Monolith is gone: a review of the closed crypto card programme, what it means for holders, and what to look at now

Updated October 2026

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If you landed here looking for a crypto card you can sign up for today, stop and read this first: the Monolith card programme shut down its services on 8 October 2024, the cards were deactivated, and the accounts were closed. This is not a review of a live product you might want to apply for. It is a review of a programme that no longer issues cards — what it was, why it ended, what happens to money that was left behind, and where you should be looking if the idea of a crypto card still appeals to you. I am not going to pretend otherwise or dress up a dead card as a recommendation.

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

I give Monolith a final score of 1.8 out of 10. That is not a judgement of how the card worked in its day — it is a judgement of the card as an option for you now, which is the only honest way to score a closed programme. The reasoning behind every number is in the table below and in the sections that follow.

Verdict: a closed programme, and who it suits (nobody, going forward)

The short answer: as a card you could get today, Monolith suits no one. It suited a narrow historical audience — customers in the European Economic Area who wanted to spend crypto through a physical debit card without handing their keys to a custodian — and even that audience lost the card in October 2024. The one group this page still has something useful for is existing former holders with money or tokens left in the system, because there are concrete steps the issuer left behind for them.

Let me be honest about how I arrived at the score. A card you cannot apply for cannot serve you, cannot be recommended to you, and cannot be compared to anything on a list of live options. Scoring it zero for who-can-get-it and zero for everyday use is not me being harsh; it is me recording that these two criteria — can I get this card, can I use it daily — have no answer in the present tense. The other criteria get partial marks only because there is historical context worth knowing, and because a redemption route for stranded balances still functions.

Two numbers deserve a word, because they look contradictory. Cost scores 5 out of 5 because, when it operated, the fee picture was genuinely reasonable and, crucially, cost is the one thing that did not deteriorate when the card closed — a card with no fee still has no fee. Everything else that made it a usable product evaporated in a single day in October 2024. That contrast is the whole story of Monolith in miniature.

If you are a former holder, the audience note matters most: people redeeming leftover balances through Solaris. That is the one group for whom this page is not merely a post-mortem but an instruction manual.

What happened to the programme

The programme ended in stages, and the stages matter for anyone trying to work out where their money is. On 8 October 2024, Monolith closed its services, deactivated the cards, and closed the accounts, citing “increasing regulatory requirements in the EU and UK”. The closure notice does not mention MiCA by name, so while the timing and the stated reason point squarely at the EU’s crypto-asset regulation, the company’s own wording is the broader “increasing regulatory requirements”. Then on 17 February — the notice does not state the year, though context points to 2025 — the app was delisted from the app stores, so even the software that used to let you look at your balance is no longer there to download. The closure notice also states plainly that the app balance is no longer accurate, which is why former holders are pointed toward their own keys rather than toward the app.

Behind the card sat a real, licensed structure, which helps make sense of who owes you money now. The Monolith brand was the trading name of UAB “Belela”, a Lithuanian entity described as a virtual currency deposit and exchange operator, code 305982313. The site’s copyright is held by Token Group Ltd under licence to that company. The card itself was issued by Solaris, a separate institution — and Solaris, not Monolith, is the entity now holding any leftover card funds and running the redemption process. A successor app, Token.com, is named on the notice. There is also a loose end: in April 2025 details were promised of a swap of the TKN token to a token called TOKEN, and as of the notice’s update of 28 February 2025 that detail had not yet arrived.

What the card used to be, according to unofficial historical sources rather than the closure notice itself: it was a Visa debit card (per Coin Bureau, updated 29 March 2023), earlier issued by Contis Financial Services Ltd (per 2019 web coverage), and aimed at the EEA — 31 European countries — with the caveat that it “can’t be used in the USA or Asia” (per Coin Bureau). The card currency was EUR or GBP, which still matters, because the Solaris redemption payout must be “in the card’s currency (EUR or GBP)”. The public pages do not state the network and card forms, the delivery arrangements, the eligibility rules, the KYC tiers, or any rewards or tier structure — the programme is closed, so those pages simply do not exist to read. I am telling you once, plainly: those details are not stated on the card’s public pages, and I will not guess at them.

