Shakepay card review: a Canadian prepaid Visa with bitcoin cashback, if you live in Canada

The Shakepay card sits in an unusual corner of the crypto-card market. It is a physical Visa Prepaid card tied to a Canadian-dollar balance inside the Shakepay app, with bitcoin cashback on purchases and tap-to-pay support through Apple Pay and Google Pay. It looks, on paper, like a perfectly normal everyday card. The catch, and the thing that decides whether it is even worth considering, is geography: the card is only available to customers inside Canada.

That single fact shapes this whole review. If you live in Canada, hold a Shakepay account, and want bitcoin cashback on routine spending, the card has real appeal. If you live anywhere else, the discussion stops early because the card is not offered to you. Below I walk through who can get it, what it costs in plain numbers, how loading and withdrawal work, and the reliability concerns that show up in user reports.

The conditions described here are current as of 21 October 2026.

Verdict: 4.3 out of 10 — a Canadian-only niche product with mixed reviews

Shakepay scores 4.3 / 10 overall, after I weighted its five main criteria. I landed there because the everyday-use features are genuinely good — a physical prepaid Visa, Apple Pay and Google Pay, an ATM withdrawal option, and up to 1.5% bitcoin cashback — while the eligibility rules, the limited top-up options and the public complaint record pull the score back down.

Here is how the criteria break out:

Who this card suits

The natural fit is a Canadian resident who already holds a Shakepay account, uses Shakepay to buy and sell bitcoin in Canadian dollars, and wants a prepaid Visa that spends that CAD balance and pays out bitcoin rewards. If you live in Canada, do not need a metal or virtual card, are happy with one currency on the card, and you value bitcoin rewards over points or airline miles, this card is built for that profile.

Who should look elsewhere

If you live outside Canada, the card is not on the table. The same is true if you want a credit card with revolving credit, if your spending involves a lot of foreign currency where you refuse to pay any FX fee, or if you are uncomfortable with a custodial wallet where the platform holds your balance. Travelers who spend abroad regularly will also find the 3% FX charge on the default Base tier expensive compared to no-FX-fee alternatives covered in the alternatives section.

Will they give you the card — eligibility and country rules

The eligibility rule is straightforward, and it is the first thing to check before reading any further. The Shakepay card is offered to all Shakepay customers in all 13 Canadian provinces and territories, and to Canadians only. The card’s public page says Canada, and the cardholder agreement does not explicitly require Canadian residency either, but the help documentation speaks only of Canadian delivery and the programme does not list any other country. Shakepay says it will let you know by email at [email protected] which countries and merchants are restricted, but it does not publish a list.

For anyone reading this outside Canada, this is the section that decides the rest of the page.

• Residents of Russia, Belarus or other CIS countries: Shakepay’s public pages do not state whether residents of these countries can apply. The card’s published eligibility is Canadian only. Citizenship and residency rules are not separately published, so the practical answer is that the card is Canadian.
• Russian or Belarusian citizens living in Canada: the eligibility rule is described as Canadian residency; citizenship is not addressed in the pages I read, so a Russian or Belarusian passport holder living in Canada should check directly with Shakepay rather than assume eligibility either way. The cardholder agreement says residency is not explicitly required, which adds some uncertainty in either direction.
• Russian citizens living elsewhere outside Canada (EU, UK, US, etc.): the card is not offered outside Canada in the published materials, so a Russian-citizen expat cannot use this card as a workaround for a foreign-issued prepaid Visa. The alternatives section covers cards that may be available in your country.

There is no published list of countries or merchant categories the card restricts, beyond saying that some countries and merchants are restricted. If your account or card ends up being rejected at a foreign merchant — for example, because the issuer country on the BIN doesn’t match the merchant’s expectations — that is the underlying reason merchants sometimes decline prepaid or foreign-issued cards.

One practical detail: the cardholder agreement is the legal contract, not the marketing page. Where the two disagree, the agreement governs, so it is worth reading the agreement section on geographic use before relying on the card outside Canada.

How to sign up and order the physical card

Signing up follows the usual Shakepay account flow: open or sign in to the Shakepay app, complete identity verification to a fully verified status, fill in the eligibility questionnaire in the app, and then order the card from within the same app. Shakepay says no credit check is involved, which is consistent with a prepaid card rather than a credit product. Setup, in their words, takes minutes.

