Uphold Debit Card

VERIFIED 27 Sep 2026 (pass 2) against binding documents: the Uphold Visa Cardholder Agreement with Cross River Bank (effective 1 Sep 2025, fee schedule and short-form disclosures), the US Card Rewards Program Terms (last updated 7 Sep 2026), and the UK Uphold Card Terms and Conditions with Optimus Cards UK Limited (V.02, which include the UK Card Reward Programme), plus Uphold's help centre (Earning rewards, Managing the Uphold Debit Card, Eligibility). MODELLED (US, the larger market): Essential pays 2% back in XRP on eligible purchases with no fee; cashback is capped at $120 a month (a cap on rewards, not on spend, so it binds from $6,000 of monthly spend). Elite costs $99.99 a year, charged when the card is ordered and every 12 months after, and renews automatically; it pays 3% on purchases funded with USD, other fiat or stablecoins, with cashback capped at $300 a month. No document sets a balance or holding requirement for either plan. Elite pays 4% on purchases funded with crypto or metals, but those assets are sold at Uphold's trading spread (typically 2.05% to 2.2% for BTC and ETH), so the modelled Elite rate is the 3% fiat-funded rate. REWARD DURATION (founder decision, 28 Sep 2026): US cashback is modelled at 0% ongoing. The US card page footnote says 'Reward value available for 3 months after activating, if activated on or after January 1, 2026' (Wayback captures show it read 'before January 1, 2026' until at least March 2026 and was changed by June 2026), and the current rewards terms (7 Sep 2026) call the programme 'a promotional offer' and say 'For a limited time, customers who sign up ... will receive rewards as follows', with no rate after the period. Time-limited new-user offers are excluded under the site's rules, so the 2% and 3% rates stay in the plan tiers as the advertised rates and regionRates carries 0% for the US. An in-app check on a card activated in 2026 would settle it. FX: Elite has a 0% foreign transaction fee. Essential charges a flat $1.50 per foreign transaction (merchant outside the 50 US states and DC) under the fee schedule, the short-form disclosure and the help centre; the card page says 1.50%. The file uses 1.5% (the flat fee on a $100 purchase) for regions outside the US and UK; US and UK residents spending their own currency pay none. Visa's exchange rate applies. No conversion fee on USD-funded spend. UK: a separate programme on a Mastercard prepaid card issued by Optimus Cards UK Limited: 1% back in GBP on purchases funded from the GBP balance (crypto-funded purchases earn nothing), capped at £100 a month, no card or annual fee, no foreign transaction fee (other currencies convert at Uphold's rate, which may include a margin). It is modelled through regionRates: Essential pays 1% for UK residents and Elite, which is US only, pays 0% there so it is never picked for the UK. The file keeps the US $120 cap for the UK, which is lower than £100. Physical cards (US Essential plastic $4.99, UK £9.95) are optional: the free virtual card earns the same. REGIONS: US except Louisiana, New York and US territories; UK except Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories.