The card looked promising. Then its issuer announced the consumer programme is closing.

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

Zeal is a self-custodial crypto card that turns stablecoin balances into ordinary Visa payments, and on paper it ticks several boxes that matter to people who cannot easily open a normal bank account: no monthly fee as far as the public pages say, no foreign-exchange markup from Zeal itself, spending at the Visa mid-market rate, Apple Pay, ATM withdrawals, and cashback of up to 4% paid in GNO. That is the case for it.

Against that, the issuer of the underlying card programme — Gnosis Pay — has announced it will close its consumer card and web app at 23:59 UTC on 20 December 2026 and move to business customers, with cardholders directed to partner apps for replacement cards, and the GNO cashback eligibility ending on 30 September 2026. On top of that, Gnosis Pay’s own Trustpilot score sits at 2.3 out of 5 across 38 reviews, an exploit hit an ERC-1271 module affecting Card Safes on 1 June 2026, and the company behind the app is not a regulated financial institution at all. My score for the card as it stands is 6.1 out of 10 — and the reliability line, at 2 out of 10, is the reason that total is not higher. Read the closure section before you spend an hour filling out an application; it changes what kind of purchase this is.

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

The verdict: 6.1 out of 10, and the score in full

The headline number is 6.1 out of 10. That total is not a rounding of “fine” or “avoid” — it is a card with genuinely good economics sitting on top of an unstable foundation, and the two halves pull in opposite directions. Here is the score broken down by criterion, with the mark the card earned on each.

Who this suits: you already hold stablecoins in a self-custody wallet, you spend in EUR, USD or GBP, and you want to pay ordinary merchants at the network rate without a bank’s approval process standing in the way. You also need to be comfortable with a product that is young, thinly staffed and attached to a programme with a published end date.

Who it does not suit: anyone planning a card for the next several years, anyone who needs a dispute process they can rely on, anyone who wants a physical card in the post right now, and anyone whose main worry is getting support from a human within a reasonable time. If you need a bank account in the ordinary sense, this is not a substitute for one, and I would not pretend otherwise.

Will they give you the card?

Yes in many places, conditionally in most, and this is where the careful wording matters. Zeal’s own position is that you can spend in 150+ countries, but that issuance “depends on eligibility and regional availability”. That phrase is doing a lot of work: it means the card is spendable almost everywhere while the right to hold one is decided by where you are. The card programme is listed as live in the EU, the UK, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. Zeal’s own app update notes add Mexico, Colombia and Bolivia to the list of supported places.

Third-party sites, which I am giving as unofficial and not confirmed by Zeal, describe a somewhat messier picture. One, writing in September 2026, lists the EEA and the UK as requirements and says the order screen shows the EU, Switzerland, Iceland and Norway, with the card unavailable in the US and in much of APAC. Another, from August 2026, counts 36 countries available and 21 restricted, and lists Latin America as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico — with Bolivia shown as both supported and coming soon at the same time. That kind of contradiction is normal for a fast-moving product, and it is a good reason to check the order screen yourself rather than trusting any list, including this one.

One structural point worth holding on to as you read: a card issued in one country can look “foreign” to a shop in another, because merchants can look up the six- or eight-digit issuer identification number at the start of the card number and see which institution and country issued it, and may then apply extra scrutiny or decline. This is not a Zeal quirk; it is how the payment network works, and it is one reason some crypto cards get refused in shops that would happily take a local card.

How to get it

The application path runs through Gnosis Pay. Zeal’s own site does not publish a KYC description — the card’s public pages simply do not say what documents you need, what age you must be, or how long verification takes. That silence is worth noticing on its own, because it means the practical answer below is not from the card.

What Zeal does state is the shape of the product: a Visa card, with a virtual card for online use that you can add to Apple Pay, and accounts denominated in EUR, USD and GBP. The app also says the card is a Visa debit card issued by Monavate Limited together with Gnosis Pay Co Ltd, and offered in both virtual and physical form. Zeal says physical cards are offered; which countries get them, how long delivery takes and what it costs — none of that is stated. Unofficial sources say physical shipping is free and that an older fee page mentioned delivery within 10 days after shipping verification, though the date on that page is unclear.