On cost and fees, again unofficial and historical (Coin Bureau, 29 March 2023): there was no monthly or shipping fee “if you’re using the card in the country where it’s registered”; a 1% top-up fee, avoidable by topping up with DAI; a 1% community contribution, avoidable by topping up with TKN; up to 2% per top-up otherwise; a 1.75% FX fee outside the card’s currency; and no crypto/fiat exchange fee. There was no cashback.

None of that is available to you now. I include it because understanding why the card was once a decent option — low fees, self-custody, a clear European footprint — is what makes the shutdown feel like a loss rather than a non-event.

If you already have the card

This is the section that still matters in the present tense, so read it carefully whether you are an existing holder or someone researching what happened to other people. There are two entirely different piles of money in a former holder’s hands, and they are recovered in two entirely different ways. Confusing them is the single biggest mistake a former holder can make.

The crypto in your wallet. Monolith’s wallet was non-custodial, which means you — not Monolith — held the seed phrase. The recovery route is entirely in your hands: import your 12-word seed phrase into another wallet, such as MetaMask, Trust Wallet or Coinbase Wallet, and your crypto reappears. If you never saved the phrase, it was shown in the app under Settings > Back up Seed — which, note carefully, is in the past tense now that the app has been delisted, so if you did not save it before October 2024 and cannot reach it now, that is a real problem to raise with support, not one this page can solve. You can no longer top up the cards through Monolith; that function is gone.

The fiat left sitting on the card. This is the other pile, and it is not yours to self-serve. Funds left as card balance are held by Solaris. To get them back you submit a request on the Solaris Redemptions page with the subject “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, you give payout account details in EUR or GBP — matching the card’s currency — and you attach a colour ID copy if the email on the account differs from your payout account. Solaris aims to respond within 14 days. That is the official route, and it is the only one the notice describes.

• Non-custodial crypto → import your 12-word seed phrase into MetaMask, Trust Wallet or Coinbase Wallet.
• Never saved the phrase? It was under Settings > Back up Seed in the app, before the app was delisted.
• Card balance → Solaris Redemptions page, subject “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, payout in EUR or GBP, colour ID copy if needed.
• Topping up the card through Monolith is no longer possible.
• Support: Solaris Redemptions Support (form and email) for card funds; Monolith via Telegram and email for the TKN/TOKEN questionnaire. Languages and hours are not stated.

For context only, the historical limits (Coin Bureau, 29 March 2023, unofficial) were a cash withdrawal limit of £350 (€378) per day and a spending limit of £7,500 (€8,113) per day; the ATM fee was not stated. You topped up with ETH, TKN, DAI, DGD, DGX, MKR, SAI or USDT. None of this is available now, and the card’s public pages do not state the current limits or fees — they do not exist. Nothing about ATM access or disputes is stated, because the programme is closed; the notice mentions no disputes and no compensation, only the Solaris redemption route.

If you are reading this and you recognise the TKN-to-TOKEN swap question rather than a stranded balance, that is the other open thread: Monolith was reachable via Telegram and email for the TKN/TOKEN questionnaire, with the April 2025 details still promised as of the 28 February 2025 update.

What can go wrong

Nothing about a closed card is a “risk” in the ordinary sense — you cannot lose a balance to a declined payment on a card that has not worked since 2024. The real risks now are about timing, paperwork and lost keys, and they differ sharply depending on which pile of money you are trying to recover.

The first and largest risk is losing access to your own crypto by losing the seed phrase. This is the flip side of non-custody, and it is the one genuinely user-caused risk in the whole story. A seed phrase is typically 12 to 24 words that anyone can use to restore your wallet and spend its funds. If yours was never written down — and the app that would have shown it under Settings > Back up Seed is now delisted — the crypto is not recoverable through Monolith, because Monolith never held the keys. This is why, if you are a former holder and you have a vague memory of having funds in the Monolith wallet, the very first thing to do is reconstruct and secure that seed phrase.

The second risk is the redemption paperwork going wrong. Solaris pays out “in the card’s currency (EUR or GBP)”, so if your card was a euro card and you supply a pound account, or vice versa, the payout details do not match what is asked for. The notice asks for a colour ID copy if the email differs — a small thing, but a missing document is a common reason a request stalls. Solaris aims to respond within 14 days; aim to read that as a target, not a guarantee.

