A first crypto card, explained from zero

What a crypto card is, and what it is not

A Blomo virtual card is an ordinary Visa or Mastercard whose money happens to arrive as crypto. It exists as three things on a screen — a number, an expiry date and a CVV — and it is issued under licence by a partner bank, so shops and websites treat it exactly like a card from a bank.

It is not a crypto wallet and not an investment. Crypto arrives, becomes a balance shown in USDT, and leaves as an ordinary payment in euros, zloty, pounds or rupiah. The merchant never learns that crypto was involved.

Blomo does not sell crypto either. You buy it somewhere else and send it to Blomo, in the same way that you would put cash into a bank account before paying with a bank card.

What USDT is

USDT is a stablecoin: a token whose issuer holds reserves and keeps it worth about one US dollar. That is the point of it. Ten USDT today is worth roughly ten USDT next week, which is not true of most crypto.

This matters for a card. A Blomo balance is shown in USDT, and every limit and fee on the site is denominated in USDT whatever currency the card itself is issued in, so a balance of stablecoins is a balance whose size you can predict.

Blomo also accepts USDC, which is a second stablecoin doing the same job, and the volatile assets ETH, TRX, BNB and BTC. All of them are converted to a USDT balance on arrival. If you are starting from zero and have a choice, start with USDT.

What a network is, and why it has to match

The same token can live on several separate blockchains, and those blockchains do not talk to each other. USDT exists on TRON and Ethereum; USDC exists on TRON, Ethereum and Arbitrum. The token is called the same thing in all of them, but a transfer on one network cannot arrive at an address that belongs to another.

This is the one mistake that actually loses money, and it is worth reading twice. Blomo issues a top-up address for the asset and the network you chose. Before you press send, check that the network selected in the exchange or the wallet you are sending from is the same one Blomo named. Not a similar one, the same one.

The networks also differ in what the sending side charges for the transfer, and that fee has nothing to do with Blomo — it is the network's own cost, and the exchange shows it before you confirm. Blomo's own 1% top-up fee is separate and is added on top of what you asked to receive.

Where to get crypto

Crypto is bought at a cryptocurrency exchange or at an exchange service, with a bank card or a bank transfer. Blomo has no partnership with any of them and does not recommend one, because Blomo has not checked them.

Whichever one you use, two things matter for what comes next: it has to let you withdraw the asset you bought to an outside address, and it has to let you choose the network for that withdrawal. Some services sell crypto but never let it leave, and those are of no use here.

Buy at least the minimum top-up of 50 USDT plus the entry threshold of the card you intend to issue, and remember that the exchange's own withdrawal fee comes off before the transfer reaches Blomo.

What happens to the balance, and how a card is issued

Once the network confirms the transfer, the amount you asked for appears on the Blomo balance — the 1% fee was already added to what you sent. To get 100 USDT you send 101; for 1,000, 1,010.

Then you pick a card. Each of the 6 products has its own entry threshold, and Blomo checks it against the balance once, at the moment you order. While the card is being issued your whole balance is held and cannot be spent; the hold is released when the card is activated. The threshold itself is not deducted and not collateral: after activation the whole balance is yours to spend, including the amount that qualified you.

The thresholds run from 100 USDT to 1,000 USDT. The cheapest one to reach is the Estonia card at 100 USDT, and it is worth knowing what that price buys and what it costs: it is an online-only card, with no Apple Pay, no Google Pay and no cash withdrawal.

The first virtual card on an account is free. Every card after that costs 10 USDT, charged from the balance at the moment of issue.

Adding the card to Apple Pay and Google Pay

The Blomo app has no add-to-Apple-Pay button, and the card is added by hand instead. Open the Wallet app on the iPhone, or Google Wallet on an Android phone, choose to add a payment card, and type in the card number, the expiry date and the CVV that the Blomo app is showing you. The phone does the rest.

This works on 5 of the 6 cards. The Estonia card does not support wallet payments at all, so there is nothing to add for it — it is meant for online checkouts and subscriptions.

Once the card is in the phone's wallet it behaves like any other: hold the phone to the terminal in a shop, and the payment is debited from the Blomo balance at the rate locked at that moment.