About CardGauge
Independent, plain-English coverage of crypto debit and reward cards — how they work, what they really cost, and when a normal card is the smarter choice.
CardGauge is an independent guide to crypto cards — the Visa and Mastercard products that let you spend crypto or earn crypto rewards. We started it because the existing coverage tends to lead with the biggest cashback number and bury the two things that actually determine whether a crypto card is worth carrying: the tax that spending crypto can trigger, and the risk of locking a volatile token to unlock the good rewards. Our job is to put those catches in plain sight.
How we gauge a card
We assess five things: the real reward value after fees, the full fee schedule (foreign exchange, ATM, top-up and monthly charges), whether the top rewards require staking a token, which regions the card serves, and the card type — debit, prepaid or genuine credit. We do not run speed tests or publish invented fee tables. Every figure we cite is the issuer's own published or advertised term, read on a stated date and marked "published, checked", because crypto card rates and tiers change often. Where we are unsure, we say so rather than guessing.
The honesty rules
Crypto is regulated financial territory, and we treat it that way. We give no price predictions and never tell you what coin to buy — those questions get reframed into education about how to evaluate risk. We name real failures where they are relevant, including the 2022 collapses of FTX, Celsius, BlockFi, Voyager and Terra/LUNA, and the Crypto.com card reward cut that same year, because they are the clearest lessons available. Every commercial page carries a visible risk box, not buried footer text. And we will happily tell you that a boring cashback card beats a crypto card, because for many readers it does.
How we stay independent
Some outbound links to card issuers are affiliate links: if you open an account through one, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. That never changes what we write or how a card is ranked, and many of the options we recommend — including ordinary cashback cards — pay us nothing at all. A missing affiliate link is our honest signal that a mention is unpaid. The full detail is on our affiliate disclosure page.
Nothing on CardGauge is financial, tax or legal advice. We explain how these products work so you can make your own decision, ideally with a qualified professional and your own country's rules in hand.