It's almost 2018 and I'm still patiently waiting for a solution to the debit card dilemma. My Wave Crest and C.Pay cards are inactive but I am still keeping the app on my phone, hoping one day I might see an invitation to apply for your newest card product.

What should I do with the EUR and USD C.Pay cards? Are they definitely no longer valid? Should I cut them in half and discard them?

I'm visiting Japan next month and was hoping I might have a bitcoin debit card for some shopping in Osaka and Tokyo. Instead I have to buy a thick wad of Yen notes at a money changer downtown.

Any plans in progress for upcoming cards? Or is the card business as good as dead?

This will not be an easy task to pull off in Australia. Banks are anti-bitcoin and $560,000 cash is almost unrealistic in a country where banks proactively report and monitor enormous money movements.

If it is indeed a serious offer, how will you pay for the bitcoins? Bank transfers in Australia are notoriously reversible when bitcoin becomes part of the equation. Simply mention this to the bank and they will move mountains to stop the money in it's tracks.

I'm curious. Enlighten people here how you want to pay for the 40 BTC.

PS... I just reread OP's post. AUD 40,000. Oh ok, that's definitely realistic. Sorry I thought it was 40 BTC.

It must be an internally perpetrated theft. How exactly can a hacker hack into and steal that many bitcoins with all the sophisticated security protocols in place? It's not like the wallet with that many bitcoins was unprotected and had no complex passwords to crack. And exchanges usually have multiple authentication and approval systems, such as multiple persons required to input their own passwords to jointly authenticate a transaction. Like the BitGo multisig system.

That's an enormous amount of money lost. If really stolen, then the thieves can look forward to a very very very merry Christmas indeed.

No escrow. This is where the problem starts.

People here who want this phone.. insist on escrow. Don't be lured to sending coins first. If you fall for this, it's almost certain that you won't see the phone. For one, the account is new. Phone pics are readily and widely available on the world wide web and pics are not a reliable way of proving the phone exists. Even if he does have the phone, it is no guarantee that it will be shipped. It could be his own phone but will he really ship it?

As soon as I read that "no escrow" bit, I knew there won't be a phone coming and you will be enticed, lured, tempted and talked into sending the bitcoins first.

Don't fall for the typical variant of asking for a deposit instead. Say, half first and half later when the phone arrives. The idea is to get any kind of money upfront. If a buyer says no to full payment upfront, then it's still worth extracting $200 or $300. That's enough money to sustain one for a few days. And well worth the throwaway account.

PS.. OP, why can't you sell the phone in Austria? Advertise it at your local Flohmarkt. Or online on Gratis Inserate or Kleinanzeigen sites.

Well, the suspicious part is that Delaware incorporated entities can be done from any part of this planet. It's a unique state in the sense that they allow and offer offshore incorporation packages. This makes one question whether the exchange is actually in Delaware and where the people who control such an exchange are really and actually located.

There are all kinds of fly by night operations, schemes, companies, exchanges these days that it is now an absolute must to do a thorough due diligence of any kind of exchange or crypto service before engaging with them. I'm not saying you have legitimacy issues but then again you should understand that trust is earned over time and expecting people en masse to use your exchange without extensive verified user feedback is unrealistic.

To improve your trust rating, you should fully disclose your exchange's resources. You should also introduce yourself and others who manage the exchange as transparently as possible. If you have crypto resources, you should present signed evidences of those assets. And lastly, if you want to earn your user's trust, you must engage a trustworthy independent escrow who will mediate all transactions until such time that your exchange can be trusted.

Kraken is a legitimate exchange but their service delivery standards are questionable. You have here an exchange with an unstable trading platform, often down and unusable. Exchanges process enormous amounts of money and the platforms they offer their users are a critical tool in processing such trades. They must be stable and should withstand outages (I'm sure Wall Street has plans A, B, C, D, E etc in case of any kind of system failure). System errors and security issues erode user confidence and trust.

For those experiencing problems accessing the site, the options are to either wait it out (and check later if the site is up and running again) or to turn to Kraken's facebook and twitter accounts and to ask them to intervene. Bitcoin is volatile, we all know this, so any kind of instability in a trading platform is unacceptable.

