Bybit Card Cashback Missing After October 5? The Crypto-Only Rule, Calculated (2026)
TL;DR — If your Bybit Card cashback stopped appearing in early October, the most likely reason is not a glitch. From 5 October 2026 at 10:00 UTC, only purchases funded with crypto earn Rewards Points or cashback. Anything paid from the fiat balance in your Funding Account (USD, BRL, MXN, ARS) now earns nothing, at any tier. Eligibility follows the date the merchant settles the charge, so purchases you made on 3 or 4 October can fall under the new rule too.
The catch: crypto-funded spending carries a 0.9% conversion fee in most regions. On the free Base tier, cashback is 2% capped at $5 a month, so crypto funding nets you about 1.1% on the first $250 and turns into a net cost above roughly $556 a month. The table below works it out for every tier. Figures are from Bybit’s help center, checked 7 October 2026.
What This Guide Covers
- What changed on 5 October
- Why your cashback is missing: a five-point check
- Is crypto funding still worth it? The tier-by-tier maths
- The subscription rebate moved up to Tier 3
- How to set the card up after the change
- FAQ
For the current Bybit Card fee and cashback numbers next to other cards, we keep a page on Fat Cat Card’s Bybit Card breakdown.
What Changed on 5 October
Bybit Card does not hold its own balance. It spends from your Bybit Funding Account, which can hold one fiat currency for your card region plus crypto such as USDT, USDC and BTC. Until this month, a purchase earned points whichever of those paid for it. Bybit’s rewards page now says this:
“Effective October 5, 2026, at 10:00 UTC, only transactions funded with cryptocurrency will qualify for Rewards Points or cashback. Transactions funded by fiat balance are not eligible to earn Rewards Points or cashback.”
Bybit Pay has worked this way since 15 December 2025. The card has now been brought in line with it. The tier table itself did not change: the rates and monthly caps are the same as before. What changed is which purchases count.
| Item | Before 5 Oct 2026 | From 5 Oct 2026, 10:00 UTC |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase paid from crypto (USDT, USDC, BTC…) | Earns points | Earns points |
| Purchase paid from fiat balance | Earned points | Earns nothing, any tier |
| Pay Later instalment bonus (+1%) | Available | Only on crypto-funded purchases |
| 100% subscription rebate (Netflix, Spotify, ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro and others) | Broader eligibility | Non-VIP Tier 3+ and all VIPs only, crypto-funded only |
| Which date decides the rule | Merchant settlement (posting) date, not authorisation date | |
Source: Bybit Help Center, “Introduction to Bybit Card Rewards” and “FAQ — Bybit Card Rewards”, both last updated 2 October 2026.
Why Your Cashback Is Missing: A Five-Point Check
Work down this list in order. The first two explain most cases in the first week after the change.
1. The purchase was paid from your fiat balance
Open the transaction in your Card dashboard and look at what was deducted. If it came out in your card currency (USD on Asia-Pacific, Australian, Georgian and Kazakh cards, BRL in Brazil, MXN in Mexico, ARS in Argentina) rather than as a coin, it is not eligible. Bybit’s own fee examples show the card paying from a fiat balance when one is there and converting crypto only when it is not, so it is easy to end up spending fiat without choosing to. Fiat gets into the Funding Account in a few common ways: buying fiat through the Buy Crypto page, P2P sales, and the small leftover from the minimum conversion amount. In Bybit’s own example, a $5 ATM withdrawal funded from USDT converts $10 and leaves $5 sitting as fiat.
2. It was authorised before 5 October but settled after
Bybit is explicit that eligibility follows the settlement date. Its example is a purchase authorised on 4 October at 08:00 UTC and settled on 6 October, and the new rules apply to it. Hotel bills, fuel and online orders that settle a day or two late are the usual cases.
3. The points are still pending
Points sit in Pending for 4 calendar days after the transaction completes, then become available. If Auto Cashback is off, they stay as points and never turn into USDT in your Funding Account. That needs a switch, and Bybit has a separate guide for it.
4. You have already hit the monthly cap
On the free Base tier the cap is 2,500 points, or $5 a month. That is reached at $250 of spending. After that, spending earns nothing until the next month. This catches a lot of people who think in percentages and forget the cap.
