Stablecoins backed cards experience
I tried the MetaMask credit card recently, because I wanted to experiment with ditching banks completely (it's not going to happen because I sitll get my salary in a bank).
At a first glance, the card looked like exactly what I needed: I'd be using my own self-custodial wallet, with the stablecoins I already had, and according to their advertisement, 1% cashback for the free card, and 3% for the metal one.
Then I made a test. I moved 200 USDC to my Solana wallet, configured the card, went through the KYC and everything, integrated with Apple pay, and it was ready to use. I hoped I could use EUR stable coins, since I live in Europe, but the only option was in a blockchain I had never heard about called Linea. Maybe it is popular, but I am not very familiar with the hundreds of blockchains that exist out there nowadays.
I made a small payment to test, and it worked very well, just like using any credit card. The transaction was charged directly in my wallet.
But then I started to get frustrated. My purchase was for 5,49 €, and I got charged 6,49 USDC, but according to the conversion rate, it should have been $ 6,43, so I got charged about 1% more. I thought: maybe that's why they are offering a 1% cashback. Then I went to check the cashback, and realized it only works if I am spending tokens in the Linea blockchain, so for me it became very pointless.
After this I gave Bleap a try, because everybody was saying it is the best crypto card ever, but they didn't complete my identification yet, and I can already see it is not what I am looking for, because it looks like they decided, trying to simplify crypto for beginners, to remove the crypto part completely. I couldn't find a way to import/export private keys, and not even a way to send/receive stablecoins.
And lastly, to end my rant, I researched (asked ChatGPT) about the economics behind credit card payments, and as I understand, it can be profitable for card issuers, because the merchants pay 2-3% in fees, that go mostly to the card issuer, so they could earn money without punishing their users.
Did anyone try this card on USA? Does it make sense for you? I mean, the 1% I paid extra is understandable considering I am not spending in the same currency, but because I can't use (popular) EUR stablecoins I cannot know if they wouldn't charge me some fee.