How we score crypto cards

From the documents that bind the provider. The cardholder agreement names the issuer and the fees. The rewards terms set the rates, tiers and caps. The issuer's entry on a regulator's register shows what it is authorised to do. Press releases and help-centre articles fill gaps, and the review says when a figure comes only from marketing.

The issuer matters more than the logo on the card. The rewards terms for the Coinbase One Card, the credit card covered in our Coinbase Card review, are a separate legal document from the marketing page, and the rate a reader gets is the one in the terms.

Why does the issuer get its own check?

Because programmes depend on it. On June 26, 2020 the FCA imposed requirements on Wirecard's UK business, and CoinDesk reported that the order hit every card issued by Wirecard Card Solutions, including Crypto.com's cards, until the FCA lifted the restriction on June 30. Binance said in October 2023 that its European Visa card would work only until December 20, 2023. A review names the issuer so you can judge that risk yourself.

Through four checks, in this order. A card review that fails any of them does not ship.

1. Claim ledger. Every factual statement (fees, dates, licences, incidents, user numbers) goes into a table with its current value, the source URL, the publisher, the source's own date and the date we opened it. We cut any claim that has no fetched source.
2. Adversarial challenge. A separate second pass re-opens the sources for every high-stakes item (money, licences, incidents, lawsuits) plus a random 30% of the rest. Where the two passes disagree, the challenge wins.
3. Sentence-level QA. On the finished draft, every sentence that states a fact must map to a ledger row or a fetched source. We fix or delete any sentence that does not map.
4. 100-point audit. The audit scores the finished page out of 100 on content quality, search optimisation, sourcing and expertise signals, technical structure and how easily search and AI tools can cite it. Below 75, the page does not ship. The target is 85.

What does a catch look like?

For the Crypto.com Visa Card review, the first pass had only the FCA number Crypto.com itself quotes for ForisGFS and could not find one for Foris DAX UK. On October 16, 2026 the challenge pass searched the FCA register directly. It lists ForisGFS UK Limited as an authorised e-money institution (FRN 988571, since December 1, 2023) and Foris DAX UK Limited as registered for cryptoasset activity (FRN 941745, since August 16, 2022). The review now cites the register, not the company's description of itself.

The methodology overview covers the full process and how it changed in October 2026.

No. Skrumble does not apply for cards, top them up, spend with them or withdraw cash. Every card review is documented desk research with dated sources.

That means a score cannot tell you how long delivery took, whether a payment was declined at a particular shop or how the app felt. It does tell you what the terms promise, what they charge and who stands behind the card, checked against the documents. When a review works out what a reward is worth, it shows the arithmetic from the published terms.

On balance protection, the documents are blunt. The FDIC's fact sheet says deposit insurance does not cover "crypto assets" and does not protect against the failure of a non-bank crypto company. So each review says exactly what does and does not protect the money behind a card.

Our target is at least every six months, and each card review shows the date it was last updated. Both card reviews were re-researched on October 17, 2026 under the four-check process set out on this page.

These events trigger an earlier check:

• a change to reward rates, tiers, lock-up requirements or caps
• a new foreign-exchange, ATM or monthly fee
• a change of issuer or programme manager
• a programme closing in a country, or opening in a new one
• an enforcement action against the issuer or the provider

Tell us through the contact page, with the claim and the source that contradicts it. We re-open the primary source. If the review is wrong, we correct it, re-check any pillar score the fact feeds, move the review's updated date and record the change and its source in the research file.

Card terms sometimes change on a set date announced in advance. When the research spots a dated change, the review states both the current rule and the date the new one applies, instead of guessing which is live.

No. The overall score is calculated from the five pillar scores and nothing else, so commission terms have no way into it. Today neither card review links out with a referral code. The Visit buttons open the card providers' own websites.

Some card providers run affiliate or referral programmes, and Skrumble keeps a record of their terms. If a review ever links out through a partner link, Skrumble can earn a commission when you apply, and the Visit buttons on reviews are marked as sponsored links. No provider approves a review before it is published. The full disclosure is on how we make money.