Monolith card review: what changed after the closure

Updated October 2026

Licensed

Available in US

Fast payouts

18+ Only

I spent a long time looking at Monolith for this review, and the honest summary is short. The Monolith card programme stopped accepting new business on 8 October 2024, the cards were deactivated on the same day, and the app was pulled from the app stores in February. The score that follows is not “I deducted points for bad design”; it is a snapshot of a product that is no longer there to buy. If you are reading this because you once had a Monolith card, the section you want is the one on holders. If you are reading this because you are shopping for a crypto card in general, the useful part is the alternatives, because there is no live Monolith product to compare them to.

The conditions described in this review are current as of October 28, 2026.

Verdict

The Monolith card scores 1.8 out of 10. That number reflects a closed programme, not a graded service: there is no on-ramp, no app, and no way to top up a card. The breakdown below shows where the marks come from.

Who the card suits now is a very narrow group: former holders who still have a euro or pound balance sitting at the issuer and need to push it through the Solaris redemption form. If that is you, the holders section is the one that pays for the time you spend on this page. If you are anyone else, a closed card is the wrong starting point for a new account. A self-custody wallet, even a different one, is a better home for your seed phrase than a programme that has told you to leave.

What happened to the programme

The headline dates are these. On 8 October 2024 Monolith stopped its services, deactivated the cards, and closed the user accounts. The company’s own notice names the reason: growing regulatory requirements in the EU and the UK. The notice does not mention MiCA by name, but the timing lines up with the EU’s markets-in-crypto-assets regulation, which began phasing in from 30 June 2024. The app was delisted from the app stores in February; the year is not printed on the closure page, and the surrounding context points to 2025. In April 2025 the company promised further details of a token swap from TKN to a successor token called TOKEN.

The legal shape of what was on offer matters for two reasons: who holds your money now, and who to ask if anything is stuck. The trading name behind Monolith is UAB “Belela”, a Lithuanian company registered as a virtual currency deposit and exchange operator under company code 305982313. The site copyright belongs to Token Group Ltd, which operates under licence from UAB “Belela”. The card itself was issued by Solaris, a regulated European card issuer. That is why, today, leftover card balances are held by Solaris, not by Monolith; the closure page redirects card-fund questions to a Solaris Redemptions page, and it tells you to put “Redemption funds of Monolith customer” in the subject line.

The card itself, in its earlier life, was a Visa debit card, according to an unofficial historical account from Coin Bureau dated 29 March 2023, and it was on the Solaris programme by the time of closure. The network and the physical or virtual form are not stated on the closure notice itself. The card was issued in euro or pound sterling: the Solaris payout page is explicit that redemption payouts are made “in the card’s currency (EUR or GBP)”.

Historically, the card was positioned for the European Economic Area: unofficial coverage from Coin Bureau in March 2023 says the card was for the EEA (described as 31 European countries) and “can’t be used in the USA or Asia”. That limitation is unofficial and pre-dates closure; I include it so you can see what the original product was, not because the rule is still being enforced anywhere. A different, earlier issuer (Contis Financial Services Ltd) is named in 2019 coverage; Monolith moved to Solaris before the 2024 closure.

The product was, by historical unofficial accounts, free of a monthly or shipping fee if you used the card in the country where it was registered, charged a 1% top-up fee that could be avoided by topping up with DAI, and a 1% community contribution avoided by topping up with TKN, giving a combined maximum of 2% on top-ups. Outside the card’s currency, a 1.75% foreign-exchange fee applied. There was no crypto-to-fiat exchange fee at the point of spend. None of those historical rates matter for a new applicant, because there is no new applicant flow. They are useful only as a way of understanding what kind of programme Monolith was — a low-fee, self-custody debit card, sold into Europe, that ultimately could not keep up with European regulation.

If you already have the card

The honest answer for a former holder is that the cards are spent. The card number is dead. The app is no longer in the app stores, and the underlying accounts are closed. The two things you actually have to deal with are the crypto in your wallet, and whatever fiat is still sitting in the card balance, and these travel by different roads.

