Crypto Exchange Shakepay Utilizes Modern Card Issuing

Shakepay is a leading cryptocurrency exchange in Canada, enabling its users — called “shakers” — to buy and sell cryptocurrency and send payments to friends or family. Founded in 2015 by Jean Amiouny and Roy Breidi, Shakepay has facilitated over $7 billion CAD in digital currency purchases on its platform to date, and has served over 1-million Canadian customers.1 It is one of the top Canadian financial apps in the Apple App store, seeing 10x year-over-year growth.2

Shakepay is on a mission to usher in the “Bitcoin Golden Age”: a financial renaissance rooted in the idea that Bitcoin enables people to build wealth and plan for future expenses due to being in limited supply. According to Marqeta’s 2022 State of Consumer Money Movement Report, 82% of consumers surveyed globally said that they would be interested if their cryptocurrency platform offered them a debit card where they could spend cryptocurrency as they do dollars.3 In 2021, Shakepay introduced the Shakepay Card to help meet the demand for such a crypto card.

The Shakepay Card is a prepaid Visa debit card that enables cardholders to earn rewards in bitcoin, and to spend from their Canadian Dollar balance in Shakepay.Shakers can fund their cards by adding to their balance via their personal bank accounts, or by selling cryptocurrency. They can then use the card to shop using their digital wallet, or in-store where Visa is accepted, all while earning 2% in bitcoin cashback on a limited spend threshold. The Shakepay Card’s invite-only launch in 2021 was a success, with over 70,000 card signups.4

Read the full case study to find out how Marqeta helps power the Shakepay Card with tokenized card issuing, Gateway Just-In-Time Funding, spend controls, rewards, and more.