The verification picture is also unclear from official sources. Zeal points to Gnosis Pay for onboarding, which includes KYC after signing in with Ethereum, with verification handled by Sumsub. KYC tiers, processing times and rejection reasons are not published. Unofficial, from August 2026: full identity and address verification, age 18+, a government ID or passport plus proof of address issued within the previous three months, handled through Sumsub — and an important caveat that uploading documents does not guarantee approval. Another source notes KYC levels and timing are not stated. As with eligibility, the only reliable check is the sign-up flow itself.

Fees: what a Zeal payment really costs

Zeal publishes no fee schedule at all — no numbers on its site or in its App Store listing. So the honest answer is that the card’s own pages do not tell you what it charges, and everything precise below is unofficial, gathered from third-party sites in August and September 2026, and not confirmed by Zeal. The one official statement that matters most is that Zeal charges no additional foreign-exchange fee, and that conversion happens at the Visa wholesale rate.

Three everyday payments, to make the shape of it concrete. You buy coffee for 4 euros from a card loaded with euros — no conversion happens at all, so nothing is lost to FX and the only costs are whatever the network itself charges. You buy something priced in dollars while holding euros — the conversion runs at the Visa wholesale rate with no Zeal markup, though any spread baked into the underlying rate is real money that leaves your balance. And you take 60 out of a cash machine in a currency you do not hold — this is the one where fees bite hardest: under the unofficial schedule, the first five withdrawals in a month are free, then 2% per withdrawal, with a 250 cap per withdrawal and 500 per day.

Two warnings on that table. The ATM numbers come from Gnosis Pay’s tariff, not from Zeal, and Zeal’s site points to a Gnosis Pay fees-and-limits document I could not retrieve — so treat the unofficial figures as a starting point, not a promise. And one archived Gnosis Pay fee page lists a card purchase fee of EUR 30.23 including shipping, which contradicts the free order everywhere else; that page’s date is unclear, which is exactly why it is worth checking the live app rather than an old page. There is one product only: no paid tiers, and the cashback rate depends on how much GNO you hold in the card Safe, up to 4%, with the rate subject to change.

Top up: how money gets in

Top-ups start with a transfer to the right network, and that is where people lose money. Zeal states that the card spends from balances held in the card Safe — stablecoin-denominated accounts in EUR, USD and GBP, on the chains Gnosis Chain and Celo according to Gnosis Pay’s docs — but the exact coins accepted by Zeal are not named. The card top-up fee and the minimum are not stated. Nor are the fees for the fiat rail: euro transfers are processed by Monerium ehf and other transfers by Unblock LT UAB, with fees not stated, and the network fees for a crypto top-up are also not stated.

What I can tell you is the structural risk, and it is the one I would check before sending anything. A crypto transfer is irreversible. If you send on a network Zeal does not support, or to an address belonging to a different network, the funds can be gone or need manual support recovery with no guarantee of success. So confirm the exact network and the exact address inside the app before you sign the transfer, every time.

Unofficial, from September 2026, the picture is friendlier: the card accounts hold EURe, GBPe and USDCe; a SEPA top-up arrives in 1 to 2 business days; conversion, off-ramp and gas fees are quoted at 0%; and bridging on Ethereum still needs gas. That last point is the one to internalise — 0% on the provider’s side does not mean 0% on the chain. If you have USDT but no ETH, for example, you cannot send it, because gas on Ethereum is paid only in ETH.

On the way out, the self-custodial design means funds stay in your own wallet or Safe rather than in someone’s account, and Earn balances in USD or EUR are withdrawable 24/7 with no lockups. What is not stated: the steps and fees for withdrawing the card balance itself, and what happens to a balance left on the card when it closes — which, given the shutdown, is no longer a hypothetical question.