I hope it's just temporary. I just checked and I get the same error. The error is with the host (Kraken) and not with cloudflare or my device.

Yes I can imagine how very distressing this can be. I just tried opening the page and it also shows an error. Most importantly it says the error is not with my browser or cloudflare. Its with the host (Kraken).

I would like to believe that it might be a system maintenance issue or perhaps something on the website being fixed.

An option would be to contact them on their facebook and twitter accounts. Ask what's going on and when they expect to go online again.

If you know their support email, you could email them too.

Phone.. forget this. Exchanges are impossible to reach by phone which really makes me wonder how they can claim transparency when they deliberately make it difficult to reach them by phone.

It's when a coin's value soars wildly and people's minds are lost and confused in the frenzy of trading and dreams of cashing in big that scammers find a window of opportunity to extract money from the naive few, or rather, many.

It is important to use a trusted escrow or mediator when dealing with anything with value. Scammers will do and say anything to steal coins but this can be effectively avoided by using an escrow system. Because of the protection offered by escrow, scammers hate it and will say anything ("what's escrow? never used it so i don't trust it") to avoid it.

Don't buy or sell coins from a platform like eBay. You are fully exposed to the risk of losing your money. There is no protection whatsoever.

This is why it is an absolute must to never store bitcoins on such exchanges. Trade, sure, but storing coins long term (as in using them as a wallet) is just plain foolish. They hold the private keys and they won't give them to you which means they own the bitcoins on your wallet. So when the proverbial shit hits the fan situation happens, only one things is left to do: hope. Hope that they return YOUR coins.

I have an account with Kraken too and I used to love using it. They had same-day SEPA transactions which was something I really liked. I traded my coins, sent the money by SEPA to my account in Europe and it was there a few hours later.

I no longer use this exchange. Their support system is there but it is an extremely delayed system. I unsubscribed to my paid protonmail email account and could no longer access it, the same email address linked to my Kraken account. Kraken sends a verification code to the old email account before linking the new email account to a Kraken account. It took nearly 3 weeks to get a response to my ticket. And a further 2 weeks to escalate the ticket to their security team. More weeks passed and I was asked to resend passport selfies. It took ages to regain access to the account. Never using them again.

Oh wow, things escalate quickly when they are called out or revealed or exposed. It's a struck nerve or a hurt ego or the frustration of being exposed quickly. The idea was, firstly, to quickly erase that impression of asking for a loan here and instead hoping someone might give advice about where to get one without collateral. This was to safeguard the account from being red tagged. A doable strategy but an ineffective one.

Broke, hungry and desperate but brazen enough to order people to "move". Brazen. So much fury when you're hungry and broke. Sigh

Had to add this: try the soup kitchens. Or food stamps, if any.

This sophisticated scam artistry is scary stuff. The fact that the scammers can find computers, laptops and phones with active accounts is impressive enough, despite the criminal element behind their efforts. It's not just the finding part but also the sheer effort and technical know how behind the actual accessing of the account. This requires a lot of con artistry and convincing ways to bypass even the most doubtful or suspicious minds out there. And all this work done remotely and anonymously. They deserve a PhD in Scamology.

Consider using Bread Wallet. I use it and I don't think it will be easy to steal from such a wallet, unless you very publicly and carelessly advertise your recovery phrase. I have a second phone I keep the wallet on and I keep it totally clean. No downloaded apps. No emails. No third party keyboard apps. No using of public WiFi.

If you are asking for advice about exchanges where you can trade, think carefully and do your due diligence before trading on their sites. Rogue exchanges are happily waiting for more naive people to send coins to their hot wallets. Consider such coins a donation.

Now if you are asking for advice about exchanges which you intend to use as a storage wallet, don't even bother doing such a thing. Always always always (and if I have to repeat this ten more times, I will) store your coins in a wallet which you and you alone control alone. By sole control I mean you and you alone own, know and control the private keys of that wallet. Shared access is not true and sole ownership.

Send coins in increments or batches to exchanges and only those coins you intend to trade. Don't transfer your entire life savings.

Why can't you create an account and verify it yourself? Using third party verification is risky (for you and the person who verified it). Firstly, there's you who must remember that the actual owner of the account retains full rights to the account even after you gain access to it. Resetting the account's access privileges is simple and easy for the person who verified that account which means you risk losing ownership of any coins you trade or store on that account.

