, holds your fiat balance, and your only route to it is a form on the Solaris Redemptions page. That form has a stated response window of 14 days, but the notice gives no SLA beyond that. News and user reports do not record any Monolith-specific complaints; the search on 2026-10-20 found no Monolith Trustpilot page and no other complaints traceable to Monolith. As a related piece of context, not a Monolith story: the closure of another Solaris-issued programme, Plutus, drew Trustpilot complaints about slow refunds. That is a pattern, not a verdict.
A separate risk is the gap between the app’s display and the real on-chain balance. The closure notice explicitly says the in-app balance is no longer accurate. If you have been watching an in-app number, it may not reflect what is actually in your wallet, and the difference could be deposits that did not settle, or in-app accounting that did not survive the shutdown. The on-chain wallet, accessed through your seed phrase, is the source of truth.
A third risk is timing around the TKN token. As of the 28 February 2025 update, the $TKN to $TOKEN swap was promised with details in April 2025. The April 2025 details appear to have been communicated through the Telegram and email channel rather than a public notice, and a person who is not in either channel may miss them. Monolith was, in this sense, a programme that did not fully end on 8 October 2024; it is still dribbling out its obligations.
On the company side, the trading name is UAB “Belela”, the Lithuanian entity, and the issuer is Solaris. The closure notice also states that Lithuanian deposit insurance and the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) do not cover crypto activities, and do not cover funds held in the non-custodial wallet. That is a reminder that the self-custody model Monolith used is exactly that: a model where the user holds the risk, and where there is no central authority to step in if the seed phrase is lost.
A few questions to ask yourself
If you are a former holder, the practical risk questions are these: do you have your 12-word seed phrase, and have you checked it works in another wallet? Do you have a EUR or GBP bank account you can receive the Solaris payout into? Is the email address on your Solaris form the same as the one on your Monolith account, or do you have a colour copy of your ID ready? And if you held TKN, are you on Monolith’s Telegram or email list to receive the swap details? Each of these is a step that, if missed, becomes a delay or a loss.
What to Take Instead
Monolith sat in a specific niche: a non-custodial European crypto card that turned wallet tokens into everyday spend. Three cards cover that ground today, each in a different way. None of them is a like-for-like replacement, and each has its own trade-offs.
RedotPay
RedotPay scores 6.9 out of 10. It issues both virtual and physical cards on Visa rails, with USD and HKD card variants. The application cost is real: a virtual card is 10 USD, a physical card is 100 USD (non-refundable once paid), a virtual replacement is 5 USD the first time and 10 USD each time after, and there is no monthly or annual fee. A paid tier, RedotPay Pro, costs 12.90 USD a month or 129 USD a year.
On eligibility, RedotPay runs two lists, and they read differently. The KYC list, marked “Unsupported Countries/Regions”, says: “If you are a citizen of any of the countries or regions listed below, you will not be able to complete identity verification (KYC) or use RedotPay’s services”; restrictions are “based on local regulations and sanction policies — not on individuals”. The list includes 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 and Zimbabwe. A separate card-issuance list (dated 28 August 2026, 47 places) adds India, Indonesia, Morocco, Nepal, Singapore and Turkey: residents of those areas are not eligible for either virtual or physical cards and cannot use them as a billing address. Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Serbia appear on both lists; Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan and the UAE appear on neither.
The fee structure is straightforward but not free. There is a 1.00% transaction fee (the crypto conversion), default-currency transactions are waived, non-default-currency transactions are 1.20%, small authorisations (1 USD or less) are waived for the first 5 per card per month and then 0.2 USD, and declined transactions are waived for the first 3 per month and then 0.5 USD. Some merchants carry an extra 1.5% (minimum 0.50 USD), with the first 3 per month waived: Gulf Health Counsel, Free Fire, PUBG Mobile, Brawl Stars, eFootball, Facebook Ads and Discord. The fee table is effective 1 December 2025.
