The card stopped on 4 December 2025 and never came back. My score is 2.4 out of 10 — here is who the money reaches and where to go instead.

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

The AQUA card, sold inside the AQUA wallet app as the Dolphin Card, was one of those cards that let you hold crypto and spend it as though it were ordinary money in an app. That is exactly the appeal: no bank card, no bank, an email address and a virtual Visa, and the balance sits next to your coins. That is also where the appeal stops. On 4 December 2025 the Dolphin Card was suspended worldwide, “effective immediately,” after a problem with the card provider. The provider was never named. The JAN3 team behind AQUA said it was negotiating refunds and looking for alternative providers, and no relaunch or replacement provider has turned up since. There is nothing left to sign up for.

So I am not going to write a buying guide for a dead product. I am going to do three things instead: explain what happened and on what dates, tell you exactly what a cardholder can still do about a remaining balance and what will not come back, and walk you through the cards that are actually running today and how each compares on the things that mattered here — cost, top-up, who can hold one. My score for the card as it stands is 2.4 out of 10. The conditions described below are current as of October 28, 2026.

Verdict: 2.4 out of 10

The headline is simple. A card that is suspended worldwide, whose provider will not say who it was, whose balances are being refunded in a stablecoin on one specific network rather than in the currency you spent, and which had not even shipped the features people joined for at launch, cannot score well. It scores badly on reliability for the same reason: there is no card to use.

Two things about that table are worth dwelling on. The zero for “who can get it” is not a harsh judgement about eligibility rules or geography — it is a zero because there is no application to pass or fail. And the cost score of 5 is not praise. It sits in the middle because nobody ever published what the card cost: no issuance fee, no monthly fee, no top-up fee, no minimum top-up were disclosed. An absence of fees is not the same thing as a cheap card, and an unpublished fee is not a gift to the holder.

Let me be equally blunt about who this suits. It suits exactly two kinds of person, and only the second is really a “user.” The first is someone who already holds a Dolphin Card and has a balance left on it, because that person has a job to do — claiming a refund in USDT on Liquid and accepting that some money will not come back. The second, much smaller group is someone who used the card purely for a crypto-native, low-friction virtual Visa with an email-only sign-up during the beta and does not mind that the card no longer exists. For everyone else — anyone trying to solve the ordinary problem of not being able to get a normal bank card — this page is a dead end, and the alternatives section is where your attention belongs.

I should say plainly what is not in this review: there were no published fees, no support channel named in the beta announcement, no security section, no chargeback process described, and no card issuer named. Those are not stated. Several card pages simply do not say, and I would rather say so than fill the gap with a plausible guess.

What happened to the programme

The timeline is short and it is the whole story.

• 21 May 2025. The Dolphin Card beta was announced. It was aimed at users outside the US and Canada, with some merchants unsupported in certain countries. Cards for the US and Canada were hoped for “in the coming months” — a phrase that in hindsight describes a lot.
• The beta itself was remarkably light on checks. Sign-up needed only a JAN3 account with an emailed verification code; ID documents were not mentioned. The card was a virtual Visa, denominated in USD, reloadable, and managed in the AQUA app’s Marketplace. There was no physical card and no delivery described, because there was never a physical card.
• Apple Pay and Google Pay were promised “in the coming months” and were not live at launch. Tap-to-pay was not available. There is no stated list of blocked merchants, no stated rewards programme, and no tiers — only one card was ever described, the virtual Visa, in the beta post.
• 4 December 2025. Every Dolphin Card was suspended globally, effective immediately, after a problem with the card provider. Other Aqua wallet services were said to be unaffected — your crypto, your wallet, that part kept working. The provider was not named.
• Around the same time the JAN3 CEO said partners had told him all cards were suspended and that alternative providers would be sought. The team said it was negotiating refunds. No replacement provider and no relaunch have been found in 2026 searches.

