Coinbase to launch co-branded Amex with crypto rewards | PaymentsSource

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is getting into the credit card business. 

The company later this summer will roll out the Coinbase One Card, a co-branded American Express credit card that provides between 2% to 4% in bitcoin on every purchase, based on the amount of cryptocurrency the customer holds, Coinbase said today at its 2025 State of Crypto Summit in New York City. The rewards are directly deposited into the customer’s Coinbase wallet. 

The initial rollout later this summer will be limited to wait-listed Coinbase loyalty members subscribed to Coinbase One, the exchange’s subscription service that offers perks such as zero trading fees, boosted staking rewards and priority support, among other benefits. A wider U.S. launch is expected in the fall. 

The card offering will be powered by Cardless, an embedded credit card platform, and integrated directly into the Coinbase app, allowing Coinbase to fully control the customer experience, including card issuance and servicing, similar to the way Apple Card is integrated directly into Apple Wallet. Investment fintech Robinhood also offers a similarly structured credit card that provides 3% cashback on all transactions for members of its loyalty subscription program. 

Utah-based First Electronic Bank is Cardless’ sponsor bank. 

“In five years, the vast majority of credit card spend in the U.S. is going to be tied to a brand — maybe not necessarily an airline, but it could be a fintech like Coinbase or any other business as well,” Michael Spelfogel, founder and president of Cardless, told American Banker. “Those brands are all asking for the same thing. They want to own their customers in a seamless way. They don’t want there to be a gap between acquiring them, using the cards and servicing them.”

Most bank-issued co-branded credit cards require customers to service their credit card within the bank’s app, which forces the brand to relinquish control of their user. That creates friction, lost revenue and a bad customer experience, Spelfogel said. 

Cards can be issued digitally and as a physical card, Spelfogel said. 

“Partnering with Cardless has let us build a deeply customized and secure card product that aligns with our mission to increase economic freedom and makes it easy for people to earn rewards with the power to grow,” Max Branzburg, head of consumer and business products at Coinbase, said in a statement. 

Coinbase is hoping the credit offering will supplement its Visa prepaid debit card and entice more users to sign up for its Coinbase One subscription service, which the company has been building out in addition to its services such as staking, stablecoins and custody.

Subscription revenue will be a key metric for investors looking to profit in the long term off of Coinbase’s stock, William Blair analyst Andrew Jeffrey said in a June 11 research note. 

“We view stablecoins as the future of cross-border commerce, while staking offers rewards for securing the blockchain, Coinbase One offers reduced trading fees for a monthly price, and custody supports the majority of Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. We believe subscription revenue growth will be the reason long-term investors own the stock,” according to the research note. 

“Taken together, we believe these solutions constitute the most comprehensive crypto services portfolio, underpinned by security and trust,” Jeffrey wrote. “These are essential prerequisites for building an on-chain economy, in our opinion, which at its best could supplant traditional financial institutions for lending, borrowing, money movement, yield, and other transactions.” 

One of Cardless’ value propositions is the ability to launch cards faster than traditional banking partnerships with more customizable onboarding and more robust program and reward management, Ben Danner, a senior analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research told American Banker. “There are a lot of fintechs out there offering this kind of service — I think of Marqeta or Highnote, for instance — but Cardless seems to be building a sizable portfolio on co-brands.”  

For Cardless — which counts Alibaba and Qatar Airlines as clients — the Coinbase deal represents its largest customer to date, Spelfogel said.

Coinbase is “going to be a fantastic anchor tenant for us for years to come,” Spelfogel said. “But we’ve got several other brands of that stature and scale in our pipeline that will be rolling out later this year and in 2026.” Cardless focuses on travel, e-commerce and fintech verticals, he said. 

Fintechs and payment companies have been looking for new ways to capture consumer spending and increase customer loyalty and engagement, but crypto rewards have been slow to gain traction largely due to unfavorable regulatory postures during the Biden administration. 

That’s changing. Crypto.com offers a co-branded Visa credit card issued by Bread Financial that lets customers earn the exchange’s cryptocurrency token, CRO. Mastercard has a co-branded credit card with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini that offers $200 in crypto if you spend $3,000 in the first 90 days. And Venmo’s credit card allows users to automatically purchase crypto with cashback rewards.