A virtual card for paying online services with crypto

How a crypto balance pays a subscription

A subscription service does not take USDT directly; it takes a card. The Nomux virtual card closes that gap: you keep a balance funded with crypto, and the card spends from that balance whenever a merchant charges it.

You top up the Nomux balance in USDT, USDC, BTC, ETH or TRX. USDT can be sent over TRON (TRC-20), Ethereum (ERC-20) and BNB Chain (BEP-20), and USDC over TRON (TRC-20), Ethereum (ERC-20) and Arbitrum. A deposit is credited after the network confirms it, and each network has a set confirmation count: 20 blocks on TRON, 7 blocks on Ethereum, 1 blocks on Bitcoin, 120 blocks on Arbitrum and 15 blocks on BNB Chain.

When the service bills you, the charge is taken from the balance. A charge in the currency the card is issued in needs no conversion. A charge in any other currency is converted by Visa or Mastercard at the network rate, and Nomux adds no markup of its own to that rate.

What the merchant sees

The merchant sees a normal card number, expiry and security code on the Visa or Mastercard network. Nothing in the payment tells ChatGPT or Netflix that the money started out as crypto, so the checkout runs like any other card checkout.

Many services run a small check when you first link a card, to confirm that it is valid and to pass 3-D Secure. In most cases nothing is charged; when an amount is taken for the check, it is refunded to the Nomux balance.

Recurring billing works the same way as a first payment. Keep enough on the Nomux balance before the renewal date, because a renewal that finds an empty balance is declined like on any card.

When an online payment is declined, and what helps

Every card number opens with a BIN, a prefix that identifies the issuing bank and the kind of card to the merchant. Some merchants filter by BIN and turn away whole ranges. Within the Nomux line-up, the products with higher thresholds sit on stronger BINs and are refused less often.

Ad platforms and some cloud providers apply extra rules. Google does not accept prepaid cards for automatic payments, and Luxembourg is the single prepaid product Nomux offers; the others are not prepaid. Some cloud providers state in their own documentation that they do not take virtual cards at all, and no virtual card from any issuer gets around that.

If one service keeps declining a card, moving to a higher-threshold product usually helps more than adding money to the same card. Hotel deposits and car hire are a separate case: those desks often want a physical card.

What you need to get one

Nomux opens an account with a Telegram login or an email. For a virtual card Nomux asks for no passport, no selfie and no proof of address, and in the normal course there is no questionnaire about where your money comes from.

Incoming funds are screened. If a deposit triggers an AML or sanctions concern, Nomux may request proof of the origin of those funds; the terms of service list what that check can include.

Two-factor sign-in is offered when you register. Nomux recommends switching it on: with it enabled, a leaked password alone does not let anyone into the account.

Your balance while the card is being issued

Each product has an entry threshold. The lowest is 100 USDT (Luxembourg) and the highest 1,000 USDT (Netherlands). The threshold is checked one time, when you place the order, and it is never deducted.

Placing an order for a card puts all of your available balance on hold until activation, the threshold and everything above it. Activation releases the hold, and so does an operator rejecting the order. Money that comes in after the order is not part of the hold and can be spent.

Should issuance fail, the hold stays in place until an operator tries the issuance again or rejects the order. There is no button to cancel a pending order yourself, so place it at a time when you can do without the balance until the card goes live.

What it costs

Your first Nomux virtual card is free. Each card after it costs 10 USDT, taken from the balance when it is activated.

Top-ups start at 50 USDT, and anything below that does not reach the balance. The 1% fee comes in addition to the sum you want credited: to receive 100 USDT, send 101.

Every payment carries a per-card fee: 0.5% on the Netherlands card, 1% on Spain, France, Singapore and Luxembourg, 1.5% on the United Kingdom card. Choosing the card whose currency matches what your subscriptions bill in avoids conversion on each renewal. The fees page has the complete table for every product.

Using the same card in shops

The virtual card also works at a shop counter. On the Netherlands, Spain, France, United Kingdom and Singapore cards you can put the details into Google Wallet or Apple Wallet and pay contactless at a terminal.

Adding it is manual: open the wallet app on your phone and enter the card number, its expiry and the CVV from the Nomux app by hand. There is no one-tap wallet button in the Nomux app. Phone wallets are not available on the Luxembourg card, which is meant for online payments only.