This thread has been one of the few outlets critical of Mycelium's crowdsale from the start. It's gotten much more attention than the crowdsale's bitcointalk thread too. I'm not surprised that Rassah isn't commenting here anymore, what is a bit surprising though is the fact that he's given up on bitcointalk entirely. He's doing PR on /r/Bitcoin/ even now but won't even bother with the forum as a whole.

Thanks for the quote, it serves as an archive now.

So in the end, the only real requirement of those people was to download an executable and disable your antivirus... They deleted all their posts too! Very, very suspicious. Thankfully I emailed them from a throwaway email address. Hopefully someone with default trust will give them a negative rating for trying to spread malware.

Debit cards still have to be issued by banks though and banks do have a long history in business. So out of all the factors in this, I think that the fact that a bank is foreseeing the transactions going through the cards is what adds legitimacy to such services. Of course, there have been cases where businesses offering bitcoin debit card services have scammed customers (case in point, Spectrocoin). However, that certainly wasn't the fault of the bank issuing the debit cards Spectrocoin provided. Spectrocoin withheld user account funds deposited in their own platform that they had full control over.

Trade in exchanges that don't have fees.

Sadly it's only available to residents of certain American states.

Yup. And what's more concerning is that VytautasK hasn't addressed any of the accusations and has been offline in bitcointalk since they appeared. Truly suspicious behavior and that's exactly why I advise users to stay away of Spectrocoin.

Most (if not all) of those cards are issued by the same couple of banks. There's virtually no difference at what those services are based on so I wouldn't say that you'd have to worry about how "major" they are. There are more important things to care about such as fees and the responsiveness of each service's support.

The news about the announcement spread like wildfire...

Serious scam accusations are pending against Spectrocoin. I've removed them from the list and I'd advise users to stay away from their services for the time being.

The fees you mentioned first are pretty standard among cards. However, Uquid's virtual card costs 1$ or even free with a current offer. So imo it's perfect for online purchases.

What I'll have to point out is that BitPay has better rates for BTC/USD and has always been significantly closer to the market rate than e-coin's. Hence, loading USD to Uquid's card will always be cheaper that it is with E-coin's one in spite of the 1% account load fee by BitPay and the 0.5% fee to load the card. You seem to be taking measures for a somewhat specific use-case, no objections though, I haven't checked about those extensively myself (perhaps I will check on the numbers you posted if I have the time). But as I said earlier, if you're satisfied with the services they offer, I'm glad.

Also note: I'm not representing Uquid when posting here. I'm only mentioning it after elmanager's request.

I've had some success using bitcoin to bypass capital controls in my country and shop online. I just used a debit card service powered by bitcoin to shop in regular online stores. There's no use for a decentralized marketplace if you're just using bitcoin out of need. I'm also a fan of bitcoin but this incentive to "decentralize everything" doesn't seem appealing with anything other than the currency itself.

Έχεις δοκιμάσει ελληνικό VPS; Από ping φαντάζομαι θα είναι καλύτερα όπως και να έχει. Αν είναι όντως ακριβός αλλά δίνει παραπάνω απ' ότι χρειάζεται ένα bitcoin node θα μπορούσα να βάλω καμιά άλλη εφαρμογή όπως mumble π.χ.. Έτσι κι αλλιώς πληρώνω έναν server στην Γαλλία για τέτοιο σκοπό οπότε δεν θα μου ήταν βάρος να πληρώσω λίγο παραπάνω για να τον φέρω Ελλάδα.

Έχει κανένας εμπειρία με VPS που βρίσκονται στην Ελλάδα; Θα ενδιαφερόμουν να δω αν συμφέρει να hostάρω ένα bitcoin node και θέλω να δω τι γίνεται με τις τιμές τοπικών VPS που θα το σήκωναν.

Thanks theymos. Verifying the integrity of software to run on people's machines should be a standard for everyone and I'm glad that it's being taken care so thoroughly by people associated with bitcoin development. Excellent security practices are always welcome, especially given that bitcoin's transactions were designed to be trustless.

OpenBazaar was overhyped and in the end underdelivered. IMO it's not better than centralized alternatives and inconvenient. The lack of anonymity makes the benefits that a decentralized marketplace would offer pointless, even for advanced users.

Not quoting the whole convo but I'll address your points written in red one by one:

#1 there's a stable deviation from average market rates of about 3%

#2 It's not stated that it's a buy price, it's only called a Live Rate^[1] and the landing page advertised the card.

#3 Not optional SMS fee^[1]


I didn't want to seem like I'm promoting another card on top of my critique, but I'll oblige since you insist. Uquid recently introduced a debit card. Their user accounts can be funded with BitPay so the sell rates are always guaranteed to be better that e-coin with no deviation from market rates that act as a hidden fee. You can read my review of the card if you want a more detailed explanation of why I believe that it's better.

What a workaround. I wonder why Mycelium would pick such a service to host their token if it were to be unmaintained and broken just some time after the launch.

I have in fact used e-coin, their service has a nice design but there are better alternatives. If you can't see the points I'm making, I think that I can simplify them in a list:

• E-coin has hidden fees in their exchange rate
• False advertising from their rate in their landing page as it's not related with their main product
• And lastly, their no fees marketing gimmick is a lie as they have a mandatory monthly fee

If you're satisfied with the services they offer, I'm glad. But since you asked, I have a thread with a list of bitcoin debit cards. Feel free to check it out for alternatives. And to address your last point: No, I do not represent any company when posting here. I'm just trying to point out the fault of what is the most praised bitcoin debit card service, criticism might lead to improvement so try not to be negative if what you are is just a customer.

Ωραίο tutorial, ευχαριστούμε.