Paying with it every day

Day to day, this is the part of the card that works best. You get a Visa, virtual for online use and available in physical form, addable to Apple Pay, spending from EUR, USD and GBP balances at the Visa mid-market rate with no Zeal FX fee on top. Earn accounts exist in USD or EUR. The app runs on iPhone with iOS 16.2 or later, including Mac with M1 and Vision Pro, and the App Store listing shows a 4.5 out of 5 rating from 17 ratings; the latest version I saw was 0.33.3 from 1 September, and I did not read the Google Play rating.

Apple Pay is officially supported. Google Pay is not stated by Zeal; unofficial, from August 2026, it is supported and is not subject to the physical-card contactless limit. Which merchants are blocked is not stated anywhere I could find, and that is worth remembering, because issuers block categories by policy rather than by law and the list differs from issuer to issuer — gambling code 7995 is the usual example.

Cashback is the other daily draw: up to 4%, paid in GNO on Gnosis Chain, and only if you hold GNO in the card Safe. The App Store also advertises up to 5% variable APY on EUR and USD balances. Two caveats, and the second one is not small: rates can change, and GNO cashback eligibility ended on 30 September 2026, with the GNO cashback programme closing as part of the consumer shutdown. Treat the cashback as something that was true, not something that will pay you.

Where the mechanics bite: online payments may ask for 3-D Secure verification — a one-time code or a biometric check — and address verification is generally unavailable for foreign-issued cards, which is a common cause of declines. A declined authorisation can also leave a hold on your funds for several days, typically up to seven.

What can go wrong

Start with the biggest thing, because it is not a hypothetical and it is not a small detail. Gnosis Pay announced it will close its consumer card and web app at 23:59 UTC on 20 December 2026 and move to business customers. The notice to cardholders is dated 21 September 2026, with other outlets reporting it on 25 September. Users are directed to partner apps for replacement cards — MiniPay is named — Safe funds stay accessible, and the web app stays in a limited form for withdrawals. Separately, GNO cashback eligibility ended on 30 September 2026. One secondary report says Zeal has not confirmed its own future plans; I could not find a Zeal statement, and I am not going to invent one. What this means practically: a card you get today may have months of life in it, and the replacement route is named but not specified.

Second, support. The channels listed are a Discord and an X account — no email address, no live chat, no published hours. The site is in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian; Russian is not offered, which I mention plainly because some readers will be looking for it. That combination, an imminent programme closure and Discord-only support, is where I would expect frustration.

Third, the complaint record. On Trustpilot, zeal.app sits at 3.5 out of 5 from 17 reviews — the page has also displayed 3.7 — including a January 2026 one-star review about support requests going unanswered for two weeks, which Zeal apologised for publicly, and a 2026 review about a scam transaction with slow dispute handling, where the company replied that card disputes take time. App Store reviews mention problems transferring from balance to card and slow support. The issuer, Gnosis Pay, is at 2.3 out of 5 from 38 reviews with 58% one-star and slow or unanswered tickets, per cryptocardhub on 8 August 2026. I found no official incident report.

Fourth, technical risk. An exploit affecting an ERC-1271 module hit Card Safes on 1 June 2026, according to cryptocardhub. On the other side of the ledger, self-custody has its own honest cost: because funds stay in your own wallet, no bank or company can freeze or seize them — but lost funds are also unlikely to be recovered. The wallet is audited with a security policy published on GitHub, and there are Safety Checks, transaction previews, biometric passkey authentication, real-time alerts and the ability to freeze the card in the app. Deposits are not insured and the card’s own words are that your principal is at risk. Read that as what it is: no deposit guarantee.

Fifth, the structure. Zeal is self-custodial software and is not regulated. The app developer is grwth lbs ltd. The cards are managed by Gnosis Pay Co Ltd (UK no. 14919639), and the issuer is Monavate Limited, licensed by Visa Europe and an FCA-authorised e-money institution in the UK. That chain is reassuring in the ordinary way — a licence means someone is accountable — but it also means the parts you are relying on are not all the same company, and one of them is winding down its retail programme.

What to take instead

If your reason for wanting a crypto card is that ordinary banking is closed to you, none of these alternatives solves that, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. What they differ on is cost, custody and how much of the fee picture is actually published.