The ordering step has a few specifics worth knowing:

• You set the card PIN during the ordering step, not after the card arrives. Pick it carefully because once set, the PIN cannot be changed — to change it, you replace the card.
• Shakepay sends the physical card by Canada Post regular mail within 21 days, with no tracking number. The card is delivered regardless of where you live in Canada, which suggests Shakepay takes the whole country as one delivery zone.
• The card is free for fully verified accounts. The issuance fee is not stated on the public pages I read, but the free-for-fully-verified detail is consistent with the card being complementary to the Shakepay wallet rather than a paid product.
• One card per person, and Shakepay does not appear to offer a virtual or metal version — neither form is described on the public pages.

Verification levels, processing time, what documents are required at each tier, and the specific reasons an application might be rejected are not stated on the public pages I read. If your account is not yet fully verified, the path to the card runs through reaching full verification first. The cardholder agreement says you must be of the age of majority in your province or territory.

For replacements: tap Replace card in the app. If the card was damaged, the same number, expiry and CVV continue to work on the replacement. If it was lost or stolen, the replacement comes with new card details. Shakepay will reissue within 30 days of your loss report. The replacement fee itself is not stated.

What the card really costs — Fees, limits and FX

The headline pricing is friendly: no annual fee, and the card itself is free for fully verified accounts. The detail underneath gets more interesting once you start using the card outside Canada or at an ATM, because that is where the FX charge and operator fees show up.

Here are the fees and limits published on the Shakepay help center and cardholder agreement. Any number not on the list is not publicly stated — including issuance fees, ATM withdrawal fees beyond the per-transaction caps, and conversion fees in the literal cardholder-agreement fee table, which lists only the FX charge.

A note on limits: a second help article or a version of the cardholder agreement was reported by third parties to give a lower CAD $3,000 per transaction / per day figure, which is at odds with the figures above. I could not confirm which is current, so the table above uses the numbers from the help article updated 21 April 2026, and the lower figure stays noted here as an unverified second source.

What this means for three everyday purchases

To make the fee table less abstract, here is how it lands on three real payments. The figures below show what fees apply, not exact totals.

• A coffee in Canada bought with your CAD balance: no FX conversion and no card fee beyond what Visa charges the merchant, so the cost is just the purchase price plus whatever your card tier awards in bitcoin cashback.
• A hotel booking abroad on the default Base tier: the foreign-currency amount is converted at the Visa rate and adds the 3% Foreign Exchange Charge. If you reached the Bright or Blue tier for the month, that drops to 1.5% or 0% respectively. Refunds in foreign currency get converted at the rate Shakepay paid Visa, minus the FX charge, so a refund is usually smaller than the original charge in your currency — a small but real cost to track.
• Cash from a PLUS ATM abroad: up to CAD $500 per withdrawal and CAD $1,000 per day, no bitcoin rewards, plus any ATM-operator fee the local machine charges on top. The card does not support cash or cheque deposits.

A foreign-currency refund is the underrated cost: if you spend $100 USD abroad and the merchant refunds you a week later, the refund in CAD can be slightly less than $100 because the FX charge is taken off the rate Shakepay paid Visa for the refund. That is by design on Visa-network cards but worth knowing before disputing small charges.

The tier structure is monthly, not permanent. Shakepay reviews your activity each calendar month and moves you up or down based on whether you exchanged $100 or $1,000 of CAD on Shakepay, or had $200 or $2,000 of eligible direct deposits. Bright requires $100+ of Shakepay exchange activity or $200+ of eligible direct deposits. Blue requires $1,000+ of exchange activity or $2,000+ of direct deposits. So whether you pay the 3%, 1.5% or 0% FX charge in any given month depends on the activity you had last month.

How to Top up the card with Canadian dollars

The card spends a CAD balance held inside the Shakepay app. To put more money on the card, you fund the Shakepay account; the card reflects whatever CAD balance is sitting there. There is no separate card-only top-up step.

The two main funding routes, as published, are:

• Interac e-Transfer in: free, usually arrives in minutes, with a CAD $5 minimum and a CAD $10,000 maximum per transfer.
• Wire transfer in: free, takes 1–2 working days, with a CAD $10,000 minimum.
• Cash or cheque deposits: not supported.

A few practical points the card page and help center raise:

• There is no activation fee and no minimum balance requirement after funding.
• The card page does not state which cryptocurrencies can be sent directly to the card, or which networks Shakepay supports for card top-ups. The crypto-to-card route is therefore “fund the Shakepay account, then spend the CAD balance,” not “send BTC to a deposit address that loads the card.”
• Shakepay itself is a crypto trading platform. You can buy and sell bitcoin, ether and other coins in the app, but the help center’s card-funding article only describes the Interac and wire routes. Crypto-funded card top-ups specifically — what coins, what networks, what fee — are not stated on the pages I read.

