Bitcoin Forum

Once a mere novelty, Bitcoin debit cards are getting smarter and their providers
are stepping up to ensure their products have a tangible competitive advantage.

However, can Bitcoin cards provide users with proper anonimity? (http://cointelegraph.com/news/114639/approved-bitcoin-debit-cards-hot-up-as-market-matures?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=bitcointalk&utm_term=evg)

they cannot provide proper anonimity ever, because from the moment, you purchase a thing and you write your address and name, for the shipping tdetail you are already out of luck in regard to anonimity

also they are very expensive, when bitcoin is aiming at reducing cost for moving money, so a bit contradictory to use something that go against the philosophy of crypto

I have 1 question about these bitcoin debit cards? Do they work with all ATM's or the banks have to uppgrade the ATM's software in order to read BTC. I`m sure ATM's, whatever software they use, dont even have the 'BTC' character implemented in their software.
So i`m sure the banks have to do work too to implement this feature.



A debit card is never for anonymity, if you go to a large store dont expect anonymity when atleast 500 people see what stuffs are you buying.

Not everyone cares about anonominity.

Thats right i dont think anonymity matter to every one, unless they are really up tight to what they are doing or to have more security in their daily activities, i guess is up to people to choose what level of anonymity they want to use or not.

But you'd have to trust the supplier of these cards to load your money into it everytime, I don't think I can get myself to trust them.

For those who don't care about remaining anonymous and don't care about centralizing their personal Bitcoin (depositing Bitcoin onto an ATM card would be a form of voluntary centralization), it might be a very convenient way to spend their bit coin. At this point, I would be extremely leery of any ATM cards. The major payment processors (VISA and MasterCard) are not open to the idea of Bitcoin and could force the card issuer to stop excepting Bitcoin deposits with little to no notice.

It's pretty simple. Your BTC debit card provider (ie XAPO, Bit-x, Bitstamp etc) keeps your BTC funds and converts to fiat whenever you want to use the card, therefore you're paying with fiat (but it comes from your BTC deposit). So yes, it works like a regular card and you can pay pretty much everywhere.

This is great with all of the cards coming out.  It makes it really easy to use your bitcoins in stead of having to deal with wire transfers, 2 week waits, and other nonsense just to turn crypto back into fiat.  Maybe the fees are high right now but I hope that eventually there will be more competition and the fees will go down a little.

I don't see it likely. First of all, they do directly benefit from this form of bitcoin activity, second of all, it would be very bad PR for them, and last but not least, if they did that, they would be possibly facing anti-monopoly actions and large fines (in some countries, where their lobby is weaker). You cannot just deny service because you don't like bitcoin, you'd need a better reason for that (and money-laundering/supporting terrorism is not a case here, since there's no anonymity).

I don't personally see the point in having these cards, it really is not that hard to move bitcoins around especially with services like local bitcoins.  But I suppose that more options are always a good thing.

I have the same feelings. I don't need additional bitcoin services and payment processors where I could use it directly to buy my stuff.
Bitcoin was created to fight this type of situations where you need cards ensued by 3rd parties to be able to pay. I won't get it and I won't need it.

I see Bitcoin Debit Cards only as a temporary solution to the problem that Bitcoin is not yet widely adopted. I hope that this will gradually change and conversion services will become obsolete, because you can purchase anything directly with Bitcoin.

Anonymous services can only exist, if the service provider does not know his customers. That's mostly not the case for issuers of debit cards, because they collect personal information if you exceed certain usage thresholds.

ya.ya.yo!

Still, the whole idea of crypto includes anonimity, right?

Not really. its just a side advantage. The whole idea behind crypto is speed / almost no fees / decentralization and Transparency. Anonymity is just another advantage.

Hmm its a good news !!!!

mmh transaprency is the opposite of anonimity, basically...

so one of that two is not included in the crypto

you can't have both for sure, unless you use one coin for the first purpose(transparency) and a second coin for anonimity, in this case altcoin could be considered a good thing

Well, that is the case if you do any payments thought platforms like Bitpay or whatever, or when you withdraw from an exchange that requires ID data. Bitcoin stops being anonymous when it's linked to your credentials.. that's why we need improvements in privacy like the ones proposed by Gmaxwell.

American Express Serve > any of the bitcoin cards that have come out so far.

Sell your BTC in exchange for re-loadit, no need for a bitcoin card.

This is exactly why you cannot withdraw BTC deposits into Neteller with their Mastercard. Mastercard forced their hand.

They aren't a real alternative, at least to me, because they are still more costly than other Bitcoin cashout methods I have and they don't provide me a solution for any problem. They are useful, but not essential. Cards from Xapo and Bit-x seem to be a good product, but noone has really caught my eye yet.

As for anonymity... The card has to be registered to someone ;) I've seen some anonymous cards on the forums that appear to work without registering... But I haven't really seen one working, so I have my doubts.

I'd be interested in using them eventually if we go to the moon ;) but at the moment it's all too early & to be honest I wouldn't trust any of the current companies making them with my funds. It's something for the future (for me). I'm HODLING at the moment any way, not interested in spending any of my stash aside from small amounts gambling.

In response to some of the posters above me regarding anonymity it doesn't bother me either, in the future if BTC achieves mainstream adoption & most shops accept it I'd be perfectly happy with a system where I load BTC (only what I plan to spend) onto my BTC debit card & then use it in a shop, that'd be great.

Yep well in that case it is an alternative.