Your crypto, if you funded the card from a Monolith non-custodial wallet, never belonged to Monolith in the first place. The closure notice is explicit that crypto remains accessible with the 12-word seed phrase, and that the same seed can be imported into another wallet. The notice names MetaMask, Trust Wallet, and Coinbase Wallet as compatible destinations. If you still have the seed phrase written down somewhere safe, the path is simple: install a wallet you trust, choose “import wallet” or “I already have a seed phrase”, type the words in order, and your funds appear in the new wallet, with the same addresses and the same tokens. If you do not have the seed phrase, the closure page notes that the seed used to be visible in the app under Settings > Back up Seed, which is no help now that the app is gone. If you never wrote it down and never saw it, the only realistic recovery route is whatever you can recover from a backup of the old app, an email, or a phone — once an app is delisted and uninstalled, there is no remote copy of the seed to retrieve.

This is the moment to say, plainly, that a seed phrase is the wallet. Anyone who has those 12 or 24 words can spend the funds. The standard safeguards apply: never type them into a website, never paste them into a chat, never share them with anyone who asks, even someone who claims to be from customer support. The closure notice itself does not ask for your seed, and a legitimate support agent from any company never will. If you are reading this and someone has contacted you offering to “help migrate your Monolith wallet” in exchange for your seed, that is theft.

Your fiat, if there is any left on the card, is in Solaris’s hands. The closure notice gives a specific route: go to the Solaris Redemptions Support Page, submit a request with the subject “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, and provide payout account details in EUR or GBP, plus a colour copy of your ID if the email address on the request differs from the one on file. Solaris says it aims to respond within 14 days. As a working assumption, plan for it to take longer: 14 days is a target, not a guarantee, and Solaris-issued card programmes in general have had complaints on Trustpilot about slow refund processing. There is no point in chasing a faster answer; the same Solaris form is the only front door. If you do not have a euro or pound bank account to receive the payout, you will need one before the form is useful.

One thing the notice does not say is also worth flagging: there is no published dispute or compensation route. There is no “Monolith” you can sue for slow service on a programme that has told you it is closing. The legal issuer of the card was Solaris, and the redemption page is, in effect, the only standing channel. If you have a complaint about how the closure was handled and cannot resolve it through the form, the practical next step is the Lithuanian financial regulator (since UAB “Belela” is a Lithuanian-registered virtual-currency operator), but that is the regulator for the crypto side, not for card disputes.

What about support in general? The closure notice points to Solaris Redemptions Support for card balances, and to Monolith’s Telegram channel and email for the TKN/TOKEN swap questionnaire. Hours and languages are not stated.

A small, possibly useful detail: a historical daily cash withdrawal limit of £350 (€378) and a spending limit of £7,500 (€8,113) are listed in unofficial 2023 coverage. They do not matter for current holders, because the card is dead, but they explain why some users may see references to “daily limits” in older forum posts.

What can go wrong

Three things can hurt a former Monolith holder, and none of them is exotic.

The first is losing the seed phrase. The crypto side of Monolith was always a non-custodial wallet, and that is both the feature and the trap. A self-custody wallet means the user holds the private key; it means the user is the only person who can recover it; and it means the company cannot help if the words are lost. The closure notice is honest about this: the seed phrase is the only way back into the funds. The same point, framed as a class lesson rather than a Monolith-specific one, is that history is full of custodial platforms that have lost user money — Mt. Gox in 2011–2014, Coincheck in 2018, Ronin in 2022 — and history is also full of users who lost their own seed phrases. Either way, the funds are gone.

The second is sending crypto on the wrong network during a recovery. If you import the seed into a new wallet and try to move the tokens, the transaction goes on whatever network the address lives on, and the recipient has to support that network. Sending USDT to an address that only accepts USDC, or sending a token on Tron to an exchange that only accepts the same token on Ethereum, is a common and irreversible mistake. The closure notice does not help you here: it does not say which networks your old Monolith balances are on, only that the tokens will appear in a new wallet once the seed is imported. Before you move anything, confirm the network with the receiving exchange or wallet.