MetaMask (7.1 / 10) — the strongest alternative on published economics. Sign-up is open in 45 listed countries and territories, with other regions on a waitlist, proof of residency required, and the honest framing that ineligible regions limit sign-ups rather than spending. US and UK sign-ups are temporarily closed per its FAQ. Mastercard, with a virtual card issued instantly and a metal card that can be pre-ordered after approval, one card per user. The virtual card is free with no annual or maintenance fee; the metal card is $199/year. Fees are described as minimal per transaction with no additional MetaMask fees and no foreign transaction fee, though the amount is not stated on the pages I read. It spends straight from your connected wallet on Linea, Base, Monad and Solana, with mUSD, wETH, EURe, GBPe, USDC and USDT named. Cashback is 1% on the virtual card; the metal card’s headline 3% is footnoted down to 1% after the first $10,000 spent.

KAST (6.1 / 10) — the same overall score as Zeal, but the risk profile is different. Eligibility is residence-based and shown at KYC; if your country is not listed, KAST is not available there, and holding only an ID from a restricted region can make you ineligible even if you live in a supported country. Up to 10 cards per user, from Visa Platinum Standard to Visa Infinite metal and gold. Pricing runs from 0 USD annually for Standard to 1,000 USD/year for Premium and 10,000 USD/year for Private. Fees are unusually transparent: stablecoin top-up 0%, card spend in USD 0%, transaction fee 0%, Apple and Google Pay 0%, non-USD FX 0.5% to 1.75% depending on where you live and which card programme, 0.10 USD on non-USD transactions under 25 USD, and 0.50 USD for a declined transaction. Accepts USDT, USDC, PYUSD and RLUSD. Cashback is tiered: 1.5%, 2% or 3% USD within monthly caps of 2,000, 10,000 and 40,000 USD.

TokenPocket (5.8 / 10) — Visa debit cards for a list of European countries including Germany, France, Spain and Switzerland, and Mastercard debit for Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the UK; the Americas were described as planned. Runs on Arbitrum, cards virtual, balances in EUR24 and USD24. NFT creation is partly covered by TokenPocket with the user paying a small unstated portion, and beyond that no additional fees are charged — but a 1% fee applies when depositing cryptocurrency, refunded later through rewards or reduced transaction fees. No cashback is stated.

The pattern worth noticing: MetaMask publishes the most and asks the least upfront; KAST publishes the most granular numbers of the three; TokenPocket hides its one real cost in a deposit fee. Zeal, on the published-fees front, publishes none — which is why I put its cost score at 8 on the strength of what it states about FX, not on the strength of a schedule it does not have.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend it to someone specific, and I would tell the rest of you to wait.

If you already keep stablecoins in a self-custody wallet, spend in euros, dollars or pounds, want to pay at the network rate with no bank in the middle, and are willing to treat this as a stopgap rather than a foundation — then yes, the economics are genuinely good and the everyday mechanics work. Add the card to Apple Pay, load only what you need, and treat the cashback as a bonus that has already ended.

If you are choosing a card for the next two or three years, come back after the 20 December date has passed and something has visibly replaced it. A card whose issuer has published a closure date, whose support is a Discord, whose issuer’s Trustpilot is 2.3 out of 5, and which is not itself regulated, is not something to build a routine on. And if your problem is that no bank will open an account for you, read this review as one more thing that is not a bank — self-custody means nobody can freeze your money, and it equally means nobody can get it back for you.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Zeal card?

Zeal is a self-custodial crypto card app that turns stablecoin balances into ordinary Visa payments. You hold the crypto in your own wallet or Safe, and the card spends from EUR, USD or GBP balances inside that Safe, on Gnosis Chain and Celo. The app developer is grwth lbs ltd; Zeal itself is software and is not a regulated financial institution. The underlying card programme is run by Gnosis Pay, with the Visa debit issued by Monavate Limited.

How does the Zeal card work?