One detail worth understanding, because it explains a lot of the frustration people reported: the card is not the same thing as the company. The card was issued and operated by JAN3 through AQUA, but the card issuer itself is never named — Aqua was, on the public record, the front end. That matters because when the programme stops, the party you have a relationship with is not necessarily the party that controls the payment rail. In November 2022 Visa said it had “terminated our global agreements with FTX” and the FTX US debit card programme was wound down by its issuer. Cards die at the sponsor’s hands, not just the user’s.

There is also an unofficial thread worth knowing about, clearly labelled: a third-party review described the card as “issued in the United States” and USD-denominated, and reported a Spotify payment from Argentina declined because the card country and the user country did not match. That is unofficial, not confirmed by the card, but it fits a general mechanism. Merchants can look up the BIN — the six- or eight-digit prefix that identifies the issuing institution — and see which institution and country issued a card, and apply extra scrutiny when the issuer country differs from the billing address. A card issued in one country can look “foreign” to a shop in another. That is not this card’s fault specifically; it is how the system reads every card.

If you already have the card

Here is what you can still do, and it is more specific than the announcement.

• Your remaining balance is refunded in USDT on Liquid. Not in dollars, not back to your card — in Tether, on the Liquid network. That is a specific and narrow thing, and it has consequences I come back to below.
• You claim it through a secure request form on the website. The refund goes to your AQUA wallet or to any wallet that can receive on Liquid.
• Processing starts once Aqua receives the funds from its provider. So the timeline is not in your hands after you submit. You should receive email confirmations.
• Pending merchant refunds to the card will not return to it. If a shop was going to refund you a payment and had not yet processed it at the moment of suspension, that money does not come back to you through the card. You would have to chase the merchant directly.
• Refund fees are not stated. Neither is a chargeback process, nor a support channel — the beta post named none, and pointed to the terms of service for the country list.

Two things about the refund mechanics are worth a second look, because they are where your money can quietly go. First, Liquid is one network. Blockchain transfers are irreversible: a deposit sent on a network the provider does not support, or to an address belonging to a different network, can be lost or need manual recovery with no guarantee. Before you paste anything anywhere, confirm the address you are sending to is on the network the receiving wallet actually supports. Second, USDT is not a dollar in a savings account. Tether describes USDT as a token built on multiple blockchains with reserves intended to back it 1-to-1, and it has frozen funds tied to illicit activity — stablecoins are not censorship-proof. And a stablecoin can move away from its peg: Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC are the two dollar-pegged names the BIS put at about 90% of stablecoin market capitalisation in July 2025, but TerraUSD collapsed in May 2022 and USDC briefly lost its peg in March 2023. Getting “refunded in USDT” is getting your funds back in a form that carries its own, smaller risks.

On the funding side, so you know what you are recovering from: the card was reloadable and loaded with BTC, L-BTC or Liquid USDt through the Card Management page in the AQUA app. The post recommended a small test load first because the balance can take a moment to update. Maximum $4,000 USD per month. The top-up fee and minimum were not stated. Unofficial and not confirmed by the card: on-chain BTC top-ups need miner fees and 3–4 network confirmations before crediting, the BTC balance was converted automatically to USD, and the card was nameless. At the top end, ATM withdrawals are not stated at all.

And honestly? Even if a refund arrives cleanly, the honest answer to “should I put money on this card again” is that there is no card again. The programme is suspended. So the only real decision a holder has left is what to do with the money after it lands, and that is a question about the alternatives below, not about Aqua.

What can go wrong

Beyond the suspension itself, which has already happened, these are the failure modes I would weigh against any crypto card — including the ones still running.