Now to the verified account owner.. the risk is not knowing what could or might happen to your account and your identify for a mere $100. And of course there is OP's motive or intentions for paying $100 for a verified account. What would induce him to pay $100? Legitimate or otherwise, those motives must be carefully examined before handing over account access.

Yobit, Poloniex, Bittrex etc... it's a long and growing list of errant exchanges. They depend on the fact that many are naive and desperate to cash in and join the trading frenzy. With bitcoin's value soaring wildly, those unverified accounts will stay unverified for a while. A perfect opportunity for the people behind these exchanges to invest their hot wallet's contents.

You can cry and be angry. It's like a thick soundproofed wall that separates you (victims) and these exchanges. No care and consideration whatsoever. No thoughts for those who might need their few coins for their families these Christmas holidays.

Don't even think about sending a tenth of a coin (let alone 40) to this guy!

ID provides zero security. There is no value in that ID. It could be fake. Even if real, he is a stranger and you cannot and do not simply hand over $600,000+ worth of coins to strangers. Even family members struggle to lend money within the family circle. How much more to someone this brazen and shameless??

"You will have to trust a stranger". This is bad advice. Wild expectations of someone dreaming to strike it rich with little effort and time. I can picture you: post this and wait for someone naive to bite that bait.

Finally, that sounds like good news. Is that definite or is it still something being planned and uncertain?

Even if they accept BTC/LTC/ETH, it's still sad to see these card issuers restrict their card operations to Europe or the US.

Interesting how they all now compile "lists" of countries they approve of. It's like good guys in and bad guys out. Nice and naughty kids.

I like Revolut's option of offering premium accounts and cards. Just sad that I do not qualify for an account. But thinking about it, this is not easy even for their customers. They probably have strict limits and I can imagine they operate like a bank or even PayPal. If you start withdrawing lots of money, they will freeze the account and start asking for documented sources of funds.

What would be nice is a bank which exclusively caters to crypto users. There is something exciting being developed in Singapore and it looks promising:  https://getchange.com

Can't wait. I hope they will make this available to the entire planet.

No sir, there is nothing you can do. Absolutely nothing. Zero.

Forget lawyers, courts, threats of litigation and police reports. Engaging any of them requires money. And even if they act, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. This is an exchange which pretty much shares the same notoriety Yobit is known for.

I would advice this: continue making contact with Poloniex. Remind them to look into your account's issues. I know it might look like talking to a wall but they might one day realize you're one stubborn PITA for them and will or might resolve this months-old issue.

Stop storing coins in an exchange. They control the private keys of your exchange account so any coins on that account are never yours in the first place. It might look nice and impressive. A professionally designed wallet with all the important sounding words and impressive terms like "Your Assets". If you do not know the private key, you have no assets.

Why do people continue to use this exchange for trading and storage? Yobit's risky practice of locking accounts and coins is well-documented here. Sending coins to Yobit is playing a risky dice, almost always in favor of the exchange keeping the coins.

For those who ignore the countless scam reports, I can suggest a few charities who accept bitcoins for a good cause. You would be doing this planet a greater favor by donating your coins to them. It's the exact same thing. When you send coins to Yobit's hot wallet you are donating your coins to this exchange.

With their FinCEN credentials, they have the blessings of the US government to operate with impunity. They are, for want of a better way of saying it, as good as untouchable.

I wouldn't store bitcoins in an exchange which has no transparent ways of being contacted. They transact incredibly large amounts of money and yet they are difficult to reach. That's not how an ethical financial institution works. Imagine a bank without a customer support number to report issues like lost cards or checks,

I read somewhere that the Coinbase app is now the number 1 downloaded app in the US. So they know people trust them, blindly or otherwise.

Did you get your money back? If you didn't, you shouldn't give up. You should pursue the matter further, shame them further until they finally realize that stealing is not something a legitimate Canadian company does. Or any company for that matter.

There are some people with similar complaints who posted on their facebook page. This seems to be a pattern of selective fraud. Lock everyone's funds and only resolve those who make a big brouhaha about it.