bitinstant paycard

[sunnankar]

I gotta think, who needs a bank account after this?  Store your wealth in bitcoins, spend in dollars using this card until bitcoins can be used for making payment at the point of sale. and until bitcoins are accepted by more of ecommerce merchants.

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The Bitcoin ecosystem is making progress at disintermediating banks.  This will benefit today's "unbanked" and it will be an enabler for those who are voluntarily considering going without a bank account.

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The difference though is that Schiff couldn't offer that to U.S. customers as the account is held offshore.

I have always thought of Bitcoin as the ultimate offshore bank account because it is decentralized and therefore does not have to care about any legislation, regulation, etc. because it does not exist as an entity.

There are no FACTA requirements for US customers. This has tremendous implications for the tax and estate planning and asset protection industries; particularly for high net worth individuals.

But the real killer for the banking system from this disinter-meditation will be the lack of capital. Deposits are like oxygen for banks. As people start moving their capital into bitcoins this will be like pinching the carotid artery; 3 seconds and the banks will pass out. Particularly given the fractional reserve nature mismatch between long assets which are marked-to-myth and demand deposit liabilities. Every $100m of Bitcoin market cap easily equates into around at least $1-3B of loans. Talk about the potential for a massive bank run!

So you couple the wealth generation effects from having a more efficient payment transfer system with the wealth transfer effects from increasing demand for a sterile asset while decreasing demand for its competitors and boom! This is going to be huge.

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[Dusty]

Am I wrong or this card is nothing new since OKPay has it since a bit of time?



With okpay you can found your card via bitcoins and a whole lot of other means.

Bitpay seems to have a much less fee though, but apart from that, what other differences?

[Timbo925]

Am I wrong or this card is nothing new since OKPay has it since a bit of time?



With okpay you can found your card via bitcoins and a whole lot of other means.

Bitpay seems to have a much less fee though, but apart from that, what other differences?

The QR code on the front is an nice extra. Also an 'small' merchant can just order one of these cards and use the QR code so he can accept bitcoin as a payment. Funds transfer straight to USD so it is a very cheap point-of-sails system. This can help non-bitcoiners to get familiar to the system. (Also has a very small fee for the owner)

I also see great value in the fact that I now can show friends that I can spend my bitcoin easily. I show them my android wallet, transfer some coins to the card and pay for drinks. Helps promote bitcoin more.

[Dusty]

I also see great value in the fact that I now can show friends that I can spend my bitcoin easily. I show them my android wallet, transfer some coins to the card and pay for drinks. Helps promote bitcoin more.

You can already do this with the okpay card (already available and deployed since a while).

Also an 'small' merchant can just order one of these cards and use the QR code so he can accept bitcoin as a payment. Funds transfer straight to USD so it is a very cheap point-of-sails system

I don't understand that: how would this "little merchant" be notified in real time of the funding? He should wait for a notification from bitpay etc, while if the merchant would use one of the multiple android applications he would have the (0-times) confirmation in real time. He could then convert them to $ only when/if needed, being it a small merchant by hypothesis.

But apart from that, I didn't know that conversion from btc to usd was done on the time of transfer (at what stage? Waiting for how many confirmations?), I would have preferred it would be done only during the effective payment.
In this way I can put for example 100 btc on the card and convert them only when purchasing, i.e., potentially during a span of days/weeks/months.

Also, apart from the 0.99% fee, what quotation is used to do the conversion? 24h average of mtgox?

[Timbo925]

But apart from that, I didn't know that conversion from btc to usd was done on the time of transfer (at what stage? Waiting for how many confirmations?), I would have preferred it would be done only during the effective payment.
In this way I can put for example 100 btc on the card and convert them only when purchasing, i.e., potentially during a span of days/weeks/months.

req

If I read the OP correctly you will have the option to keep all funds in BTC and transfer to USD/EUR when you buy. Or transfer directly to USD/EUR when you deposit BTC to the card.

You can already do this with the okpay card (already available and deployed since a while).

True but isn't the fee mutch higher? Personaly I feel like bitinstant has an better brandvalue as okpay so that may help. The fact that everyone seems to be exited about this, does point to a better succes comapred to the okpay card.

-Timbo925

[Dusty]

The fact that everyone seems to be exited about this, does point to a better succes comapred to the okpay card.

Actually I don't think that everybody is so excited because of the low fees but because everyone (me included) thought that using btc to fund a debit card was a new thing, while instead it was not.

I suppose that's why all sort of news are popping out speaking of this not yet available card while another card doing more or less the same thing is instead available since a while.

And maybe this happens because while bitpay is a great member of the bitcoin community, okpay is not.