• The card is not the company. Aqua was the programme manager; the issuer was never named. When a sponsor and an issuer are different parties, the sponsor may not be able to promise you an outcome. That is precisely what happened here.
• Custody means trust. Control of crypto belongs to whoever holds the private key. With a custodial wallet the provider holds the credentials and you must trust them completely. Custodial platforms have a real record of failure: Mt. Gox (about US$350 million reported stolen, 2011–2014), Coincheck (about US$400 million, 2018), Ronin Network (US$625 million, 2022). A seed phrase — typically 12 to 24 words — is the unencrypted private key; anyone who obtains it can restore the wallet and spend the funds. Transfers are typically irreversible, and a stolen key has no built-in recovery: the network cannot freeze or return the funds.
• Address verification and prepaid declines. Address Verification Service compares the numeric parts of the billing address a buyer typed with issuer records; it is mainly offered in the US, Canada and the UK and is generally unavailable for foreign-issued cards, which causes declines. Some merchants decline prepaid or foreign BINs because the lookup reveals the card type and issuer country. A declined authorisation can also leave a hold on your funds for up to seven days.
• Blocked categories. MCC 7995 covers gambling — casinos, betting, lotteries — and many issuers block it on specific cards by policy rather than by law, with the list varying by issuer. This card’s blocked merchants are not stated.
• Sanctions and geography. Nationality is recorded and screened separately from residence, because sanctions screening and issuer risk policy are often applied to citizenship and country of birth as well as country of address. If due diligence cannot be completed, EU rules require the institution to refrain from the transaction or relationship and, where necessary, end the relationship — which is why accounts get closed or frozen pending documents. If due diligence cannot be completed, that is the rule working, not a bug to route around.
• Regulation is moving under all of these cards. MiCA, the EU’s markets-in-crypto-assets regulation, took legal effect in June 2023; its rules on stablecoins applied from 30 June 2024 and the crypto-asset service provider rules from 30 December 2024. Under MiCA an e-money token may be issued only by a credit institution or an electronic money institution. The transitional period lets providers already operating under national law continue only until 1 July 2026 or until they receive or are refused a MiCA authorisation, whichever comes first. A card is separately regulated as a payment service, so a crypto card often rests on two licences — one for the crypto side and one for the card. The practical takeaway: a card programme can be perfectly legitimate and still be gone in a quarter.
• Safeguards you cannot verify. Two-factor authentication in an app, instant card freeze, spending limits, 3-D Secure and tokenised mobile wallets are the typical safeguards. For this card, the security arrangements are not stated, and the assurance I have is only that the JAN3 CEO said user funds are safe. I would not read that as a guarantee to you.
• Taxes are not the card’s business, and not mine either. The IRS treats digital assets as property, so exchanging them for goods or services generally produces a taxable gain or loss, measured in local fiat currency at fair market value on the date of the transaction — each card payment funded from crypto can be a separate disposal. I am not going to tell you what you owe; I am telling you that every spend on a card funded from crypto may be its own taxable event, which is one more reason the fee figures matter.

Two honesty notes on the record itself. I found no user reports of complaints about this card on Reddit or Trustpilot — which, given a worldwide suspension, is itself worth pausing on; people were busy trying to get money back. And the details of those complaints are not stated. I am not going to invent them.

What to take instead

If the reason you were looking at Aqua is that an ordinary bank card is hard to get where you are, then the question is not “when does Aqua come back” but “which live card fits my country.” Here are three that are running, with their own scores, so you can weigh them yourself.

MetaMask is the strongest of the three on the numbers I care about for a reader in this position, and the closest thing here to a “normal card that happens to be crypto.” Mastercard. A virtual card issued instantly, with a metal version you can pre-order after approval; one card per user. Issuer Monovate, card provider Crypto Life. Sign-up is open in 45 listed countries and territories — Andorra, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Spain, Uruguay among the examples — with other regions on a waitlist; proof of residency is required; the citizenship rule is not stated; US and UK sign-ups were temporarily closed per the FAQ. And a line I appreciate: ineligible regions limit sign-ups, not spending. It spends directly from the connected wallet on Linea, Base, Monad and Solana, in mUSD, wETH, EURe, GBPe, USDC and USDT. No foreign transaction fee — the Mastercard rate applies. Cashback is paid in mUSD into the Money Account: 1% on Virtual; on Metal a headline 3% with a footnote limiting 3% to the first $10,000 spent and 1% after that; plus an $FLY bonus via the Blackbird dining app. Caveats: one card per user, and Solana-only wallets cannot withdraw credit.

