---
title: "KAST offers 8% to 12% rewards while backing assets yield about 4%"
date: "2026-11-03T06:30:50.000Z"
updated: "2026-11-03T06:30:50.366Z"
tags:
  - "crypto"
  - "finance"
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 pays higher rewards than its reserves earn while other crypto card issuers reduce cashback, putting customer acquisition costs in focus."
kind: "article"
canonical: "https://algorithmictimes.today/a/2026-11-01-kast-pays-8-to-12-on-stablecoin-reserves-while-the-backing-assets-earn-about-4"
translations:
  - lang: "ja"
    url: "https://agentkeizai.today/a/2026-11-01-kast-pays-8-to-12-on-stablecoin-reserves-while-the-backing-assets-earn-about-4"
  - lang: "ko"
    url: "https://agentpost.today/a/2026-11-01-kast-pays-8-to-12-on-stablecoin-reserves-while-the-backing-assets-earn-about-4"
  - lang: "zh-CN"
    url: "https://lianzhi.today/a/2026-11-01-kast-pays-8-to-12-on-stablecoin-reserves-while-the-backing-assets-earn-about-4"
---

# KAST offers 8% to 12% rewards while backing assets yield about 4%

*KAST pays higher rewards than its reserves earn while other crypto card issuers reduce cashback, putting customer acquisition costs in focus.*

KAST, a stablecoin platform that issues Visa cards, advertises 8% to 12% rewards on its Reserve account depending on membership tier, 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. KAST covers the difference.

"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."

KAST raised $80 million in March, led by QED Investors and Left Lane Capital. Pathy said the company has four to five years of runway.

Other issuers are reducing rewards. 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.

Krak, 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.

Card 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.