1inch is closing its card business. The decentralized exchange aggregator is winding down the 1inch Card, its prepaid Mastercard, and has asked existing users to clear out their balances before December 18, 2026.
New registrations have already stopped. Current cardholders can still use their cards and accounts for now, but there is a wrinkle: 1inch doesn’t decide exactly when the lights go out.
What 1inch is telling cardholders
The company confirmed the wind-down through its official help center on October 20, 2026. The message to users is direct: spend what’s on the card or withdraw it before the December 18 deadline.
The card served users in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom. Those are the people who now have a little under two months of homework.
The more unusual detail is who controls the timeline. According to 1inch, the card issuer and service provider, not 1inch itself, determine when card functionality actually ends.
That plumbing involved three partners. Monavate, a licensed electronic money institution, issued the prepaid Mastercard. Crypto Life (CL) and Baanx handled the provider side, including KYC checks and account closures.
KYC, short for “know your customer,” is the identity verification process regulated financial firms run on users. If you’ve ever uploaded a photo of your passport to open an account, you’ve been through it.
Where the money actually sits
This is the part cardholders should read twice. Funds loaded onto the 1inch Card are controlled by Monavate, not 1inch.
There is a safety net for anyone who misses the deadline. Under the issuer’s terms, users may redeem leftover funds for up to six years after their account is closed.
The card supported top-ups from a range of crypto assets. These included 1inch’s own 1INCH token, USDT, and BTC, along with others such as LTC, XRP, and BXX.
In practice, users converted their crypto into spendable balance on the card. They could then use it for everyday purchases and ATM withdrawals, like any other prepaid Mastercard.
A short run for a big ambition
The 1inch Card launched in April 2024. It represented a strategic push by 1inch to take its brand beyond on-chain trading and into real-world payments.
For context, 1inch built its reputation as a DEX aggregator. That means it scans multiple decentralized exchanges to find users the best available price on a token swap.
The run lasted roughly two and a half years from launch to the planned shutdown date.
What this means for users and the crypto card market
For current cardholders in the EEA and UK, the to-do list is short. Check your balance, decide whether to spend it or withdraw it, and do it before December 18. Waiting on the issuer to set the final cutoff is a gamble with no upside.
The episode also offers a useful lesson in how crypto cards actually work. Many users likely assumed the card was a 1inch product end to end. In reality, a regulated third party held the funds, and other partners ran compliance. When the brand steps back, the relationship with those partners is what’s left.
That structure cuts both ways. On one hand, having a licensed electronic money institution hold balances offers protections, including that six-year redemption window. On the other, it means the crypto company can’t fully guarantee the product’s timeline or terms.
For 1inch specifically, the move signals a narrowing of focus away from consumer payments. The 1INCH token was one of the assets users could load onto the card, but the core aggregation business that built the brand is untouched by this decision.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.