The third is delay or friction on the Solaris payout. Solaris is a regulated card issuer, and the redemption form is a regulated process; it involves identity checks, sanctions screening, and anti-money-laundering review, all of which can take longer than 14 days if documents are missing or names do not match. The Plutus card programme, also a Solaris-issued crypto card, has drawn Trustpilot complaints about slow refund processing; that is context, not a finding against Monolith, and I found no Monolith-specific complaints on Trustpilot or in a fresh search. Still, the practical advice is to send clean, matching documents and to follow up politely through the form rather than to wait in silence.

There is also a regulatory-floor risk that the closure notice names explicitly. Neither Lithuanian deposit insurance nor the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme covers crypto activities or funds held in a non-custodial wallet. That is true of self-custody in general, not just Monolith: the wallet is not a deposit, and the money in it is not a deposit. It is a property right to a key. The closure does not change that, but it is worth underlining once, because the “my money is in a regulated wallet” mental model is wrong.

What I did not find is also worth reporting. I did not find a Monolith Trustpilot page, and a 2026-10-20 search turned up only unrelated card shutdowns. The most recent complaint data point is the closure notice itself, which is unusual only in tone: a card programme that tells its users what to do with their money and their wallet is doing better than several of its peers did in 2022.

What to take instead

A closed card is not a thing you can replace with “the same card from the same company”, so the comparison here is “what to look at if Monolith was the card you wanted, in spirit”. I am comparing the self-custody, European-friendly, low-fee spirit of Monolith against three current alternatives, each with a different angle. The table that follows compares them against Monolith on the dimensions that mattered most to Monolith’s users.

A few points to take from the comparison, walking through it with you rather than leaving you to do the work. First, the geographic picture is very different. Monolith, historically, was a European card. Of the three alternatives, only the International Visa Card publishes a clear eligibility list, and it is restrictive in the opposite direction from Monolith: it excludes India, Turkey, and several other large markets. Young Card’s eligibility is not stated, and Cardex’s listing says “200+ countries” but its app-store listing is Naira-focused, which suggests a strong Nigerian angle. If the Monolith card’s European reach was the reason you wanted it, none of these three are obvious substitutes on geography alone.

Second, the funding story is the biggest departure. Monolith funded spending directly from a non-custodial wallet, with the user’s own tokens. Cardex uses USDT, USDC, and BTC wallets — custodial wallets inside Cardex, not the user’s self-custody wallet. The International Visa Card funds from USDC or USDT held in a USD account inside the provider, again custodial. Young Card’s funding is not stated. None of the three currently documented alternatives replicates Monolith’s “your wallet, your keys, your card” model. If that model is the whole point for you, the realistic next step is to keep your crypto in self-custody in a regular wallet and use a card from a different programme, accepting that the link between the card and your wallet will be a deposit rather than a direct spend.

Third, the cost picture is sparse. Monolith’s historical cost was simple: a 1% top-up fee, a 1% community contribution, up to 2% combined, and a 1.75% foreign-exchange fee. Cardex publishes no fee percentage at all; the International Visa Card publishes a clean 2% FX fee and a 1:1 USDC/USDT deposit, but charges a $5 virtual-card issuance fee and a monthly fee for the Pro and Max plans. Young Card’s fees are not stated. The honest reading is that there is no obvious “Monolith replacement” that publishes the same kind of clean, low-fee schedule for European users today.

Fourth, the rewards picture is essentially absent across the board. Monolith had no cashback. Young Card pays cashback in its own YNG token, at rates tied to a Club tier. Cardex and the International Visa Card do not state cashback. If Monolith appealed to you because it was a no-frills spend card, the alternatives are still mostly no-frills.

