Quick highlights
- Rewards rate: Earn 1.5 percent back in cryptocurrency on all purchases. Rewards rate increases to 2 percent back once you have spent $30,000 on your card within a cardmember year
- Welcome offer: N/A
- Annual fee: $0
- Purchase intro APR: N/A
- Balance transfer intro APR: N/A
- Regular APR: 16.49 percent to 26.49 percent, based on creditworthiness
Sign-up bonus
The BlockFi Rewards Visa® Signature Credit Card currently doesn’t offer a sign-up bonus. Until recently, it gave cardmembers the chance to earn an elevated rewards rate of 3.5 percent back for the first 90 days after account opening, up to $100. This type of welcome offer wasn’t as valuable as those found with many of the best rewards credit cards, but it did increase the card’s value and help it stand out from other crypto cards, which typically did not come with sign-up bonuses.
Rewards rate
Like other crypto credit cards, you’ll need to open an account with the cryptocurrency exchange that offers the credit card before you can apply for the card. But once you get it and start using it, the BlockFi card earns a respectable flat rate on all purchases, though it takes a considerable amount of spending to earn the highest rate. There are traditional credit cards that earn a higher flat rate or offer bonus categories with higher rates. But these cards lack the convenience of automatically having your rewards converted into your choice of a number of cryptocurrencies.
How you earn
The BlockFi card earns 1.5 percent back in cryptocurrency on all purchases until you reach $30,000 in spending in a year. Big spenders who can exceed the $30,000 mark in a year will begin to earn 2 percent back. Just keep in mind that the $30,000 spending threshold is required every year you’re a cardmember, which is a major downside. If you manage to spend $30,000 within 9 months of account opening, you would only get 2 percent back in Bitcoin on your purchases for three months before the clock starts over.
Some rewards credit cards offer a higher rate of return without a spending requirement. For example, you could sign up for the Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card and earn 2 percent cash rewards on your purchases from day one.
The rewards you earn come in the form of one crypto that you can choose, but you’re limited to the crypto that BlockFi offers in the U.S. which is currently only 15 different crypto. That’s not a large selection compared to its competitors, but being able to choose from that many is more than what BlockFi previously offered. When the card first first hit the market, you could only earn bitcoin as your rewards cryptocurrency. Now, you can choose from a number of the most popular types of crypto, including:
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Chainlink (LINK)
- PAX Gold (PAXG)
- Basic Attention Token (BAT)
- Uniswap (UNI)
- Algorand (ALGO)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- Dogecoin (DOGE)
If you’re concerned about the volatility of cryptocurrency, BlockFi’s selection of crypto also includes stablecoins. These are a form of cryptocurrency whose value is tied to another asset, such as the U.S. dollar or gold. This gives stablecoins more stability compared to other cryptocurrencies, which are known for their high volatility. Stablecoin options include:
- Gemini Dollar (GUSD)
- USD Coin (USDC)
- Paxos Standard (PAX)
- Multi-Collateral Dai (DAI)
- Binance USD (BUSD)
BlockFi states you can change your cryptocurrency as many times as you like throughout the month. That gives you plenty of flexibility to change your mind about how you’d like to earn rewards. But you will only earn rewards for that month based on the one crypto that is selected at the end of the month.
How to redeem
According to BlockFi, customers will have their crypto rewards deposited in their BlockFi Wallet monthly, on the second Friday of each month. From there, cardholders can move their crypto into their own external crypto wallet.