Most crypto cards work one way: the moment you tap to pay, the provider sells part of your balance and settles the purchase. XPlace adds a second route, and it is why I wanted to write about this card. You park Bitcoin, Ethereum or Solana as collateral, borrow USDC against it, and spend the loan while the coins stay where they are. In his July 28, 2026 walkthrough, Prometheus HODL calls it possibly the best crypto card he has brought to the channel, and credit mode is the reason.
Two spending modes on one Visa card
Every card needs a balance behind it, and XPlace gives you two ways to build one. Cash mode behaves like a prepaid card: you deposit stablecoins, in practice USDC, and each payment draws that balance down. Credit mode behaves like a secured loan: you deposit crypto you already own, the platform values it, and it opens a credit line in USDC that the card spends.
With most crypto cards, the provider sells part of your balance to settle the purchase the moment you pay. Here that is only true in cash mode. In credit mode nothing is sold at the counter. The creator put it in one line: "pedir emprestado não é vender suas criptomoedas", borrowing is not selling your crypto.
| Mode | What you deposit | What the card spends | Where the risk sits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | Stablecoins such as USDC | That deposited balance | Stablecoin and platform risk |
| Credit | Crypto collateral such as BTC, ETH, SOL or USDT | USDC borrowed against the collateral | Liquidation if the collateral falls |
You switch between the two modes with a tap in the app, and the site promises no fixed repayment schedule and no hidden fees in credit mode. Both modes sit behind a Visa card, so any merchant that takes Visa takes it. The card is virtual by default, works with Apple Pay and Google Pay, and can be frozen or blocked from the app. The company says card data is encrypted and that a person, not a bot, answers support.
XPlace describes the setup as non-custodial, and the creator repeats that the platform does not hold your coins for you. In credit mode the collateral does not sit idle in a wallet. It is lent out through Kamino, a Solana lending protocol, and the yield you see is interest paid by borrowers. The creator describes the position as a receipt in your own wallet, the way Aave hands you a token that represents your deposit. You hold the claim while the coins work somewhere else. I would call that a real difference from a custodial card, though it is not the same as coins sitting untouched under your own key.
How credit mode works: Kamino, LTV and liquidation
The mechanism is a collateralized loan, and the number to understand is the loan-to-value ratio, or LTV: the share of your collateral you are allowed to borrow against. XPlace advertises up to above 80% LTV on assets including SOL, BTC, ETH and USDT, with USDC issued instantly against the deposit.
That ceiling is a maximum, not a promise for every deposit. In the app, a deposit worth $4.75 produced $3.38 of available credit at a shown 5.63% APY, about 71% of the balance. The gap between the advertised 80% and what you actually get is worth watching: a small deposit leaves little room for a few dollars of price movement before a margin call.
The yield on collateral accrues daily, so the collateral grows a little on its own and your borrowing room grows with it. The app showed the portfolio at $4.75 earning 0.01% APY after the deposit landed, and the site talks about earning up to 5.7% APY on assets while you spend. Those are the rates displayed in July 2026, not fixed terms.
On the collateral screen, Bitcoin showed 5.43%, Solana 6.15%, Jito Staked Solana 4.87% and Ethereum 1.59%. The spread between assets is wide, and the asset you pick decides how much of the borrowing cost the yield offsets.
Kamino is the counterparty that makes this work. The site says the protocol holds more than $2.8 billion in deposits, has been audited more than 18 times and has no history of bad debt. The creator calls it a reliable name, and those figures are the company's own. Smart contracts are audited by FYEO, and MoonPay, Visa and Solana are listed as partners.
Liquidation is the risk that comes with the loan. The creator walks through a simple case: put Bitcoin in as collateral when it trades at $100,000, watch it fall to $80,000, and the collateral no longer covers the same loan. The app sends a notification before any liquidation, and you have three moves: repay part of the debt, add more collateral, or reduce the loan. It works the same way as a position on Aave. There is no fixed repayment date, so you can also clear the loan whenever you like.
That alert helps, though it does not guarantee you will have time to act, especially if the market gaps over a weekend or a fee spike delays your top-up. I would treat it as a last warning rather than a safety net.
The four tiers, limits and cashback
XPlace sells four plans. The free one is usable but small, and the paid ones buy a higher monthly spending limit and more cashback.
| Plan | Annual fee | Monthly spending limit | Cashback |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Free | $2,000 | 0.5% |
| Silver | $96 | $20,000 | 1% |
| Gold | $240 | $200,000 | 1.5% |
| Platinum | $996 | $750,000 | 4% |
Cashback is tied to the tier, so the 4% figure only exists on a plan that costs $996 a year, and only up to the monthly limit. On the basic plan, 0.5% back on $2,000 of spending is $10 a month at most. That is a decent bonus and nowhere near a reason to choose the card. The paid plans only pay for themselves if you spend close to the limit month after month.
Nothing in the plan terms requires you to lock or stake a token for the card itself, and the site promises no locks on the collateral yield. The rewards program runs on XP you collect from deposits and referrals, and the creator says he does not know exactly how those rewards are paid out. Until that is clear, XP looks like a marketing layer on top of the cashback.
The higher tiers add travel perks rather than better card mechanics: airport lounge access that rises from a single visit to four and then unlimited on Platinum, a network of more than 1,300 lounges, restaurant and event access, and something the creator reads as a concierge for personalised travel. The perks are worth something if you fly often, but none of them changes how the money works.
