Fold unveils Bitcoin-only rewards credit card with Visa and Stripe

Fold Holdings announced Tuesday that its long-awaited Bitcoin rewards credit card will launch on the Visa network through a partnership with financial infrastructure provider Stripe. Despite an initial surge, shares of Fold tumbled shortly after the news.

The Fold Bitcoin Credit Card allows customers to earn Bitcoin on everyday purchases, with rewards of up to 3.5% back and no category restrictions or deposit requirements. Users receive 2% back instantly on all spending, with an extra 1.5% when paying via a Fold Checking Account.

Additionally, cardholders can unlock enhanced rewards of up to 10% when shopping with major partners such as Amazon, Target, Home Depot, Uber, Starbucks, and hundreds more.

Shares of Fold (FLD) tumble despite strong card perks and partner discounts

After closing at $3.88 on Monday, FLD opened at $4.69 on Tuesday. However, the buzz was short-lived, with the price reducing to $3.26 as of this writing, marking a more than 15% dip on the day.

“Our credit card offers clear and compelling value and makes Bitcoin easily accessible to everyone,” said Fold founder, Chairman, and CEO Will Reeves, in a statement. “There are no categories to manage, no tokens to stake, no exchange account or balance requirements; just real Bitcoin, earned automatically with every purchase.”

No timeline has been announced for the Fold credit card’s release.

Stripe reported handling over $3.1 billion in transaction volume and distributed over $83 million in Bitcoin rewards. The firm also disclosed that it holds 1,485 BTC in its treasury, which is valued at approximately $167 million.

Meanwhile, Fold’s stock price surged on Friday, nearly doubling to trade above $7 per share, fueled by speculation that longtime crypto investor Mike Alfred may be joining the company.

Instead, Bakkt, another publicly traded crypto firm, named Mike Alfred to its advisory board on Monday, sending its stock sharply higher. As of Tuesday, Bakkt shares have climbed nearly 18% to $17.31.

Fold’s stock (FLD), by contrast, slipped following the news and extended losses into Tuesday. Still, FLD remains about 8% higher over the past week, though it is down roughly 12% for the month.

Fold says the card is part of a larger consumer suite that includes banking, custody/exchange, and debit. Stripe has been slowly extending out its crypto payments business this year, including working on Tempo, a payments-first blockchain that it incubated with Paradigm, and partnerships that brought acceptance of USDC to Shopify merchants alongside Coinbase. 

Visa, meanwhile, continues to support card programs that adopt rewards in digital assets and facilitate cryptocurrencies. The payments processor has now achieved approximately $1 billion in annualized stablecoin transaction volume, nearly quadrupling from earlier this year.

Market sentiment turns bearish as Bitcoin struggles to break $125K

Bitcoin is trading flat on the day at around $112,218, though it remains down about 3% over the past week.

Myriad Markets users have recently turned bearish on the top cryptocurrency’s chances of rising to $125,000—which would be a new all-time high mark—sooner than it can fall to $105,000.

As of this writing, over 50% of predictors expect it to hit the lower mark sooner than the higher price. That mark has grown substantially over the last week, rising from about 38% on September 16.

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