So, okpay, I hope you'll learn the lesson 

[Elwar]

On second thought, I am not sure this is all that great for paying bills. I forgot to take into account exchange fees. Adding just 1% to the monthly bills is no problem considering the value of Bitcoin will likely go up more than 12% per year. But adding a few more percent just to convert $ to BTC then back to $ would likely not be worth it.

[Timbo925]

On second thought, I am not sure this is all that great for paying bills. I forgot to take into account exchange fees. Adding just 1% to the monthly bills is no problem considering the value of Bitcoin will likely go up more than 12% per year. But adding a few more percent just to convert $ to BTC then back to $ would likely not be worth it.

This indeed doesn't sound normal. It more a 'device' for spending your earned bitcoins easily.
It will open more people to accepting bitcoins as a way to pay. Because they now, if they have a card like this, it will be easy to spend them (don't need to go to an exchange yourselve).

For me it means I can do my design work, get paid in bitcoins and use it the same day to have lunch. I do wonder if this will get more $ out of bitcoin and drive prices down. This will make spending easy but I don't see money flowing into the bitcoin economy with these kind of cards.

 -Timbo925

[Matthew N. Wright]

http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/22/technology/startups/bitcoin-debit-card/index.html

Not bad

[Technomage]

Now iiiit's big time!

[Timbo925]

MasterCard Denies Plans For BitCoin Credit Card

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/no-bitcoin-credit-card-planned-90058

Is it possible to do this kind of deal just with the bank and not include a card provider??

[Technomage]

Just wait until BitInstant comments on this. It's not very surprising to me, BitInstant is likely working only with the bank that works with Mastercard, not with Mastercard directly. Also they didn't say they have anything against this, simply that they don't know anything about it.

[Rassah]

Actually I don't think that everybody is so excited because of the low fees but because everyone (me included) thought that using btc to fund a debit card was a new thing, while instead it was not.

I don't know enough about OKPay. Can you load your OKPay balance simply by sending coins to your address (whether it's on the card of you have it printed somewhere), or do you have to load by going to their website and doing the deposit/transfer there? I was under the impression that the new thing with BitInstant cards is that you can load them by just sending BTC to the address on the card.

[ShireSilver]

MasterCard Denies Plans For BitCoin Credit Card

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/no-bitcoin-credit-card-planned-90058

Is it possible to do this kind of deal just with the bank and not include a card provider??

Yes, that's exactly what's happening (from what I understand). BitInstant doesn't need to deal directly with MasterCard.

[Dusty]

Actually I don't think that everybody is so excited because of the low fees but because everyone (me included) thought that using btc to fund a debit card was a new thing, while instead it was not.

I don't know enough about OKPay. Can you load your OKPay balance simply by sending coins to your address (whether it's on the card of you have it printed somewhere), or do you have to load by going to their website and doing the deposit/transfer there? I was under the impression that the new thing with BitInstant cards is that you can load them by just sending BTC to the address on the card.

With okpay you can generate as many bitcoin addresses you want and you can link them either to euros or dollars account, then you can send btc to the address you prefer, any time.

So, apart from fees (not that these are uninportant, of course) and a nice qr code on the card, I don't see any innovation in bitpay card.

At least, unless the bitcoins sent to your addresses are converted just in time during a payment instead of the moment of the trasfer.

The former option would be a great bonus, but I've not yet read any confirmation for it being the case.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Official Response:

http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/8/22/public-statement-regarding-the-bitinstant-paycard.html

[Dusty]

The former option would be a great bonus, but I've not yet read any confirmation for it being the case.

Official Response:
http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/8/22/public-statement-regarding-the-bitinstant-paycard.html

All balances for the purposes of the card are held and collateralized in USD (or the cardholder’s native currency). BitInstant instantly funds the cards in USD, after receiving the user’s Bitcoins.

Too bad

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

The former option would be a great bonus, but I've not yet read any confirmation for it being the case.

Official Response:
http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/8/22/public-statement-regarding-the-bitinstant-paycard.html

All balances for the purposes of the card are held and collateralized in USD (or the cardholder’s native currency). BitInstant instantly funds the cards in USD, after receiving the user’s Bitcoins.

Too bad

'for the purposes of the card' is written for that reason. It's not what you think.

[Dusty]

'for the purposes of the card' is written for that reason. It's not what you think.

Can you elaborate, please?

Thanks! 

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

'for the purposes of the card' is written for that reason. It's not what you think.

Can you elaborate, please?

Thanks! 

Not right now, too much press heat. However I will say that we are working on kick ass software and currency risk to do very cool things on this card.