I reviewed both Robinhood vs Cash App's crypto debit card. Here are the results

For those that don’t know, Robinhood launched a debit card earlier this year that lets users "round up" their spare change into bitcoin and other cryptos. Rounding up a great way to DCA in a bear market — you can basically “set it and forget it” and thank yourself in the next bull run. Basically, leaving a tip for your future self every time you buy something.

Despite liking the actual product, I can’t think of a more corrupt company than Robinhood (whose entire business model revolves around repeatedly selling out and screwing over their customers -- look no further than the whole GME scandal). So I started looking elsewhere for the same product and ended up finding a lot of alternatives that, honestly, have a lot more features and are overall better DCA tools. Here is what I found:

Cash App (7/10)

Cash App basically offers the exact same thing as Robinhood. It’s a debit card that lets you round up into various top cryptos.

Pros:

• It’s not Robinhood

Cons:

• The round ups only happen when you use the actual Cash App debit card. Since you can't use a credit card, this means you miss out on all opportunities for cash back or reward points. If you plan on DCA’ing long-term, you could be missing out on years of credit card perks. In my opinion, not worth it.

Bundil (3/10)

Bundil is an app that lets you round up your purchases into crypto. In that way, it is similar to the OG Acorns app, which lets you round up into the stock market.

Pros:

• Since it’s an app, it works with any credit or debit card. This means you can keep using your credit card of choice while also rounding up into bitcoin.
• This company was founded in 2018, so they have some history to their name. They were even on Shark Tank a few years back.

Cons:

• They have a $5 monthly fee, which apparently they are not transparent about and some users report is completely hidden.
• Lots of states within the US aren’t supported.
• They have a ton of 1 star app reviews from users complaining about a lot of bugs or even that they have trouble withdrawing funds. That said, Bundil also has a lot of 5 star reviews, but these look fake. All the titles are things like like “Amazing app!” or “A game changer!” with generic reviews you can tell could be copy-pasted to a thousand different apps. Overall, it seems like its a buggy product the devs are trying to cover up with fake reviews rather than actual bugfixes.

RounlyX (5/10)

RoundlyX is basically the same thing as Bundil. It’s an app that pairs with any credit or debit card to enable round ups into crypto.

Pros:

• Roundly connects through your Coinbase, so no purchases are actually done through Roundly. This means they avoid all the issues with users not being able to withdraw funds since it’s actually Coinbase who has all your funds.

Cons:

• Roundly charges a small monthly subscription fee. It is billed through ACH. If you aren’t in the US, I am not sure how billing is done.
• The website and app are hard to use.
• You can only round up into one asset at a time, so you can choose BTC or ETH but not both.
• I got locked out of my account because I forgot which email I used. Now I am billed monthly and have no way to stop it. When I asked my bank to stop Roundly’s ACH pulls every month, they said I get a $20 fee just for that. So basically I have to pay to cancel.

Bits Crypto (9/10)

Bits Crypto is like “Acorns for Crypto,” except well done.

Pros:

• You don’t even need to provide a payment method. It's completely free and my account actually started off with $5 in BTC.
• The app pairs with any credit card, debit card, or bank account, so you can keep getting cash back or points on your favorite credit card.
• Bits connects through your Coinbase, so there are no issues with withdrawals.
• You can round up into three different cryptos simultaneously. You can download it here (for iOS/Android).

Cons:

• The app is still in early access phase for the next two weeks. That means if you want to use it now, you have to get lucky and hope they email you with an early access link after requesting one on their website. Since I am an iOS user, I had to download Apple’s “TestFlight” app just to be able to download the Bits Crytpo beta. Despite having been interested in crypto, I am not extremely technical so this was new to me.
• I noticed a some glitches around the UI. Things like a drawer popping up twice if you pressed a button too many times. That said, most of these got fixed fast.

The Acorns app helped me buy my first house in a volatile housing market. Where the same tools exist in the crypto world, IMO they are worth checking out... as long as they aren't from Robinhood.