Funding is on-chain crypto deposit, or buying crypto with a credit card in the app (ETH, USDC and USDT, depending on region). USDT-TRC20 has a minimum deposit of 1 USDT after network fees, and each asset is accepted only on the networks shown on the Deposit page, which RedotPay can change. Deposits to the card balance are free.
On rewards, the card has a 5 USD welcome reward usable only on spending, valid for 30 days, and the card page lists “Points & Rewards” and “RedotPay Pro” as separate programmes. No card cashback rate is stated on the pages reviewed.
Bybit Card
Bybit Card scores 6.0 out of 10. It supports virtual and physical cards, in phases across regions. The application asks for Country of Residence, and if the country is not on the supported list, Bybit says it “will register your interest.” The card regions in the official help centre are Argentina, the AIFC (Astana International Financial Centre, in Kazakhstan), Georgia, Kazakhstan, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Peru and the broader Asia Pacific. The cards page says: “This product is not meant for European Economic Area customers. All European Economic Area customer participation is strictly prohibited.” Bybit’s fiat-service restricted list (which covers deposits, withdrawals and One-Click Buy, but is not a card-specific statement) includes Belarus, the Russian Federation, Serbia, China and the United States, and says “Russian users can only make RUB transaction in Fiat.” The card-specific statement does not address Russian or Belarusian citizens separately, and no citizenship-vs-residence rule was found; the card currency “depends on the country of your Advanced Identity Verification.”
The card types vary by region: Argentina is a Mastercard prepaid; AIFC, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Australia and Mexico are listed as “Mastercard credit card” in the help-centre table; Brazil and Peru are Visa prepaid; Asia Pacific is Visa credit. Card fiat currencies are USD for AIFC, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Australia and Asia Pacific; ARS for Argentina; MXN for Mexico; BRL for Brazil; and PEN or USD for Peru. Validity runs from 3 years (AIFC, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Asia Pacific, Australia) to 6 years (Argentina) to 5 years (Brazil, Mexico, Peru). A virtual card must be obtained first; a physical card is not available in Peru.
On cost, virtual card issuance is free in all regions “until further notice”, and there is no annual or cancellation fee listed with a value. Physical card issuance and replacement: Australia 29.99 USD; Argentina 5 USD/USDT; Georgia 29.99 USDT; Kazakhstan (AIFC) 29.99 USDT; Asia Pacific 5 USDT; Brazil and Mexico none. VIPs holding an Australia, Kazakhstan (AIFC), Georgia or Asia Pacific physical card pay no issuance or replacement fee. The cards page says “Auto interest, no annual fees.”
Transaction fees include a crypto conversion fee of 0.9% over the One-Click Sell rate in Australia, Asia Pacific, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Mexico; 0.5% in Argentina; not supported in Peru. FX fees are 2% on top of the network rate in Australia, Asia Pacific, Georgia and Mexico; Kazakhstan (AIFC) charges 2% as an “International Fee” on purchases outside Kazakhstan even in USD; Argentina 7%; Brazil 1.5%; Peru 1%. FX padding is 0% in the Australia group and Mexico, 5% in Argentina and 1% in Brazil, with the excess refunded. Argentina also stacks on taxes: VAT 21% on foreign digital services, a 30% tax on foreign transactions and a provincial gross-income tax of 1% to 13.2%.
The card has no balance of its own: it draws on the Funding Account and the Flexible Easy Earn balance, fiat first, and if fiat is insufficient, crypto is sold at the “Bybit One-Click Sell exchange rate plus a Bybit Card crypto conversion fee.” Supported cryptos are BTC, ETH, XRP, USDT, USDC and GRAM, with a default priority of USDT > USDC > GRAM > BTC > ETH > XRP that you can reorder in the Card Dashboard. The Funding Account is topped up via Buy Crypto or by depositing crypto from other wallets.