If you want a “if I had to pick one” recommendation from this list, the International Visa Card is the most explicit on cost, eligibility, and the mechanics of the card. The U.S.-issued, USD-denominated model is a sharp departure from Monolith’s European, EUR/GBP model; that may or may not fit your situation, depending on where you live and which currency you actually spend in. The eligibility list is long, and the consequence is real: if your country is on the excluded list, the card is not for you, no matter how good the fee schedule looks on paper.

If you want a more direct “European crypto card” replacement, none of the current options perfectly replicate Monolith’s self-custody model. Other European crypto card programmes exist, but this review focuses on the three specific alternatives chosen for comparison.

Who I would recommend it to

The short list is the only one that matters. If you are a former Monolith holder with euro or pound funds still held by Solaris, you should follow the Solaris Redemptions Support process described in the holders section. The form is the only door; use it. If you are a former Monolith holder with crypto in a non-custodial wallet, you should locate your 12-word seed phrase and import it into a wallet you trust. Do this before you do anything else; the longer the seed sits on a piece of paper, the more likely it is to be lost, photographed, or thrown away. If you are shopping for a new crypto card, the Monolith card is not on the shelf, and the alternatives in the previous section are the closest documented options in this review’s research, not endorsements. If you were drawn to Monolith specifically because the card spent directly from a self-custody wallet, the honest finding is that this exact product is no longer available, and the three alternatives above are custodial.

I would not recommend the Monolith card to anyone who is not in the first or second group. There is no card to recommend; there is a closure to process, a wallet to recover, and a balance to redeem.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Monolith card?

The Monolith card was a debit card that spent from a non-custodial crypto wallet. The programme was run by UAB “Belela”, a Lithuanian virtual-currency operator, with the card issued by Solaris. Services stopped on 8 October 2024.

How does the Monolith card work?

Historically, the user held the private keys to a self-custodial wallet and the card pulled from a balance funded by converting crypto at the point of spend. The card is no longer active, so this is the historical model rather than the current one.

Is Monolith a bank?

No. Monolith was a brand operated by UAB “Belela” under a Lithuanian virtual-currency-operator licence. The card itself was issued by Solaris, a regulated card issuer, not a bank.

Who owns Monolith?

The trading name belonged to UAB “Belela” (Lithuania, company code 305982313). The site copyright is held by Token Group Ltd, operating under licence from UAB “Belela”. The successor app is Token.com.

Is the Monolith card available in my country?

No. The Monolith card programme closed on 8 October 2024 and is not available in any country for new applicants. Historical unofficial coverage from 2023 said it was for the EEA and not for the USA or Asia, but that rule is no longer being applied because the card no longer exists.

How do I get a Monolith card?

You cannot. New cards are not being issued. The closure notice does not describe any new-application flow, and the app is no longer in the app stores.

Does the Monolith card require KYC?

The card programme is closed, so KYC is not currently being run for new applicants. The earlier product was offered by a regulated operator, which would have applied KYC under EU anti-money-laundering rules, but the live KYC flow is no longer in operation.

How do I withdraw money from a closed Monolith card?

For euro or pound balances held by the issuer, submit a request on the Solaris Redemptions Support page with the subject “Redemption funds of Monolith customer”, a colour ID copy if the email differs from the one on file, and EUR or GBP payout details. For crypto, import the 12-word seed phrase into a wallet such as MetaMask, Trust Wallet, or Coinbase Wallet.

Is the Monolith card safe?

The crypto side was non-custodial, which means the user held the keys and bore the corresponding responsibility for keeping the seed phrase safe. The closure notice confirms that neither Lithuanian deposit insurance nor the UK FSCS covers crypto held in a non-custodial wallet. The card itself is no longer active.

How do I delete my Monolith account?

The closure notice says user accounts were closed on 8 October 2024, so there is no live account to delete. The crypto in a non-custodial wallet is held under the seed phrase; deleting the app from a phone does not delete the wallet. The only way to stop using the wallet is to move the funds to a different address.

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