The verdict — 4 / 5
For the job these exist to do — putting cryptocurrency into the hands of somebody who has none and no account anywhere — open vouchers are the cleanest answer available. The recipient chooses the coin, chooses the wallet, and never has to register with an exchange.
Four rather than five because the fee structure punishes small denominations, and because the underlying risks — bearer codes with no recovery, issuer solvency — are real and rarely discussed in the marketing.
How the two differ
Both sell prepaid codes redeemable for cryptocurrency. The difference is distribution, and it determines which one suits you.
CryptoVoucher issues 32-digit codes, sold primarily online. Redemption is straightforward: enter the code, choose the cryptocurrency, supply a wallet address, and the platform shows exactly what you will receive after the service fee and network fee before you confirm. There is also an internal wallet option for recipients who do not yet have one of their own.
Bitnovo built its business on physical retail distribution across parts of Europe. Coupons are sold at shop counters, frequently for cash. Redemption goes to a Bitnovo wallet or to any external address, and the recipient picks the cryptocurrency.
If you are buying online and the recipient will redeem online, the two are broadly interchangeable and you should price both. If the purchase needs to happen with banknotes at a counter, Bitnovo is the one with that network.
What redemption costs
Two deductions, both shown before confirmation, both worth understanding because they behave differently.
The service fee is the issuer’s margin. It is proportional, it varies by issuer and sometimes by coin, and it is what you pay for the convenience of the product existing at all.
The network fee is roughly fixed in absolute terms and completely independent of how much you are redeeming. This is where the arithmetic turns against small vouchers hard.
| Voucher value | Service fee impact | Network fee impact | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| €25 | Proportional | Disproportionate | Use a cheap network, or buy a gift card instead |
| €50 | Proportional | Noticeable | Workable on a low-fee chain |
| €100 | Proportional | Minor | The sensible entry point |
| €250+ | Proportional | Negligible | Efficient, but higher bearer risk |
Two mitigations are available and both are free. Let the recipient redeem into a low-fee network rather than on-chain Bitcoin, or have them redeem to the issuer’s hosted wallet first, deferring the on-chain hop until they actually need to move funds. Either removes most of the problem.
The cash counter
Bitnovo’s retail network deserves attention because it does something that has quietly become rare: it converts physical banknotes into cryptocurrency without an account anywhere.
Somebody walks into a shop, pays cash, receives a coupon code, and redeems it later at a wallet address. No bank, no card, no exchange registration, no documents for an ordinary consumer amount.
This serves a real population that gets ignored in most crypto coverage: people without bank cards, people whose cards are routinely declined on crypto merchants, people in cash-heavy economies, and people who simply prefer not to route a €50 purchase through their bank. None of that is unusual and none of it is suspicious.
It is worth being clear that this is not a regulatory gap. Issuing prepaid vouchers is a different activity from operating an exchange, with its own rules and thresholds. Those thresholds exist, they tighten as amounts rise, and repeated purchases structured to stay beneath a limit attract exactly the attention you would expect. Our privacy guide is specific about where the lines fall.
Risks nobody advertises
Two risks are inherent to the voucher model. Neither is a criticism of these particular issuers, and both are worth internalising before buying.
Bearer risk and issuer risk
Bearer risk. Whoever redeems the code first gets the money. No name, no account, no recovery. A code photographed and sent over an ordinary messaging app now exists on two devices and at least one server.
Issuer risk. A voucher is a claim on a company. If that company stops trading, an unredeemed code is worth whatever an administrator decides. This is the strongest argument for redeeming promptly rather than treating a voucher as savings.
There is a third point that is not a risk but is regularly misunderstood: the exchange rate is struck at redemption, not at purchase. A €100 voucher delivers €100 of cryptocurrency on the day it is redeemed, whatever the price is then. You cannot use a voucher to lock in a price on somebody else’s behalf, and nothing in the product description will change that.
When we would and would not use one
We would use an open voucher for exactly one situation: giving crypto to somebody who does not have any, in a denomination of €100 or more, with a conversation about wallets attached.
We would not use one for ourselves, for small amounts, or as a way to store value. In all three cases something simpler and cheaper exists, and the voucher is solving a problem you do not have.