The rewards structure changed on 5 October 2026 at 10:00 UTC: only crypto-funded transactions now earn points or cashback, fiat-funded spending does not. The tier table (rate; monthly cashback cap; monthly spend to unlock for non-VIP) is: Base 2.00%, 5 USD, 0; Beta 2%, 50 USD, 500 USD; Alpha 4%, 150 USD, 3,500 USD; Apex 6%, 250 USD, 9,500 USD; Omega 8%, 400 USD, 12,500 USD; Infinite 10%, 600 USD, 25,000 USD. Points are pending for 4 calendar days; cashback is paid in USDT = points × 0.002, and Auto Cashback must be on. There is a Pay Later instalment bonus of an extra 1%. The welcome offer is 10% cashback up to 110 USDT in the first 30 days; VIPs and Alpha and above get “100% cashback on must-have subscriptions”; referrals pay 20 USDT / 10 USDT.
MetaMask Card
MetaMask Card scores 7.1 out of 10. Sign-up is open in 45 listed countries and territories (including Andorra, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Spain and Uruguay); other regions join a waitlist. Proof of residency is required, and the FAQ notes that “Ineligible regions limit sign-ups, not spending.” No citizenship rule is stated. US and UK sign-ups are temporarily closed per the FAQ.
The card is a Mastercard. A virtual card is issued first, instantly, and a Metal card can be pre-ordered in the app after virtual approval; one card per user. The issuer is Monovate, the card provider is Crypto Life. Card currency is not stated on the pages reviewed.
Cost-wise, the virtual card is free with no annual or maintenance fee; the Metal card is 199 USD a year. The fee page says “Minimal fee for each transaction” (amount not stated on the pages read; a fee table is linked) and “no additional MetaMask fees,” with no foreign transaction fee and the Mastercard rate used.
Funding is direct from the connected wallet. Networks are Linea, Base, Monad and Solana. Tokens named: mUSD, wETH, EURe, GBPe, USDC and USDT (the page says nine in total). Solana-only wallets cannot withdraw credit.
Rewards are paid in mUSD into the Money Account: 1% on the Virtual card; the Metal headline rate is 3%, with a footnote limiting 3% to the first 10,000 USD spent and 1% thereafter. There is also a $FLY bonus of 5× on Virtual and 7× on Metal via the Blackbird dining app.
How the three compare
| Feature | RedotPay | Bybit Card | MetaMask Card |
|---|---|---|---|
| Score | 6.9 / 10 | 6.0 / 10 | 7.1 / 10 |
| Virtual card | 10 USD | Free | Free |
| Physical card | 100 USD | 5–29.99 USD (region-dependent) | 199 USD / year (Metal) |
| Networks | Visa | Visa and Mastercard (region-dependent) | Mastercard |
| Cashback | Welcome 5 USD; rate not stated | Up to 10% by tier; crypto-funded only | 1% Virtual; 3% then 1% Metal |
| Best for | A non-custodial-ish Visa spend in supported regions | Tiered cashback on a funded account | A self-custody card tied to your wallet |
For a Monolith holder, the closest match in spirit is MetaMask Card, because it spends directly from a self-custody wallet. RedotPay is the option if you want a non-custodial flavour with a Visa rail. Bybit Card is the option if you want a structured cashback programme and you are happy to pre-fund an account.
Who I Would Recommend This To
Almost no one, in the usual sense. Monolith is closed, and there is no signup flow to walk anyone through. The only people this page is genuinely for are former holders with two specific questions: is my crypto still safe, and how do I get my fiat back.
If you are a former holder, the answer to the first is yes, provided you have your 12-word seed phrase. The answer to the second is the Solaris Redemptions form, with a EUR or GBP payout account and, if needed, a colour copy of your ID. Neither of those paths is a recommendation of the card; they are recommendations of what to do with the remnants of one.