They already start to ban cash in europe, and impose legislation to force cards to be used in shopping.

If we are clever, then instead of using globalist controlled cards, lets just use XAPO or other bitcoin based cards, that would make the globalists very angry :)

Naive. All cards are controlled, including mentioned XAPO and such. That Xapo is just co-branded VISA or MC card issued by one of the tiny offshore banks. If you don't belong to the credit card issuers club (Visa, MC, Amex, JCB...) your card will be just an useless piece of plastic. No one ATM will accept it.

yes i think they can be quite an alternative to orignal debit cards out there. but the whole concept of anonymity behind crypto falls out though. but wont it be real convenient to en-cash bitcoins into whichever currency we want ? 

I have had a fairly good expriences with the xapo debit card and the xmlgold debit cards xmlgold being a lot flexible of course none of this are anonymous.

Step 1:
Deposit X amount to ecoin.cc

Step 2:
Get people to sign up and get MC network ATM card from Loyalbank ($35 fee i believe to get physical card mailed)

Step 3:
Exchange their coins to ecoin internal transfer

Step 4:
They withdraw cash at ATM

This can all be easily scripted to be totally automatic. Just have to find the cheapest way to deposit to ecoin, but this is literally a turnkey BTC->ATM operation for anybody with time and $ I used ecoin plenty of times in the past. Not anonymous because no debit cards will last being anonymous.  

Would be nice if you could cash out via ATM at supported exchanges too. Choose option 'Withdraw to ATM', get a code, then go find nearest Bitcoin ATM and punch in code, receive cash. That would also be a handy remittance method to sell to ATM code.

I don't like them, fees are super high, and it's not like we can go to an ATM and use it like a real Debit Card. Maybe once bitcoin get more excepted into banks, and then btc debit cards can be useful, right now I don't need it. I wouldn't say it's alternative, it's just a side thing.

in my opinion, for the anonymity no. That's for the simple reason that for BIT-X for example you have to verify your account first before be eligible for a debit-mastercard.
( also it's too choosey to call wherever purchasing a prepaid ATM-card using bitcoin )

so that's would be great if the service offer a option for a dedicated balance (for the debit-card), in example you can choose to allocate an amount of FIAT money that you have exchange against bitcoins when the prices   were most suitable.

they can not provide any anonymity at all, because you have to go through their system an reveal your identity. but since many bitcoin users don't care about anonymity so i guess using these debit cards is not an issue for them.

anyways i don't see any benefit for using these debit cards, first of all the fees are high so you are better off using cash or any other ways that you have been using for payment. second you are not really using bitcoin, the card provider converts your bitcoin to fiat and you use that for high fees. which IMO it means just an unnecessary additional step.

They would be useful when there were many local merchants accept bitcoin.
The other problems are it should 1 address for 1 debit card, and the system should not request any data from users to keep anonimity. But maybe it's impossible way because FIAT debit card system need data from users right now.

Why don't you get it, a debit card means a trail, and a trail means an invasion to your anonymity. So what's the point of using a bitcoin debit card if we are sacrificing the single most significant value of BTC tech.

not only that but you are also helping bitcoin competitors like mastercard and visa, i can't see a point in using debit card when you can do your buying online whit your client and in real life with your smartphone

Obviously you won't use debit card for the transactions you prefer to keep for yourself. Personally I don't care about staying anonymous all the time, I like to have an option to remain anonymous whenever I need to, but not really bothered to keep it secret that i.e. I bought a coffee at the airport, or paid a bill etc.

Is pretty interesting to see everyone talk about the Anonymous atm cards, is there a website any one could point me to so i could try one this cards out ?

Alternative of what exactly , Maybe I'am the only one who don't get it here .
Debit cards will be "one" of the things that will eventually destroy Bitcoin totally , you have to provide your informations so receive the card , also the fees are insane .


There is bit-x.com or advcash , they both have threads on this forum so you can check them out .

American Express Serve is the best option so far. You can sell your bitcoin for +20-30% over market rate for a Reloadit pack, which is then loaded onto your Serve card. This gives you an effective 20-30% discount on items :)

Thanks for the info on Serve, they have a pretty nice comparison chart with other prepaid cards on their website https://www.serve.com/, i know it doesnt work directly with bitcoin but i guess it would get the job done a lot better then some of the other popular pre paid cards.

Thats not what i meant. Obviously if you use the ATM or bankster system at all, you are controlled to a degree.

What i meant is that atleast there you can have control over the funds.


So you have 1-2 bitcoin on your Xapo debit card, and 100 bitcoin in a cold wallet. Whenever you want to buy something higher than usual daily expense, then you transfer it from the cold wallet.

This way even if it becomes scam, you can control risk. You only deposit what you spend, got it?

As more commerce is conducted via bitcoin backed debit cards, and the total volume grows, over time more and more vendors will want to cut out the extra middleman and start accepting bitcoin via Coinbase and Bitpay integrated services directly which have much lower transaction costs.

Why people are to blind to see that Bitcoin Debit Cards are no evolution of bitcoin acceptance but rather artificial tool which help only if you want to brag how Bitcoin friendly you are.
It is not supporting bitcoin more like you accept and give up ability to use pure p2p bitcoin in a way it meant to be used.

I got into Bitcoin with the clear mindset of never getting into debt and forgetting any debt based business. The last thing I want near me is a debit card that has Bitcoin on it. Debit cards are like drugs, you want to stay away from it or you will become a Bitcoin shopping addict.