5. The merchant category is excluded
ATM withdrawals, fees, refunded or reversed charges, top-ups to other prepaid cards or wallets, money transfers, brokerages and gambling never earn points. Bybit’s FAQ lists the merchant codes (6011, 6012, 6051, 6211, 6540, 6555, 4829, 7299, 7995) and also excludes card-reassignment services like Curve.
Is Crypto Funding Still Worth It? The Tier-by-Tier Maths
This is where the change gets more interesting than a simple “use crypto”. Bybit’s fee schedule charges a crypto conversion fee of 0.9% on every purchase funded with non-fiat assets (0.5% in Argentina). Fiat-funded purchases skip that fee. Now they also skip the cashback. So for each tier you have two numbers to compare:
- Up to the cap, crypto funding earns the tier rate minus 0.9%.
- Past the cap, every crypto-funded dollar costs 0.9% and earns nothing.
Here is where that lands, using Bybit’s published rates and caps. “Net at cap” is the cashback minus the conversion fee on exactly the spend that fills the cap. “Loses money above” is the monthly spend at which funding everything with crypto costs more in fees than it returns.
| Tier (non-VIP unlock) | Rate | Monthly cap | Cap reached at | Net rate up to cap | Net at cap | Loses money above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Base (default) | 2% | $5 | $250 | 1.1% | +$2.75 | $556/month |
| 2 Beta ($500 spend) | 2% | $50 | $2,500 | 1.1% | +$27.50 | $5,556 |
| 3 Alpha ($3,500) | 4% | $150 | $3,750 | 3.1% | +$116.25 | $16,667 |
| 4 Apex ($9,500) | 6% | $250 | $4,167 | 5.1% | +$212.50 | $27,778 |
| 5 Omega ($12,500) | 8% | $400 | $5,000 | 7.1% | +$355.00 | $44,444 |
| 6 Infinite ($25,000) | 10% | $600 | $6,000 | 9.1% | +$546.00 | $66,667 |
Our calculation from Bybit’s tier table and fee schedule (0.9% conversion fee, Asia-Pacific/Australia/Georgia/Kazakhstan/Mexico/Brazil). VIP levels start at higher tiers without the spend requirement. Cashback is on the purchase amount; fees do not earn points. FX fees for foreign-currency purchases apply either way and are left out because they do not change the comparison.
Three things fall out of that table.
For most people on the free tier, the card is now a 1.1% card on $250 a month. That is $2.75 a month at best. If you spend $1,000 a month on it with everything funded in USDT, you pay $9.00 in conversion fees for $5.00 back, a net cost of $4.00. Before 5 October, someone holding a USD balance could spend that $1,000 with no conversion fee and still collect the $5. That route is gone.
The best setup is split funding. Fund with crypto until the month’s cap is full, then switch to fiat for the rest. That gets you the full $2.75 on Base, $27.50 on Beta and so on, and saves you the 0.9% on everything past the cap. Whether you can do this cleanly depends on keeping your fiat balance empty early in the month and topping it up later, since the card appears to draw on fiat first when it has any.
Higher tiers barely notice the change. At Tier 3 and above the cap fills at $3,750 to $6,000 a month, and a heavy spender filling it loses 0.9 points of a 4–10% rate. The people who lose most are low spenders who held fiat to avoid conversion fees.
A worked month on the Base tier
| $800 of purchases in a month | All fiat | All USDT | USDT to $250, then fiat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conversion fee (0.9%) | $0 | $7.20 | $2.25 |
| Cashback (2%, $5 cap) | $0 | $5.00 | $5.00 |
| Net | $0.00 | −$2.20 | +$2.75 |
The gap between the worst and best choice is under $5 a month on the free tier. If you hold only USDT and do not want to manage a fiat balance, the simple version is fine as long as your spending stays under about $556 a month. Above that, all-crypto funding costs you money on the free tier.
The Subscription Rebate Moved Up to Tier 3
The 100% rebate on ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, Netflix, Spotify, TradingView, Financial Times, Shahid and iQIYI was the most generous part of the programme for small spenders. From the same date it is limited to non-VIP users on Tier 3 or above and all VIP users, and it also requires crypto funding.
