Ranking a card means weighing things that pull against each other — a high advertised rate usually hides a staking requirement or a monthly fee. These are the criteria applied, in the order they carry weight.
01The rate you will actually get
Headline rates are usually the top tier of a staking ladder or a promotional window. What counts here is the rate an ordinary holder earns without locking up a token or paying a subscription — which is often a fraction of the advertised number.
02The fees you meet in practice
An annual fee is easy to compare and rarely the real cost. FX spread, ATM charges and per-transaction fees decide what a card costs someone who travels or spends abroad, and those are weighted more heavily than the headline fee.
03Where it actually works
Availability decides whether a card is an option for you, not how good it is — a card offered in one country is not a worse card. Each entry lists its regions so you can rule it in or out, and the Card Finder filters by your country.
04Custody and what it costs you
Whether funds sit with the issuer or in your own wallet is a genuine trade-off, not a score. Neither model is treated as better; each entry says which it is, so you can choose by preference.
05Whether the terms can be verified
A card whose fees we could confirm against the issuer's own documentation ranks above one relying on marketing copy. Each entry shows the date of that check, so a stale figure is visible rather than hidden.