If you do send crypto to Shakepay, the platform’s general crypto deposit pages will tell you which coins and networks it supports there; those are not the same as direct card loads. Treating the card as a CAD-balance spender simplifies the question: get CAD onto Shakepay first, then spend.

Withdrawing money back out

Closing the card in the app, or calling 1-855-574-2539, leaves your Shakepay wallet balance intact. Funds on the wallet side do not expire when the card closes. What the sources read do not state is what it costs to withdraw money from the wallet back to a bank account or out to crypto. The Shakepay fees page covers exchange fees, but a specific wallet-withdrawal fee schedule for the card is not given.

Paying with the Shakepay card in everyday life

The card behaves like a normal prepaid Visa in Canada and abroad, with the small differences that come from being prepaid and Shakepay-issued.

• Where it is accepted: any merchant that takes Visa. Shakepay does not restrict the geography beyond the usual card-network rules.
• Mobile wallets: Apple Pay and Google Pay are supported “where available,” which in practice means devices and merchant terminals that accept contactless Visa. The tokenisation used by these wallets means the actual card number never sits on your phone or Apple’s servers, and a one-time dynamic code is used per transaction. Shakepay can restrict the tokenised number — for example by blocking it on magnetic-stripe or website use — but I did not see a published list of such restrictions.
• ATM access: at PLUS-logo ATMs, with the $500-per-transaction and $1,000-per-day caps above. There is no cardholder list of which ATM networks outside PLUS will or will not work, so plan on PLUS machines if cash is part of your use case.
• Online checkout: standard Visa online payments. Shakepay does not appear to publish which merchant categories are blocked at the program level; some issuers restrict gambling or other categories, but I did not find such a list for Shakepay specifically.
• Cashback: up to 1.5% back in bitcoin on eligible purchases at eligible merchants worldwide. The cashback is credited automatically to your BTC balance in the Shakepay app, and you can withdraw it to a private wallet from there. Cashback is “up to” 1.5%, which depends on your tier and the merchant.

The everyday-use features — physical card, contactless, tap-to-pay, ATM access, online checkout — are the strongest part of the card. If you only care about a basic prepaid Visa inside Canada, Shakepay ticks the standard boxes.

Disputes, lost cards and unauthorised use

Two practical things to know if something goes wrong with a payment:

• You must notify Shakepay in writing about a transaction problem within 60 days of the transaction, through the dispute section of the app. The cardholder agreement also says that if the dispute is not received within 90 days, the transaction is treated as accepted. The 60-day window is the safer deadline to work from.
• For unauthorised-use claims under Visa’s Zero Liability policy, Shakepay says resolution may take up to 120 days after the paperwork is in, and that a police investigation may be required. Transactions made before you report the card as lost or stolen may be treated as yours, which is another reason to lock the card in the app the moment you suspect it is missing.

If Shakepay’s in-house complaint process does not resolve the issue, the cardholder agreement points at two external options: the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments at 1-888-451-4519, and the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) at 1-866-461-3222. Both routes are Canadian; their usefulness is limited if you live outside Canada.

What can go wrong — risks, reliability and the company behind the card

It is worth separating the structural risks from the operational ones, because they call for different responses.

Company, issuer and insurance

The Shakepay card is issued by Peoples Trust Company under licence from Visa International. Shakepay itself is registered with FINTRAC (registration number M17065696), is a member of CIRO, and is registered as an Investment Dealer with the AMF and provincial regulators. Funds held in a Shakepay account are not CDIC-insured, meaning balances do not enjoy the deposit insurance a Canadian bank account would. Shakepay holds the balance as a custodial wallet — you trust Shakepay with the underlying funds, just as you would trust any other exchange or wallet provider.

Security features on the card itself

On the everyday-security side, the card offers:

• Lock or freeze the card instantly in the app.
• Two-factor authentication on the account.
• PIN set at ordering, not changeable later (replacement is the way to get a new PIN).
• 24/7 lost-and-stolen line at 1-855-574-2539.
• A PIN that can be disabled after three wrong entries.

These are standard safeguards. The freeze-and-replace cycle, plus 3-D Secure confirmation on online checkouts (where the merchant and your bank support it), is what you would expect from a modern prepaid card. The company is also a regulated money-services business in Canada, not an offshore product.