The third risk is a slow or contested refund. The closure notice describes the redemption process but says nothing about disputes or compensation, and the card’s public pages state no dispute procedure. That silence is worth taking seriously: I found no Monolith-specific complaints and no Monolith Trustpilot page, but as a matter context rather than anything about this card, other Solaris-issuer card closures (Plutus) drew Trustpilot complaints about slow refunds. That is not a prediction about your claim; it is a reason to submit your redemption request promptly, with complete documents, and keep a record of it.

There is one more thing former holders should understand, and it is about where their crypto sits relative to any protection. Lithuanian deposit insurance and the UK FSCS do not cover crypto activities or funds in the non-custodial wallet. The self-custody that made Monolith attractive meant your crypto was never a “deposit” in the protected sense — but equally, no provider held it, so a provider failing cannot return it to you. The seed phrase is the whole of your protection.

For anyone still weighing crypto cards generally, it helps to know the standard failure modes so you can judge a live product: programme closures typically give a notice period, then stop spending and loading, then ask users to withdraw remaining balances — Monolith is one of those cases. And card issuers can pull the rug from under a brand: Visa terminated its global agreements with FTX in November 2022 and the FTX US debit card was wound down by its issuer, and Visa suspended WaveCrest in Europe in 2018, closing all WaveCrest-issued Visa programmes. A crypto card is a programme, and programmes end.

What to take instead

If the idea that hooked you about Monolith was spending crypto through an ordinary-looking card, that idea is alive — just not here. Below are three live options from my comparison set, with the caveat that each scores well above Monolith’s 1.8 only because each still exists. I have kept each description to what the card states, and where a card does not state something, I say so rather than filling the gap.

Cardex — 5.6 / 10. A crypto card for “200+ countries”, though no country list or exclusions are given and the App Store listing is Naira-focused (you pay in Naira). The card is a debit crypto card on the VERVE, VISA, Mastercard and UnionPay networks, offered virtual and physical, in Naira per the listing. You fund from USDT, USDC and BTC wallets — networks not stated. Its distinguishing feature is real-time crypto-to-fiat conversion at the moment of payment, with an “AI-Powered Conversion Rate” that scans global exchange rates and picks the best one when you spend; no fee percentage is stated. Cost and rewards are not stated.

MSX — 6.4 / 10. The highest score of the three, but also the one I can tell you least about: on official pages I could read, eligibility, card type, cost, fees, funding and rewards are all not stated. I am including it because it scores well, not because I can vouch for its details — you would be reading its own pages with the same scepticism I would.

Whop Cards — 5.2 / 10. The most precisely scoped of the three, and the one whose country rules you should read before anything else. It is a Visa card that works anywhere Visa is accepted online and in stores; virtual/physical type and card currency are not stated, and cards can also be issued to team members. The page says “No extra fees” but lists no issuance or monthly amounts, and no conversion or FX fee amounts are stated. You spend from a Whop balance — pending balance is usable as soon as a payment arrives, while standard withdrawals use settled funds — backed by stablecoin collateral from a linked wallet; coins and networks are not stated. Rewards are 5% cashback at select merchants, currently Uber, with more planned; payout currency and conditions not stated.

Whop’s country coverage, stated as such:

The basis for that coverage — citizenship or residence — is not stated, which is itself worth checking with the provider.

Set side by side, the trade-offs are plain. Cardex buys breadth of countries and multiple card networks at the cost of transparency on fees and a Naira-centric listing. MSX scores highest and tells you least. Whop tells you the most — precise state lists, a stated fee policy, a stated cashback rate — and is the most geographically bounded. None of them is a like-for-like replacement for Monolith’s specific combination of self-custody and a European footprint; you are choosing which trade-off you prefer.

Who I would recommend it to

I would recommend Monolith to almost no one, and I want to be clear that this is not fence-sitting. To someone looking for a card to apply for today: no, there is nothing to apply for. To someone comparing live crypto cards: Monolith does not belong on your list, because a card that cannot be obtained cannot be compared.

To a former holder, though, my recommendation is specific and urgent. If you have crypto that was in the Monolith wallet, treat securing your 12-word seed phrase as job one, today — import it into a wallet you control and confirm the balance is there, because that recovery depends on you and on nothing else. If you have fiat left as card balance, file your request on the Solaris Redemptions page right away, with the exact subject line, payout details in the card’s currency (EUR or GBP), and a colour ID copy if your email differs; do not wait, because the only thing that reliably speeds up a stranded refund is submitting complete information early. And if you were holding TKN and waiting on the TOKEN swap, that thread runs through Monolith’s Telegram and email, not through the redemption page.

