Avici says it will refund every card balance affected by an incident at its card-issuing partner. In a post on August 28, 2026, the company wrote that "all affected card balances will be refunded in full," adding that the problem originated earlier that day with the third party that issues and processes its cards rather than with Avici's own platform.
The disclosure landed inside a wider, jittery afternoon for crypto card providers. Several issuers posted near-simultaneous statements about a set of incidents moving through the sector, and Avici was the one confirming that its users were directly touched and that it would cover the losses.
An incident that started upstream at the card issuer
Avici's own wallet and app are not the reported point of failure. The company traced the balance problem to its card-issuing partner, the regulated entity that turns a crypto wallet into a Visa or Mastercard credential and settles transactions with merchants. That layer sits between a vendor's app and the card networks, and most crypto card brands rent it rather than build it.
That structure is why one upstream incident can surface across multiple brands at once. When several consumer-facing cards share the same issuer or processor, a single fault there can freeze or distort balances on every card program riding on top of it. Avici has not published a full post-mortem yet, so the exact mechanism, the number of users hit, and the size of the shortfall are still open. The one firm commitment is the refund: affected balances restored in full, funded by Avici.
Other programs report clean systems
The rest of the sector spent the afternoon drawing a line between themselves and the trouble. Ether Fi said it was "aware of the crypto neobank hacks" and confirmed its platform was unaffected. KAST posted that it was aware of "a situation affecting other card providers" and had not been hit. Tria said a separate issue affecting Solana card balances had been resolved and that affected users would be compensated.
None of those statements name a shared culprit, and the vendors are describing different scopes, so it would be wrong to fold every post into one event. What they share is the reflex: when card infrastructure wobbles, issuers rush to tell customers whether their money is safe, because uncertainty alone can trigger a run on withdrawals.
Counterparty risk stops being abstract
For cardholders, this is the counterparty risk that usually lives in the fine print, suddenly made concrete. A card that holds or routes your balance through a custodial partner carries the risk that the partner, not the brand you signed up with, is the weak link. That is the trade-off behind spending from your own wallet: non-custodial cards keep funds under your keys until the moment of settlement, which narrows the window where a third party can freeze or lose them. It does not remove card-network and processor risk entirely, but it changes who is holding the balance when something breaks.
Avici's refund pledge is the reassuring half of the story. The company is absorbing the loss rather than passing it to users. The unreassuring half is that the fault sat one layer down from anything a customer could see or control.
Steps for affected Avici users
Avici users who saw a balance discrepancy on August 28 should keep their app installed and wait for the refund and a follow-up notice rather than moving funds in a panic. Screenshot any incorrect balance or failed transaction now, since that record helps if a claim needs manual review. Treat any direct message, "support" link, or wallet-drainer prompt referencing the incident as hostile: refund events are prime cover for phishing, and Avici will not ask for a seed phrase or private key to process a reimbursement.
The practical read for anyone comparing options is to check who actually holds your balance between top-up and swipe, and what happens if that party fails. You can weigh custodial and non-custodial models side by side on the crypto card comparison hub.
Overview
Avici confirmed on August 28, 2026 that all card balances affected by an incident at its card-issuing partner will be refunded in full. The fault originated upstream at the issuer, not in Avici's app. Ether.fi and KAST said they were unaffected, and Tria reported a resolved Solana card balance issue with compensation for affected users. Full details on scope and cause are still pending from Avici.