User complaints and reliability themes

Trustpilot reviews of Shakepay overall are low at 2.3 out of 5, with only 22 reviews at the time I checked (most are about the exchange product rather than the card). Of those, only one review explicitly mentions the card, and it was positive. Still, the recurring themes across the exchange and account reviews matter if you are entrusting the same company with your card balance:

• Accounts frozen or closed without an obvious reason, with reports spanning 2021 to July 2025.
• Support unresponsive for days at a stretch, again spanning multiple years (2021, December 2023, July 2025).
• Delayed or blocked withdrawals and wires in 2022 and 2023, including reports of unreturned funds — the most recent example cited is a $250 bill payment that was not received in September 2026.
• Source-of-funds questioning in November 2022, where the platform asked for documentation after the fact.

A third-party site, CryptoCardHub, in a page dated 11 August 2026, cites a Trustpilot score of about 1.5 out of 5. That figure is at odds with the 2.3 I read directly from Trustpilot, so I would treat it as unverified. Either way, the order of magnitude is “low” rather than “high,” and the recurring issue is the same: holds, freezes and slow responses on the funding side, which is exactly the side the card depends on.

Structural risks worth naming

Three structural risks are worth keeping in mind because they are not Shakepay-specific and they affect how you should think about any prepaid Visa:

• A prepaid card cannot overdraw. If your balance is empty, the card is declined. Unlike a credit card or a bank-issued debit card linked to a current account, there is no overdraft line.
• The card-issuance arrangement with Peoples Trust and Visa is a card programme, not Shakepay’s own banking licence. Card programmes can be wound down — Visa itself terminated its global FTX agreement on 13 November 2022, and the FTX US debit card programme was wound down by its issuer after that. WaveCrest, another Visa card issuer that supplied crypto card brands, was suspended by Visa in Europe in 2018. The risk for a cardholder in either case is that spending and loading stop on a notice period, and any remaining balance has to be withdrawn within that period.
• Funds on a prepaid card issued by an e-money or equivalent institution are typically not deposit-insured. CDIC, the Canadian deposit insurer, does not cover Shakepay balances. The risks that come with a custodian — counterparty failure, hack, fraud — are real and have happened at other platforms.

The official Shakepay pages do not describe any specific incident or outage. The risks above are the ones the public materials, the user reports and the broader card-category context bring together.

What to take instead — three alternatives to compare against

Shakepay is not the only crypto-branded card, and several others serve different audiences. The three alternatives below are the ones closest to Shakepay’s profile, with the numbers that are publicly stated.

Gemini Credit Card

The Gemini Credit Card is a Mastercard World Elite credit card — credit, not prepaid — with no foreign transaction fees and no annual fee. Rewards are paid in bitcoin or more than 50 other Gemini-supported cryptos, on a tiered rate: 4% back on gas, EV charging and transit (capped at the first $300 per month), 3% on dining, 2% on groceries and 1% on other spending. It carries a referral bonus of $50 in crypto per signup and $250 per five referrals, up to 50 per year. The card’s eligibility page does not state which countries are eligible, so rules on Russia or Belarus are not listed. Score: 4.9 / 10.

Lava Card

Lava bills its card as accepted at 150 million merchants in more than 150 countries, with no annual fees, no FX fees and no FX spread. Bitcoin earned at “up to 5% back” on every purchase. The funding model is described as local-currency or stablecoin deposits through a “Global Money Movement” layer, but the specific networks and coins are not listed on the card’s public pages. Eligibility and any Russia or Belarus rules are not stated. Score: 7.1 / 10.

Trastra

Trastra’s prepaid Visa debit card is on a list of 31 countries it currently serves (including Germany, France and the UK), with a stated plan to roll out across the European Economic Area. For non-European residents the page says “Not at the moment.” Funding is from a Mover wallet using cryptocurrencies, though specific coins and networks are not stated. Rewards are not stated on the card’s public pages. Score: 4.1 / 10.

If you are a Canadian resident, Shakepay is a real option; if you live elsewhere, it is not, and Gemini (credit card), Lava (cryptocurrency-friendly) and Trastra (prepaid, European) cover most of the use cases people usually have, subject to their own eligibility rules. Cards from those programmes are also subject to the same structural risks described above (programme closure, regulator action, FX rules), and you should verify their eligibility for your country before relying on them.

Final recommendation — who I would point to Shakepay

I would recommend the Shakepay card to a Canadian resident who is already a Shakepay customer, holds CAD in the app, and wants a simple prepaid Visa to spend that CAD at home and abroad, with bitcoin cashback on purchases and tap-to-pay support. The card is honest about being prepaid, has no annual fee, and the tiered FX charge makes the rates competitive if you are an active Shakepay user (Bright and Blue both lower the 3% default).

