How I Earned Money With a Crypto Card And How Does It Work?

Introduction: Spending Money, But Getting Paid Back in Crypto

Most people know about cashback credit cards. You spend £100, you get £1 back. Boring, safe, predictable.

But earlier this year, I tried something different: the Crypto.com Visa card, specifically the Plus plan that gives 2% cashback in CRO tokens (Cronos, their native cryptocurrency).

And here’s the surprise: while a traditional cashback card would have earned me about £117 in cashback over six months, my Crypto.com card turned that same spending into nearly £730 worth of crypto.

How? Let’s break it down.

🔑 How the Crypto.com Card Works

• It’s a prepaid Visa debit card. You top it up with fiat money (GBP, EUR, USD) and spend it like a normal card.
  
• Every purchase earns you cashback in CRO tokens
  
• The cashback rate depends on the card tier:
  
• Free/basic card → 1%
  
• Plus plan → 2%
  
• Higher plans → 3 - 5%
  
• Perks: Some tiers give you subscription rebates (Spotify, Netflix) and travel benefits (airport lounges, no FX fees).
  
• The ‘catch’: cashback is paid in CRO, which is volatile. Its value can go up or down, just like any other crypto token…. But as we will explain, that's not really a catch!

The Card Tiers and Costs Explained

There are two ways to access the different tier plans today.

1. You purchase a specified value of CRO tokens and stake them for 12 months
2. You subscribe and pay a monthly fee

The amount of CRO you need to buy and stake or the cost per month to subscribe increases the higher the tier. Crypto.com recently changed the naming of their tiers. 

Lowest Tier = Plus (formerly Ruby Steel)
Middle Tier = Pro (formerly Jade/Indigo)
Highest Tier = Private (formerly Icy/Rose/Obsidian)

Setup: Starting in mid-March I opted to purchase the plus plan by purchasing £400 of CRO and staking it (lock it up) for 12 months, to give me the 2% cash back. (The pro plan requires a purchase of £4000 of CRO and the private plan £40,000).

My Spending Breakdown

• Groceries: £120 per week → £3,120 total
  
• Eating & coffee out: £30 per week → £780 total
  
• Fuel (5 fill-ups): £280
  
• Channel Tunnel (Le Shuttle, return): £236
  
• Hotels (Belgium + Poland): £207
  
• Amazon subscription: £48
  
• Household bills & utilities: £1,200
  
• Spotify + Netflix: ~£20/month → £120 (rebated after 3 months)
  

Total spend over six months: £5,871  (~$8,026 / €6787)

🤑 Cashback Earned

• Cashback rate: 2% → £117.42 worth of CRO
  
• CRO price on March 9: $0.08045 (~£0.064)
  
• So I earned roughly 2,668 CRO tokens over the period
  

But here’s the twist: today (September 9, 2025), CRO trades at $0.2623 — more than triple the March price.

Subscription Rebates

The Plus plan also gave me full rebates for Spotify and Netflix (capped at ~$13.99/month each)

• Rebates kick in after 3 months, so I got 3 months of free Spotify + Netflix.
• That added another ~933 CRO tokens (~$245 today).

The Monthly Journey

To make this clear, here’s a month-by-month look at how much I earned and how CRO’s price turned those small amounts into something meaningful.

Totals (6 months)

• CRO earned: ~1,732 (cashback) + 933 (rebates) = ~2,665 CRO
• Value at time earned: ~$286
• Value now: ~$729

So Why Is Crypto.com “Better” Than a Normal Cashback Card?

The Upsides

1. Higher rates: 2-5% vs 0.5-1.5% on most UK/EU cashback cards.
   
2. Perks: Free Spotify + Netflix alone save ~£20/month.
3. Upside potential: Cashback grows if CRO’s price rises. My £117 of cashback became £730 in just 6 months.
4. A prepaid card can add an extra layer of security, if the card is lost or stolen then you only have at risk the money you have added onto the card for spending, not your whole bank account or credit card balance!
5. There are also other ways to earn free CRO in the app.  Completing 'Missions' will reward you with CRO tokens, the easiest being the daily check in task.  You tap to ‘check in’ each day and earn a diamond. With 25 diamonds you can buy a ‘Mystery Box’ that contains a random amount of CRO.

The Downsides

1. Volatility: CRO can fall. If it dropped instead of rising, my £117 would be worth maybe £60 today.
2. No credit benefits: Unlike a credit card, this is prepaid so no credit score boost.
3. Fees/subscription: The Plus plan costs €3.99/month (~£3.50), so you need to spend enough to justify it.
4.   You have to go through one extra step and top up the crypto.com card before spending your hard earned money  

How It Compares to Revolut & Regular Cards

• Regular cashback cards: Safe, stable. 1% cashback is always 1%. But boring — no upside potential.
• Revolut Metal: 1% cashback (abroad), but costs ~£12.99/month. You get some other perks (Travel insurance, airport lounge access).
• Crypto.com Plus: 2% cashback + Netflix & Spotify rebates, for only €3.99/month. But rewards are in CRO, which can swing wildly.

👉 Analogy:

• Regular card = steady paycheck.
  
• Revolut = paycheck + travel perks, but with a monthly fee.
  

Crypto.com = paycheck partly in stock options. If they pump, you win big. If not, you might regret it.

✍️ The Big Lesson

When I signed up, I expected a modest 2% back — around £117 saved in six months.

Instead, because CRO tripled, I ended up with about £730 worth of rewards — effectively a 10% cashback rate.

Would that always happen? No. Next 6 months, CRO could fall, and my rewards could shrink. But that’s the trade-off: Crypto.com gives you a higher ceiling than traditional cards, at the cost of volatility.

💡 Final Thoughts: Should You Try It?

• If you want stable, no-risk cashback, stick to a traditional card or Revolut.
  
• If you don’t mind a little gamble, and you like the idea of Netflix and Spotify on the house, Crypto.com is worth considering.
  
• Just remember: your cashback is not cash until you sell the CRO and the value can go up or down.
  

For me, this six-month experiment turned ordinary grocery trips, coffee runs, and a summer road trip into a surprisingly profitable adventure.