KAST is the one to look at if you want generous, predictable cashback and live in a supported country. Virtual and physical, up to 10 cards per user — Visa Platinum (Standard), Visa Infinite metal (Premium), Visa Infinite gold plated (Private), with other designs including Pengu, Solana and Bitcoin. Balance in USD, stablecoin deposits converted 1:1 at 0% spread. Funded with USDT, USDC, PYUSD and RLUSD on Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Arbitrum and TRON, no bank account needed. Fees are unusually clear: 0% top-up, 0% spend, 0% Apple/Google Pay, 0.5%–1.75% FX depending on where you live and where you spend, 0.10 USD on non-USD transactions under 25 USD, 0.50 USD for a declined transaction. The catch is the tiering and the eligibility test: Standard is free, Premium is $1,000 a year and Private $10,000 a year, billed annually upfront, with a $2 charge per extra virtual card, a $40 delivery fee on the Standard physical card, and a $1/month inactivity fee after 12 months. On eligibility, KAST shows a residence list at KYC and does not publish it, and citizenship matters — living in a supported country while holding only an ID from a restricted region can leave you ineligible, dual citizens with an ID from a supported country may pass, only your own ID is accepted, and a VPN does not bypass any of it. Cashback is 1.5% on the first $2,000 a month (Standard), 2% on the first $10,000 (Premium), 3% on the first $40,000 (Private), paid in USD when the transaction is authorised. Note the Terms say acceptable tokens are “currently USDT and USDC,” which conflicts with the PYUSD and RLUSD shown in the app.

TokenPocket is the most modest of the three and I would only steer you to it if it covers a country the others do not. A “Mastercard/Visa debit card” running on Arbitrum, with Fiat24 cards virtual and no physical card mentioned, balances in EUR24 and USD24. Visa debit for a list of European countries and territories (Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland among them); Mastercard debit for Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, the UK and others; the Americas “planned for Q2 2025.” The 1% deposit fee is stated to be refunded later via rewards or reduced transaction fees, and no cashback is stated. Specific coins and networks for deposits are not listed.

Where the Aqua story is a lesson rather than a product: a card’s continuity depends on its sponsor and its issuer, its top-up depends on exactly which networks it supports, its anonymity is bounded by KYC that may be light at signup and strict later, and its fees should be checked by hand because a card that does not publish its fees is not offering you a bargain. Whatever you pick, fund it with a small test amount first, confirm the deposit network matches what the card supports, and keep the option of a self-custody wallet in your pocket — with a card linked to your own keys, the funds stay with you until the moment of payment, though you then bear sole responsibility for key loss, phishing, and malware that swaps copied addresses.

Who I would recommend it to

• You already hold the card and have a balance. Act on it: submit the refund form, get USDT on Liquid, and treat any pending merchant refunds as losses you must chase yourself. Assume the refund is not fee-free and not guaranteed to arrive on a date.
• You want the most ordinary card experience available in crypto form. MetaMask, if your country is on its 45-country list and you can meet proof of residency — a virtual Mastercard with no annual fee and no FX fee is hard to argue with.
• You live in a supported country and want cashback you can actually plan around. KAST, with the annual membership cost understood up front and the FX fee in mind for non-USD spending.
• You need a specific geography covered. TokenPocket, if its Visa or Mastercard footprint includes where you are and you are not put off by the 1% deposit fee.
• You are looking for a card to replace a bank you cannot open. Any of the three may serve, but all three sit on top of the same crypto rails and the same KYC regime. None of them removes the reason you are here.

Who I would not recommend it to: anyone starting out. There is nothing to sign up for, the issuer was never named, no fee schedule was ever published, and the features people joined for — Apple Pay, Google Pay, tap-to-pay — were not working on day one. And I would not recommend it to anyone hoping a light beta sign-up means a permanently light-touch product. KYC rules require regulated businesses to verify customers and assess risk as part of anti-money-laundering law, including ongoing monitoring and suspicious-activity reporting, and the pattern of this card’s life — easy at the start, closed by the end — is a reminder that “no ID at signup” is a phase, not a promise.