What the XPlace Card charges
The one fee stated plainly is 1% on top-ups, meaning the money you load onto the card. Foreign transactions are listed at zero, and the creator confirms that spending outside your country does not add a charge. Virtual issuance appears free, and the physical card is included if you ask for one, as the creator reads the page.
The annual fees are less clear. The plan page priced the tiers at nothing, $96, $240 and $996 a year, while a fee comparison further down the same site showed $200 for Silver and $1,000 for Gold. The creator read both figures and could not reconcile them. I would not pick a paid tier until the checkout screen shows the amount you will actually be charged.
He also read a list of items he could not tie to an ordinary purchase: a 5% discount on a trading fee, a 1% points fee and a 1% referral fee. Those may apply to specific actions inside the platform, such as converting between assets or referring another user. The page does not explain them well enough to say.
ATM withdrawal charges and the interest terms on a borrowed balance beyond the headline APY are not spelled out anywhere I could find, so read those screens before you rely on the card for daily spending.
Getting verified and making a first deposit
The card needs identity verification before it is issued, the same as other crypto cards. The site's line about three steps and no paperwork is marketing: the flow asks for a document, your income and your expected monthly volume. Registration is open to every country except the United States, which the sign-up screen states directly and the creator flags.
- Open the app, enter your email and then the code that arrives by email.
- Set a PIN and confirm it.
- Claim a username, the handle that identifies your account.
- Confirm your country. Every country except the United States is accepted.
- Fill in personal details, your income, the monthly volume you expect to move and the purpose of the account, then accept the terms.
- Choose the document type and upload it for identity verification.
- Pick a plan. The basic tier costs nothing and you can upgrade later.
- Add the card to Apple Pay or Google Pay, or order the physical card.
- Choose Receive crypto, then select the token and the network. A Bitcoin deposit went to a Bitcoin address starting with bc1, not to a Solana address.
- Copy the address and send at least the minimum. For Bitcoin the app showed 0.000075 BTC, which the creator says is around R$25.
- Wait for confirmation. The balance appears once the transaction is confirmed on chain.
For the creator the identity check cleared in a few minutes, and after the Bitcoin transfer confirmed the app showed $4.75 and opened $3.38 of available credit automatically. You can also buy crypto inside the app with Google Pay or a credit card, or add USDC by bank transfer, so the first deposit does not have to come from an outside wallet. When you copy a deposit address, check the network label on the same screen; sending an asset on the wrong chain usually means losing it.
Taxes and reporting: what a loan changes
This is where the two modes pull apart. In cash mode you are spending crypto, and in many countries spending crypto counts as a disposal: you are treated as having sold the asset at its value on the day, and any gain since you acquired it can be taxable. That is a general rule about spending crypto, not something specific to this card, and the records are yours to keep.
In credit mode nothing is sold, at least at the moment you borrow. The credit-mode screen says there is no taxable event, and the creator agrees, on the grounds that a loan is not a capital gain. That argument assumes the collateral is repaid rather than sold, and it says nothing about the interest or about what a liquidation would do to your records.
The creator also points to the company's base in Dubai, which in his reading means XPlace does not report to the Brazilian tax authority yet and is expected to join CARF by 2028. CARF, the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, is the OECD standard under which crypto platforms pass account data to tax authorities, and countries are adopting it at different speeds. That timeline is his reading, and it is the kind of claim to verify rather than assume. What you owe depends on where you live and how your gains are taxed, not on whether a platform files a report.
Where the risks sit
Volatile collateral plus a loan means a price drop can force a sale of the very coins you were trying not to sell. A card that spends borrowed money also makes it easy to forget the loan is there, and liquidation is the mechanism that reminds you.
The rate spread is the second thing to check. The creator reads the 5.63% APY shown against his deposit as the interest charged on the loan, though he has not spent on the card and cannot confirm it. If that reading is right, borrowing against Bitcoin at 5.63% while the collateral earns 5.43% costs slightly more than it earns, and you pay the difference for the privilege of keeping the coins. I would run both numbers for the asset I plan to deposit before assuming the yield covers the cost.
Protocol risk sits underneath all of it. The collateral is lent through Kamino, so the yield depends on borrowers paying and on the contracts behaving as audited. More than $2.8 billion in deposits and more than 18 audits reduce that risk; they do not remove it. USDC adds the usual stablecoin question, since the loan and the spending balance are denominated in it.
The paperwork is another cost. You hand over an identity document, your income and the purpose of the account, and the issuer is a Dubai company serving every country except the United States, so what you can do if something goes wrong depends on the rules where you live. Fee clarity is a smaller but real issue: two annual fee figures on the same site, a 1% top-up charge and a set of unexplained line items are enough reason to read the checkout screen line by line.
What I would check before the first top-up
- Confirm the annual fee at checkout, because the plan page and the fee comparison disagree.
- Compare the borrow rate with the collateral yield for the asset you plan to deposit. A fraction of a percent decides whether the loan is cheap or a slow leak.
- Keep the LTV well below the maximum. The app offered about 70% on a small deposit, and that buffer is what stands between you and a liquidation notice.
- Start at the minimum, 0.000075 BTC or its equivalent, make one small purchase, and watch how the balance and the interest move before loading more.
I would keep the first test small until the checkout screen shows one annual fee instead of two and the interest on a borrowed balance is written down somewhere. The minimum deposit is about R$25 of Bitcoin, cheap enough to watch how the loan, the yield and the repayment behave before a larger position goes behind the card.
