Bitcoin Magazine
Fold Lands $150 Million to Fuel Bitcoin Credit Card Growth
Fold Holdings, Inc., the first publicly traded bitcoin financial services company, has entered a four-year, senior secured revolving credit facility with Encina Lender Finance, LLC.
The facility carries an uncommitted accordion feature capping the maximum size at $150 million and is secured by a pool of consumer credit card receivables.
The deal gives Fold a dedicated funding source to grow its Bitcoin Credit Card program without issuing new equity — a structure that avoids diluting existing shareholders. CEO and Co-Founder Will Reeves said the capital will allow the company to “meaningfully expand the distribution of the Fold Credit Card” as it works toward becoming “the nation’s personal finance hub for the Bitcoin economy.”
The Fold Bitcoin Credit Card operates on the Visa network and runs on Stripe Issuing infrastructure, making it accepted at roughly 175 million merchants worldwide. Cardholders earn a base rate of 1.5% back in bitcoin on all net purchases, with the potential to reach 4% by combining behavior-based boosts, direct-to-bitcoin transfers, and a 0.5% bonus for paying their statement balance using bitcoin held in a Fold account.
Fold began issuing cards to a portion of its waitlist members before this announcement. The company plans to expand access in scheduled batches over the coming weeks, with the Encina facility giving it the origination capacity to scale while preserving cardholder experience.
As of the company’s first-quarter 2026 earnings report, more than 1,000 Fold Bitcoin Credit Cards were already in circulation.
Fold’s Encina partnership
Encina Lender Finance is an independent specialty finance firm with offices in Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. The firm focuses on asset-based finance investments in short-to-medium duration consumer and commercial credit pools.
Encina CEO Geoff Beard said the Fold deal “fits well with our core expertise at the intersection of specialty finance, financial technology, and asset-based private credit investing.”
The structure of the facility — asset-backed and revolving — is common in consumer fintech and allows Fold to draw capital as card receivables grow, then repay and redraw as the portfolio turns over.
This keeps the facility aligned with actual card volume rather than locking in a fixed debt load.
Fold reported Q1 2026 revenues of $5.6 million, a 21.1% year-over-year decline, with transaction volumes down 32% over the same period. The credit facility arrives at a moment when the company needs growth momentum to reverse that trend.
The company disclosed several material risk factors. Bitcoin’s price volatility could affect the value of rewards earned by cardholders, and broader market shifts could pressure the quality of the consumer receivables pool backing the facility.
The card is issued by Celtic Bank under a Visa license, with rewards provided by Fold rather than the bank.
This post Fold Lands $150 Million to Fuel Bitcoin Credit Card Growth first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