Frequently asked questions

What was the AQUA card?

The Dolphin Card was a virtual, reloadable Visa denominated in USD, sold inside the AQUA wallet app as part of the AQUA Marketplace by JAN3. It was meant for users outside the US and Canada, funded with BTC, L-BTC or Liquid USDt, with a maximum of $4,000 USD per month. It entered beta on 21 May 2025 and was suspended worldwide on 4 December 2025 after a problem with the card provider.

Why was the AQUA card suspended?

On 4 December 2025 all Dolphin Cards were suspended globally, effective immediately, after a problem with the card provider, which was never named. Other Aqua wallet services were said to be unaffected. The JAN3 team said it was negotiating refunds and seeking alternative providers. No replacement provider or relaunch has been found.

Can I still use my AQUA card?

No. The card was suspended worldwide on 4 December 2025 and no relaunch has been found. Spending and loading both stopped. Pending merchant refunds to the card will not return to it. Anything left on the balance is handled through the refund process rather than through the card.

How do I get the money off my AQUA card?

Remaining balances are refunded in USDT on Liquid, claimed through a secure request form on the website, and sent to your AQUA wallet or any wallet that can receive on Liquid. Processing begins once Aqua receives the funds from its provider, and you get email confirmations. Make sure the receiving address is on the Liquid network, because blockchain transfers are irreversible.

Is AQUA a bank?

No — not in any sense that would help you here. The card was issued and operated by JAN3 through AQUA, but Aqua was the programme front end and the card issuer itself is never named. An electronic money institution can issue e-money, payment cards and wallets but cannot lend; Aqua is not that either. Do not treat any balance held there as a bank deposit.

Who owns AQUA?

The card programme was run by JAN3, which also said it was negotiating refunds after the suspension and published nothing further about a replacement provider. The public record never names the bank or institution that actually issued the Dolphin Card. That gap is part of why this review scores reliability so low.

What are the best alternatives to the AQUA card?

For an ordinary card experience in crypto form, MetaMask scores highest of the three: a virtual Mastercard with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fee, available in 45 listed countries and territories with proof of residency. KAST offers the clearest cashback and fee schedule but charges $1,000 or $10,000 a year for the higher tiers. TokenPocket covers a wide list of countries with a 1% deposit fee.

Does the AQUA card require KYC?

During the beta it did not, in practice: sign-up needed only a JAN3 account and an emailed verification code, with no ID documents mentioned, and a third-party review described sign-up as email-only with no identity verification — unofficial, but consistent with the official beta post. That was a beta condition, not a standing feature, and any regulated provider can require full identification later.

What happened to money owed to me by a merchant?

Pending merchant refunds will not return to the Dolphin Card after the suspension, so any refund a shop had not yet processed at that moment does not come back to you through the card. You would need to contact the merchant directly. The card’s chargeback process is not stated, and a chargeback is a separate mechanism anyway — a refund ordered by the issuer with a reason code such as fraud or goods not received.

Was the AQUA card safe, and was it worth it?

Neither question can be answered the way you would like. The card’s security arrangements are not stated beyond the JAN3 CEO saying user funds are safe, and its costs were never published — no issuance fee, no monthly fee, no top-up fee or minimum. It was worth it only in the sense that it briefly offered a crypto-funded virtual Visa with an email-only beta sign-up; it is not worth anything now, because the programme is closed.

Is AQUA coming back?

As far as anyone can tell, no. The team said after the December 2025 suspension that it was looking for alternative providers, and a year of searching has turned up no new provider and no relaunch. I would plan on the basis that it is finished, and treat any future announcement as something to verify rather than assume. In the meantime, a live card from one of the alternatives above is the only thing that spends money today.

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