Bitrefill Card: 20GB of eSIM Data for €500 of Deposits
Bitrefill has sold gift cards and phone top-ups for crypto since 2014. The Bitrefill Card extends that into a Visa card, virtual or physical, funded by sending crypto and spent in euros. The rewards are where it stops resembling other crypto cards, and the eSIM allowance is the clearest example.
The rewards land in the Bitrefill catalogue
The headline is 2%, and the split is unusual: the product page states 1% on every crypto deposit and 1% on every purchase, with no cap on either. The FAQ adds that cashback is paid in euros, credited the same day the payment settles, and does not expire.
The redemption route is the part that decides what any of that is worth. Bitrefill describes converting cashback into Bitrefill balance as free and instant, and that balance buys gift cards, eSIMs, phone refills and the rest of the catalogue. No other route is documented.
So the 2% is worth 2% to someone whose grocery, travel or mobile spending already runs through brands Bitrefill stocks, and worth less to everyone else. That is not a criticism of the rate, which is high. It is a different unit of account: cashback paid in USDC settles anywhere, and cashback paid into a catalogue settles where the catalogue reaches.
The eSIM allowance keys off deposits rather than spending
Depositing more than €500 of crypto in a month unlocks up to 20GB of free eSIM data for travel, according to the product page. The FAQ describes the reward as monthly, resetting each month, and claimed from the rewards section of the card account.
Almost every card reward keys off spending. This one keys off funding, and the difference is practical. The €500 has to arrive; it does not have to be spent. Someone who moves €500 into the card and spends €200 of it still qualifies, because the threshold sits on the deposit.
The €500 also earns its own 1%, so the deposit that unlocks the eSIM returns €5 before any purchase happens. Read together, the monthly cost of holding the allowance is not €500 but the inconvenience of routing that much through the card, and €5 comes back for doing it.
Two documented limits sit under that arithmetic, and both push against depositing without spending. The inactivity fee is €10 a month once an account passes 12 continuous months without spending or cashing out, and a deposit does not reset that clock; Bitrefill warns by email a month and a week ahead, but the way to clear it is to spend or withdraw. The Starter tier also caps crypto deposits at €15,000 over the life of the account rather than per month, so €500 a month reaches that ceiling in thirty months. Past it the account has to move to the Plus tier, which asks for proof of address and proof of source of funds; deposits keep working for 30 days and the card is suspended after that if the upgrade is not completed.
The headline carries two caveats of its own. The figure is stated as up to 20GB, so it is a ceiling rather than a monthly grant. And the FAQ wording is looser than the product page: it grants the reward to active cardholders without repeating the €500 figure, which is worth confirming in the app before planning a trip around it.
The exclusions decide what the 2% actually covers
Deposits to bank accounts, cash-outs and ATM withdrawals earn no cashback. The 1% deposit reward attaches to crypto arriving on the card, not to euros moving in and out of it, which rules out cycling money through the card to manufacture a rewards balance.
Availability is European: the FAQ lists 27 EU countries plus Norway and Iceland. U.S. citizens and Russian Federation citizens are excluded, with an exception for Russian citizens who also hold EU or EEA citizenship. Identity verification is required and registration starts at 18.
Before ordering, the number worth working out is how much of a normal month would be spent inside the Bitrefill catalogue, because that is where both rewards settle. The second is whether €500 a month is a deposit that would happen anyway: the eSIM rewards funding, while the inactivity fee and the lifetime deposit cap both reward spending, so an account that only ever deposits meets them from opposite directions. Travel fees behave differently across crypto cards, and the eSIM allowance sits on the same side of the ledger.
Sources: Bitrefill Card, Bitrefill Card FAQ and the Bitrefill Card tiers and limits help page.
