In the future...

[Potector]

Will there be BTC Cards, similar to credit cards? I see there are already a lot of merchants interested in bitcoins, but many seem to be websites. Doesn't that severely limit the bitcoin's capabilities and don't you think we should move to a more portable and useful mode of holding and transferring bitcoins?

[Anonymous]

http://bitbills.com

[BookofNick]

Who knows what the future will bring - but I'm sure that bitcoin will adopt to the most efficient technology of the day - be it plastic cards, smartphone apps, or something else entirely.

Necessity is the mother of invention. When bitcoin is adopted massively, there will be a huge market niche for simplification (ease-of-use) of bitcoin's features.

[Potector]

http://bitbills.com

Ha, beat me to it.

But those hold a set about of bitcoins, correct?

Would a dynamic card that can change or be tied to your wallet's balance be out of question? Are there security barriers against doing this?

[Anonymous]

You could theoretically have kiosks that generate bills with any amount of coins. You can also add more to them through the public key.

[gideon g]

There's no reason that credit and debit cards couldn't use bitcoins as their underlying currency instead of fiat.  You'd just have to get payment processors and merchants on board.

[Anonymous]

There's no reason that credit and debit cards couldn't use bitcoins as their underlying currency instead of fiat.  You'd just have to get payment processors and merchants on board.

The cost of all of those services defeats the purpose of P2P transactions.

[scottk]

FYI - the banks backing your credit cards are not owned, operated by, or affiliated with the Federal Reserve (which is the bank that handles the distribution of US currency). Similarly, any bank backing a Bitcoin-based credit card most likely will not be owned, operated by, or affiliated with this site or the creators of the Bitcoin software.

So basically - who knows? We have no say in that. We can support companies if they offer such a card (I believe there already are some doing something similar), but that's all we can do.

Also - a better option would be to put a Bitcoin client on a smartphone equipped with an NFC chip. This could be used to both send and receive payments from other mobile users quickly and easily.