You convert or top up a balance, and the card spends only that balance, so it cannot overdraw. Payments run at the Visa mid-market rate with no additional foreign-exchange fee from Zeal. A single Visa, virtual and physical, serves online and in-store spending, and the virtual card can be added to Apple Pay. Gnosis Pay states that Cashback of up to 4% is paid in GNO on Gnosis Chain, but only if you hold GNO in the card Safe, and that programme’s eligibility ended on 30 September 2026.

Is Zeal a bank?

No. Zeal is self-custodial software and is not regulated. The card side is handled by Gnosis Pay Co Ltd (UK no. 14919639) as programme manager, with Monavate Limited as the issuer, licensed under Visa Europe and an FCA-authorised e-money institution in the UK. That structure has one clear consequence for you: because your funds stay in your own wallet, no bank or company can freeze or seize them — and if they are lost, they are unlikely to be recovered.

Which countries can I get the Zeal card in?

Issuance “depends on eligibility and regional availability”. The programme is listed as live in the EU, UK, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand, and Zeal’s app notes add Mexico, Colombia and Bolivia. Spending works in 150+ countries. Unofficial sources, not confirmed by Zeal, describe 36 countries available and 21 restricted, with the card unavailable in the US and much of APAC. Check the order screen yourself; lists change and sometimes contradict each other.

Does the Zeal card require KYC?

Yes in practice, though Zeal’s own public pages do not state the requirements — documents, age and timing are not stated there. Gnosis Pay’s onboarding includes KYC after signing in with Ethereum, with verification through Sumsub. Unofficial, from August 2026: full identity and address verification, age 18 or over, a government ID or passport plus proof of address issued within the previous three months — and uploading documents does not guarantee approval. KYC levels and processing time are not published.

How much does the Zeal card cost?

Zeal publishes no fee schedule at all — no figures on its site or in its App Store listing. What it does state is that there is no additional foreign-exchange fee and conversion happens at the Visa wholesale rate. Unofficial figures from August and September 2026: the card is free to order, shipping is free, there is no monthly or annual fee, a replacement costs 4.99, and the first 5 ATM withdrawals (or 200 units per month, whichever comes first) are free, then 2% per withdrawal.

How do I top up the Zeal card?

Top-ups run through transfers to the account in the card Safe, with the card top-up fee and minimum not stated. Euro transfers are processed by Monerium ehf and other transfers by Unblock LT UAB, with fees not stated. Unofficial, the accounts hold EURe, GBPe and USDCe, a SEPA top-up arrives in 1 to 2 business days, and provider-side conversion, off-ramp and gas fees are 0% — though bridging on Ethereum still costs gas. Confirm the network and address in the app before signing: transfers are irreversible.

Is the Zeal card safe to use?

It is safer than a custodial wallet in one specific way, and riskier in another. Because it is self-custodial, no provider can freeze or seize your funds — but neither can they recover them if you lose them, and deposits are not insured, with the card’s own warning that your principal is at risk. There are real safeguards: biometric passkey authentication, real-time transaction alerts, the ability to freeze the card in the app, an audited wallet with a GitHub security policy, Safety Checks and transaction previews. Weigh that against the 1 June 2026 exploit affecting Card Safes.

Why is the Zeal card closing, and what should I do?

Gnosis Pay announced it will close its consumer card and web app at 23:59 UTC on 20 December 2026 and move to business customers. The notice to cardholders is dated 21 September 2026; other outlets reported it on 25 September. Users are directed to partner apps for replacement cards, with MiniPay named, and Safe funds stay accessible while the web app remains in a limited form for withdrawals. One secondary report says Zeal has not confirmed its own plans. If you hold one, check your balance and have an exit in mind rather than assuming continuity.

Is the Zeal card worth it?

Worth it for a narrow case: you already hold stablecoins in self-custody, spend in EUR, USD or GBP, and want to pay merchants at the network rate without a bank’s approval process in between. On those terms the economics are good — no Zeal FX fee, no monthly fee, Apple Pay, working ATMs. Not worth it as a long-term card: the programme has a published end date, support runs through Discord, the issuer scores 2.3 out of 5 on Trustpilot, and cashback eligibility has already ended. Buy with it if you must; do not depend on it.

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