If you came here looking for a new crypto card, the relevant question is not “is Monolith good?” but “which of its replacements suits the kind of spending you actually do?” The three above cover the main cases: a self-custody-first card (MetaMask), a non-custodial Visa with a clear fee table (RedotPay) and a tiered cashback programme on a funded account (Bybit). The decision between them is about your funding model, your geography, and how much you want to think about cashback tiers versus a simple per-transaction fee.
There is one group of readers this page can still help, though it is small. If you held TKN and are watching for the $TKN to $TOKEN swap, the closure notice’s most recent update (28 February 2025) said the details would come in April 2025, and the channel is Monolith’s Telegram or email. Joining one of those is the only way to be sure of receiving the swap terms. That is a piece of advice specific to a closed programme, and it is the kind of thing that gets lost in the larger story of cards and cashback.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Monolith card?
The Monolith card was a debit card that spent directly from a non-custodial crypto wallet, so the user kept control of their private keys rather than depositing crypto with a custodian. The card was issued by Solaris, and the company behind it trades as UAB “Belela”, a Lithuanian-registered entity. The programme closed on 8 October 2024 and no new cards are being issued.
How did the Monolith card work?
You held crypto in a non-custodial wallet, and the card converted and spent from that wallet at the point of sale. There was no custody step in between: the card was a window onto your own wallet, not onto a balance held by Monolith. The 12-word seed phrase was the access key, and it could be imported into other wallets such as MetaMask, Trust Wallet or Coinbase Wallet.
Is Monolith a bank?
No. Monolith was a programme manager, not a bank or e-money institution. The card was issued by Solaris, a regulated card issuer, and the underlying company was UAB “Belela” in Lithuania. The closure notice also stated that Lithuanian deposit insurance and the UK FSCS do not cover crypto activities or funds in the non-custodial wallet.
Who owns Monolith?
The trading name is UAB “Belela”, a Lithuanian virtual currency deposit and exchange operator with company code 305982313. The site copyright is held by Token Group Ltd under licence to that Lithuanian entity, and the cards were issued by Solaris. The successor app is named in the closure materials.
Is the Monolith card available in my country?
No. The programme closed on 8 October 2024 and is not accepting new customers in any country. The historical coverage, drawn from unofficial third-party sources, was the EEA (31 European countries) per Coin Bureau’s coverage updated 29 March 2023, with the same source noting that the card “can’t be used in the USA or Asia.”
How do I get a Monolith card?
You cannot. The programme is closed, the app has been delisted from app stores, and cards have been deactivated. For a card in the same spirit, MetaMask Card spends from a self-custody wallet; for a non-custodial Visa, RedotPay; for a tiered cashback programme, Bybit Card.
Does the Monolith card require KYC?
The closure notice does not state KYC requirements because the programme is closed. Historically, regulated card programmes in this space require KYC, and Solaris, the issuer, is a regulated entity. The notice does, however, require a colour copy of your ID if the email on your Solaris redemption form differs from the one on your Monolith account.
How do I withdraw money from a Monolith card?
The card itself is deactivated. Leftover fiat balances are held by Solaris, the issuer, and the redemption path is the Solaris Redemptions Support page: subject line “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, payout account in EUR or GBP, colour copy of ID if the email differs, and a 14-day response window. Crypto in the non-custodial wallet is recovered by importing the 12-word seed phrase into another wallet.
Is the Monolith card safe?
The closure notice warns that the in-app balance is no longer accurate, and that Lithuanian deposit insurance and the UK FSCS do not cover crypto activities or non-custodial wallet funds. The on-chain wallet is safe in the sense that the user controls the keys, but that is also the source of the risk: lost seed phrases cannot be recovered by anyone.
How do I delete my Monolith account?
The closure notice states that accounts have been closed. If you still have the app installed, the notice does not provide a deletion flow, and the app is no longer in stores, so an in-app deletion is unlikely to be available. For personal data questions, the relevant route is the Solaris Redemptions form or the Monolith email channel listed on the closure notice.
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