6/26/2023 Update: Your chances of winning big prizes are pretty low (see figure below for example), so I redid the calculation while excluding some big prizes. The new section should explain why your average is probably around 25 sats/spin. By the way, The signup offer of 50,000 sats (I believe this is their highest offer in a while), is ending on June 30.
I have thoroughly reviewed the Fold debit card before and I briefly went over their recent changes here. Although the recent change is a huge nerf it is probably a correct move in terms of curating a sustainable program. The previous iteration of Fold encouraged people to only use the card a few times while the new (1% baseline reward) encourages individuals to use it all the time. The goal of pretty much every card should be to be a “daily driver” card so that card issuers can generate revenue through card usage, such as fees collected from card swipes.
1% Back for Spin+ Users
If you are a Spin+ user ($10/month or $99/annual), then you will get 1% per swipe. If you have never been a Spin+ user then you can get 1 month trial for free. However, each swipe can generate you additional reward, up to a whole Bitcoin. The additional reward is generated by spinning the wheel, which requires acquiring “spins” like before.
How to Get Spins
Following are the three consistent ways of earning spins:
- Earn 1 spin for every $10 spent on the Fold card
- Earn 1 spin for every $10 of gift cards bought (using Fold card or your own debit/credit card)
- Earn 1 spin for every $10 of Bitcoin bought through the app
- Earn 1 spin per day
For example, if you spend $7, then you won’t get a spin, but the app will give you a spin when you spend an additional $3 to meet the $10 threshold. Also, there is a delay from when you make the card to when spins will post in your account. Once spins are posted, you have 7 days to spin them or they will expire (one exception is the free daily spin which expires in 24 hours). You can read more about spins in Fold’s official blog post. This implementation of spin is nice because it does not encourage hoarding spins like before. However, the rewards earned from spins leave a lot to be desired.
Expected Value Per Spin
As of writing this article (5/23/2023), the following are the prizes and odds of winning them:
So, based on the above prizes and odds of winning, the expected value for Spin+ user, Spin user, and non-card holder for each spin is 38.6, 26.6, and 14.2 Satoshi (sats), respectively (here I assumed you have not referred anyone). Now that we know what is the expected value for spin, we ought to answer, what is the dollar value associated with it.
Join Fold App through the link below and get 50,000 sats when you signup for the FREE Fold Card and spend $20.
https://use.foldapp.com/r/TRAVELINPOINTS
6/26/2003 Update: Expected Value while Excluding Big Prizes
I recently spun 561 spins and averaged 23.68 sats/spin, so it made me think that the expected win/spin will be different on the user end. So, I redid the calculation while excluding some big prizes, and here is the result:
| Excluding Prizes After | Expected Sats/Spin (Spin+ User) |
| 10,000 sats | 28.03 sats/spin |
| 5000 sats | 28.02 sats/spin |
| 2500 sats | 26.52 sats/spin |
| 1000 sats | 25.27 sats/spin |
So, there you have it. This chart can explain why you are likely averaging around 25 sats/spin.
Dollar Value of Each Spin
One Bitcoin (BTC) is worth 100 million Satoshi (sats) so the value of sats depends on the price of BTC. You can use an online converter like that of Coinbase to quickly calculate the value of sats in USD. Alternatively, remember that 1000 satoshi is 0.00001 BTC, or better yet remember the following example. If the BTC price is $25,000 then 1000 satoshi is $0.25 (or 100 satoshi is $0.025).
Thinking Spins as Cashback
Finally, let’s try to convert spins in terms of cashback so we know how much more cashback we are getting on top of 1%. Suppose we spend $100, this means we will get 10 spins, which in turn will give us on average 386 sats (assuming Spin+ and no referrals). Using the current $27,000 price of 1 BTC, 386 sats is approximately $0.11. So, right now, on average, a Fold card gives 1.11% cashback for Spin+ users with no referral.
Closing Thoughts
I did not want to overcomplicate this post so I skipped over some things like
- the fee associated with selling sats (Bitcoin). Thankfully, there is no fee/cost in transferring Sats from Fold to an exchange of your choice but exchanges typically charge a fee for selling crypto. For example, if there is a 0.6% fee then selling $10 in BTC rewards could lead to you getting $9.94.
- Additionally, Fold itself seems to have some spread so that will slightly lower your reward. I think their 1% baseline reward is close to 0.92%
- the price of BTC could go up or down, so for example, your reward could double or half in price.
- Fold constantly changes their prizes/odds of winning so do not think of the values provided in this post as something that is set in stone. I would not be surprised if they bump the reward from spins a little bit.
Anyway, the card still remains decent, especially because you can pay bills with it.