I would not recommend the Shakepay card to:

• Anyone living outside Canada — it is not offered to non-Canadian residents in the published materials.
• Travellers who expect to spend heavily in foreign currencies at the default Base tier — the 3% FX charge will add up. Either qualify for Bright or Blue (which means trading $100–$1,000 of CAD on Shakepay in a given month or having $200–$2,000 in eligible direct deposits) or look at the no-FX-fee alternatives in the comparison table.
• Anyone whose main fear is counterparty risk and who is not already comfortable with Shakepay holding their balance. The same company runs the card, so the Trustpilot themes of holds, freezes and slow support apply to the funding side of the card.
• Anyone who needs a virtual card, a metal card, or a credit card with revolving credit. The Shakepay card is a physical prepaid Visa only; virtual and metal forms are not described on the public pages, and credit-card features (signing bonuses, higher credit limits, instalment plans) do not apply.
• Russian citizens living in Russia, in other CIS countries, or abroad — Shakepay’s eligibility is published for Canadian residents only, and citizenship rules are not separately stated. The official position is Canada-only.

If you do not fit the Canadian-resident profile, this card is not your option. The rest of the crypto-card market is built around either credit-card-style products (Gemini), broader global reach (Lava) or EEA-style prepaid (Trastra), and the comparison table above is the starting point for that.

One last practical note: if you do apply, complete full identity verification first, because the card is free only for fully verified accounts. If your verification is partial, the issuance fee is not stated, so the safer step is to reach full verification before ordering the card.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Shakepay card?

The Shakepay card is a physical Visa Prepaid Card that spends a Canadian-dollar balance held in the Shakepay app, available to Shakepay customers in all 13 Canadian provinces and territories. It pays up to 1.5% cashback in bitcoin on eligible purchases, supports Apple Pay and Google Pay where available, and is issued by Peoples Trust Company under licence from Visa International.

How does the Shakepay card work?

You load CAD into your Shakepay account by Interac e-Transfer or wire, the app holds that CAD balance, and the card spends it at any Visa-accepting merchant. Non-Canadian purchases are converted at the Visa rate, with a Foreign Exchange Charge of 3% on Base, 1.5% on Bright and 0% on Blue, depending on your monthly reward tier.

Is Shakepay a bank?

Shakepay is not a Canadian bank. It is a money-services business registered with FINTRAC and a member of CIRO, and the card is issued by Peoples Trust Company under licence from Visa International; Shakepay holds your balance in a custodial wallet. Shakepay balances are not CDIC-insured.

Who owns Shakepay?

Shakepay is the operator that markets the card programme and runs the app. The card itself is issued by Peoples Trust Company under Visa’s licence, so Shakepay is the programme brand rather than the regulated card issuer in the strict sense.

Is the Shakepay card available outside Canada?

The card’s published eligibility is Canadian residents in all 13 provinces and territories; Shakepay does not publish a list of supported countries or a separate rule for Russia, Belarus or any other country. If you live outside Canada, the card is not offered to you in the materials I read.

Can I use the Shakepay card abroad?

The card itself works at any Visa-accepting merchant worldwide, but the Base tier adds a 3% FX charge on non-CAD transactions; Bright drops that to 1.5%, and Blue to 0%, based on your Shakepay activity each month. Foreign refunds get the FX charge applied again, so a refund can be slightly smaller in CAD than the original charge.

Does the Shakepay card require KYC?

Yes. Shakepay requires a fully verified account before issuing the card, including identity verification per Canadian anti-money-laundering rules. There is no credit check because the card is prepaid, not a credit product.

How do I top up the Shakepay card?

You fund the Shakepay account, and the card spends that CAD balance. Interac e-Transfer is free with a CAD $5 minimum and a CAD $10,000 maximum; wire transfer is free, takes 1–2 working days and has a $10,000 minimum. The card does not support cash or cheque deposits, and direct crypto-to-card top-ups are not described on the public pages.

Is the Shakepay card free?

The card is free for fully verified accounts; no annual or monthly fees are published. The issuance fee for non-fully-verified accounts is not stated, and the only fee that bites at point of sale is the Foreign Exchange Charge on non-CAD spending — 3%, 1.5% or 0% depending on your reward tier for the month.

Is the Shakepay card safe to use?

The card has the usual safeguards — 2FA on the account, freeze in the app, lost-and-stolen line at 1-855-574-2539, PIN at ordering — and the programme is run by a regulated Canadian money-services business. The reason to stay cautious is that Shakepay balances are not CDIC-insured and Trustpilot reviews describe freezes, slow support and unreturned funds, so the operational record is mixed even though there is no specific card-related incident in the materials I read.

Written by the editors at Crypto Card Rating.