What would change my recommendation? For the “get a card” question, only the impossible: a programme that issues cards again would need to be reviewed as a live product from scratch, and I would treat the 2024 closure as a serious mark against it regardless. For the “is the idea sound” question — crypto spending through a normal card — the idea is sound, and the three alternatives above show it is being served. Monolith was a reasonable expression of that idea that regulatory timing ended. That is a fair epitaph, and it is not a recommendation.

Frequently asked questions

What was the Monolith card?

The Monolith card was a Visa debit card, per Coin Bureau as of 29 March 2023, issued through Solaris (earlier by Contis Financial Services Ltd per 2019 coverage) under the Monolith trading name of Lithuanian company UAB “Belela”. You spent from a non-custodial wallet you controlled yourself. The service closed on 8 October 2024 and the cards were deactivated, so nothing about it can be obtained today.

How did the Monolith card work?

It was non-custodial: your crypto stayed in your own wallet, funded the card, and you spent from it while the card was active. Top-ups used ETH, TKN, DAI, DGD, DGX, MKR, SAI or USDT. Fees were a 1% top-up fee (avoidable with DAI) and a 1% community contribution (avoidable with TKN), up to 2% per top-up otherwise, plus 1.75% FX outside the card’s currency. None of this works now.

Is Monolith a bank?

No. It was the trading name of UAB “Belela”, a Lithuanian virtual currency deposit and exchange operator (code 305982313), while the card itself was issued by Solaris. Your crypto sat in a self-custody wallet, and the notice states that Lithuanian deposit insurance and the UK FSCS do not cover crypto activities or funds in that wallet. So it was not a bank, and its balances were not bank deposits.

Can I still get a Monolith card?

No. Services closed on 8 October 2024, the cards were deactivated and the accounts were closed, and the app was delisted from app stores on 17 February (year not stated on the notice). There is no application, no activation and no new issuance. If you have seen a page suggesting otherwise, it predates October 2024.

How do I get my money back if I was a Monolith holder?

Two piles, two routes. Crypto in the wallet: import your 12-word seed phrase into MetaMask, Trust Wallet or Coinbase Wallet — your keys were always yours. Fiat left on the card: it is held by Solaris, and you submit a request on the Solaris Redemptions page with the subject “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, payout details in the card’s currency (EUR or GBP), and a colour ID copy if your email differs. Solaris aims to respond within 14 days.

Can I still top up or use the card?

No. Topping up through Monolith is no longer possible, and the cards were deactivated on 8 October 2024. The app, which used to show your balance, was delisted from app stores, so it is no longer a tool for anything — including viewing the seed phrase under Settings > Back up Seed. If you need to see your crypto, you need your seed phrase in a different wallet.

Was the Monolith card safe?

It depends which part you mean. The wallet design was genuinely self-custodial: only you held the keys, so the card company never controlled your crypto — but that also meant no deposit insurance or FSCS cover, and a lost seed phrase was unrecoverable through anyone else. The card’s fiat balance, by contrast, sat with Solaris, recoverable via the redemption page. I found no Monolith-specific complaints, though as context other Solaris-issuer closures drew complaints about slow refunds.

What replaced Monolith, and what should I look at?

For spending crypto through a normal card, the live options I compared are Cardex (5.6/10 — 200+ countries, cards on VERSE, VISA, Mastercard and UnionPay, conversion at payment), MSX (6.4/10 — highest score, but official details I could read are not stated), and Whop Cards (5.2/10 — Visa, precise country lists, 5% cashback at select merchants). Each trades off differently; check fees and country rules yourself before choosing.

Was Monolith available in my country?

Historically it was aimed at the EEA (an unofficial estimate of 31 European countries, per Coin Bureau in 2023) and, per Coin Bureau, “can’t be used in the USA or Asia”. But eligibility is now moot — the programme is closed, so no country is served. If your interest is a live card, compare the current options above; note that Whop, for example, is US-state-based with an explicit list of unsupported countries, while Cardex advertises 200+ countries without a published country list.

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