{
  "slug": "2026-11-01-kast-pays-8-to-12-on-stablecoin-reserves-while-the-backing-assets-earn-about-4",
  "title": "KAST offers 8% to 12% rewards on stablecoin reserves while backing assets earn about 4%",
  "date": "2026-11-03T06:30:47.000Z",
  "updated": "2026-11-03T06:30:47.225Z",
  "tags": [
    "consumer"
  ],
  "source": "https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/11/01/crypto-card-startups-are-racking-up-losses-just-to-buy-your-loyalty-with-big-rewards",
  "summary": "KAST promises 8% to 12% rewards on its Reserve account despite the underlying assets yielding only 3.5% to 4%, a gap it covers itself, according to a CoinDesk report.",
  "kind": "article",
  "body": "# KAST offers 8% to 12% rewards on stablecoin reserves while backing assets earn about 4%\n\n*KAST promises 8% to 12% rewards on its Reserve account despite the underlying assets yielding only 3.5% to 4%.*\n\nKAST, a stablecoin platform that issues Visa cards, offers 8% to 12% rewards on its Reserve account while the assets backing those balances earn 3.5% to 4%, [CoinDesk reported](https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/11/01/crypto-card-startups-are-racking-up-losses-just-to-buy-your-loyalty-with-big-rewards) on November 1, 2026. The company says it covers the difference.\n\n\"Previously we were nearly break even. Now we're loss-making,\" CEO Raagulan Pathy said. He described the gap as a customer-acquisition cost: \"You take a loss on acquiring the customer at the beginning, but then you sell them more and more features.\"\n\nKAST raised $80 million in March, led by QED Investors and Left Lane Capital, and the CEO said the firm has four to five years of runway.\n\nOther issuers are pulling rewards back. Bleap, which issues a Mastercard card, moved from 2% cashback to a 1% base rate with higher category rewards. Eduards Timofejevs, CEO of Bleap Latvia, said customers who only spend and collect cashback can be unprofitable. Bybit EU replaced non-VIP cashback tiers of 2% to 10% with an uncapped 1%, effective August 4 for existing cardholders.\n\nKrak, Kraken's money app on the Mastercard network, is approaching 200,000 cardholders, who average about 8.3 card payments a week. Ether.fi's Cash card ties cashback, starting at 3%, to staking and DeFi vaults.\n\nCard fees cannot carry double-digit rewards on their own. European Union rules cap interchange at 0.2% on covered consumer debit transactions. In the United States, debit transactions exempt from the federal cap averaged 1.21% of purchase value in 2024, according to Federal Reserve data.",
  "sources": [
    "https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/11/01/crypto-card-startups-are-racking-up-losses-just-to-buy-your-loyalty-with-big-rewards"
  ],
  "wordCount": 282,
  "readingTime": 2,
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