For a non-VIP user, Tier 3 means $3,500 of card spending in a month. A $20 subscription is not worth chasing that threshold for. Bybit’s own example is a Tier 2 user paying for Claude Pro on 4 October that settled on 6 October. That user does not get the rebate, though ordinary points may still apply. The rebate also still excludes anything billed through Apple, Google Play or other app stores. Your statement must show the merchant itself.
The rebate is paid as points and counts against the same monthly cap. On the Base tier’s $5 cap, a single subscription would have filled the cap anyway.
How to Set the Card Up After the Change
- Check where your fiat balance came from. If you hold fiat by accident (P2P sales, leftovers from conversions), consider converting it or spending it down in one go so the card goes back to crypto funding.
- Set your crypto payment order. In the Card dashboard, the “Paying With” panel lets you drag the order of coins. The default is USDT, USDC, GRAM, BTC, ETH, XRP. A stablecoin first avoids also selling BTC at an inconvenient price.
- Turn on Auto Cashback so points become USDT in your Funding Account after the 4-day pending period.
- Watch the cap, not the rate. On the Base tier, the $5 is earned by $250 of spending. The rest of the month is a fee decision, not a rewards decision.
- Check the settlement date on anything that seems to be missing points from around 5 October before contacting support.
If the 2% Base rate with a $5 cap no longer makes sense for your spending, the comparison that matters is free-tier cashback after fees on other cards. We covered how caps change the ranking in Crypto Card Cashback Caps 2026.
FAQ
Why is my Bybit Card not earning cashback after October 5, 2026?
Since 5 October 2026 at 10:00 UTC, only crypto-funded purchases earn Rewards Points or cashback. Purchases paid from the fiat balance in your Funding Account earn nothing at any tier. Eligibility follows the settlement date, so late-settling purchases from 3–4 October fall under the new rule too.
Does the Bybit Card still charge a fee on crypto-funded purchases?
Yes, 0.9% in most regions and 0.5% in Argentina. On the Base tier that leaves about 1.1% net on the first $250 a month. After that the $5 cap is full and crypto-funded spending only costs the 0.9%.
At what monthly spend does crypto funding stop paying off on the free tier?
About $556 a month, where 0.9% conversion equals the $5 cap. Funding with crypto to $250 and fiat after that keeps the full $2.75 net.
Can I still get the 100% Netflix or ChatGPT rebate with Bybit Card?
Only on non-VIP Tier 3+ ($3,500 monthly spend) or any VIP level, crypto-funded, paid directly on the merchant’s site. App store billing is excluded.
How long does Bybit Card cashback take to appear?
Four calendar days pending, then available as points. They become USDT automatically only with Auto Cashback switched on.
This article is informational and is not financial advice. Crypto prices are volatile: a balance held in BTC or ETH for card spending can fall in value, and in a worst case such as an exchange failure you can lose your entire principal. Bybit Card is not available in every country (it is not issued in the US, Japan, Singapore or South Korea, among others), and EEA cards run under Bybit EU on separate terms. Rewards terms change without notice; check the official page before relying on any number here. Disclosure: Fat Cat Card is our own comparison site, and it may earn a commission on sign-ups made through its links.
Related Reading
- Bybit Card 2026: Where You Can Actually Get It, and Why EU Cashback Dropped to a Flat 1%
- Crypto Card Cashback Caps 2026: Why a 3% Card Can Pay Less Than a 2% One
- Crypto Card Declined Abroad 2026: The Four Causes, and Why Each Retry Costs You
Sources
- Bybit Help Center — Introduction to Bybit Card Rewards (crypto-only rule, tier table, subscription rebate; updated 2 Oct 2026)
- Bybit Help Center — FAQ: Bybit Card Rewards (Bybit Pay since 15 Dec 2025, excluded merchant codes, 4-day pending)
- Bybit Help Center — Fees and Limits (0.9% crypto conversion fee, minimum conversion examples)
- Bybit Help Center — Bybit Card General FAQ (funding sources, payment priority)
