Lack of Bitcoin debit card providers

[LeGaulois]

I've recently started using a Bitcoin debit card that's not actually marketed as a Bitcoin debit card, namely the one from Neteller.
Aside from supporting Bitcoin, it also supports about a dozen other payment methods to load up your card, like bank transfer, Paypal, various local payment options (Ideal, Bancontact, etc.), ...

They do charge a 2.5% fee for depositing Bitcoins, but other than that the fees are pretty limited.

Have you ever made a Bitcoin deposit and then withdrawn money to the ATM with the card?
Because I always believed that with Neteller we could only deposit (wallet only) and it was not possible to convert it to $/€/£ and then withdraw the money with the card.

[stfN2128]

bitwala has started their "full blockchain banking" services some weeks ago.

it seems to me that they do not send their cards to all the countries in the world, so I still do not see them as something that changes anything

Tenx has started lately to send out their cards.

But:



https://tenx.tech/en/card

They also do not send their cards to all the countries in the world.

is someone using this card maybe? https://paycent.com/

I'm considering using their cards, but I still need to do some research

ah ok, thanks for clarification. it seems tenx is still way behind wirex. they are working very very slow its a bit curious that they only offer their cards to this small circle of countries. do they have give a timeline or date? or only this "soon" message?

[jvdp]

Main stream adoption on bitcoin by visa gonna pass soon. So we should say that bitcoin debit is not that much lacking among the crypto users. There are plenty of crypto debit card providers available in the market.
Advcash
Bitpay
Coingate
Coinbase(coming soon)
Wirex
Spectrocoin

So soon any ICO will come with the name idea of debit card providing but lets see home come people gonna give the interest for it.

[elisabetheva]

Although there may be a lot of developing bitcoin debit, I think there are still many who might still be confused about its use because the value of bitcoin is always changing. and maybe it is still easier to use a credit card (visa / master), or a conventional bank debit card because it is definitely certain of the convenience obtained.

[jumiapaul]

There are several reasons as to why bitcoin debit card are scares. I believe if it was a profitable venture for entrepreneurs, then it would have been a prevalent mode of business.
One of the reasons why it would be difficult to give a bitcoin debit card is due to the volatility of the market.
Another reason is due to the regulations which has made the use of Bitcoin prohibited in some countries.

[AdolfinWolf]

What's up with Bitpay? - https://bitpay.com/card/

I was actually not looking for a physical card, but rather a virtual one to complete some purchases on sites that only accept VISA/Mastercard.
Didn't expect it to be this hard.

The closest that i was able to find was https://www.mycard2go.com/en/faq#card but they limit purchases up to 100 EUR and don't accept BTC..

Are there any options available for cards without KYC that accept BTC at all?

I know that Wirex is most used recenty, is someone using this card maybe? https://paycent.com/

Paycent doesn't list Bitcoin, and i'm not sure, but i think they only accept Visa/Mastercard payments, which is quite ironic? (+ They require KYC)..?

Looking to add new debit cards to review to our site, which ones should we be reviewing first? Thanks

Site is this one btw, no one have to visit it https://gocryptowise.com/debit-cards/

Now this looks promising... https://cryptopay.me/bitcoin-debit-card/ 1000 EUR for unverified accounts, and the fees don't seem to bad..

Has anyone tried these guys?

[BITVISA]

Dear
If you looking for bitcoin and cryptocurrency supported Debit or Credit card, you can order card from us, BITVISA: https://bitvisa.cc/
Our topic in bitcointalk here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5113581

[AdolfinWolf]

Dear
If you looking for bitcoin and cryptocurrency supported Debit or Credit card, you can order card from us, BITVISA: https://bitvisa.cc/
Our topic in bitcointalk here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5113581

your site doesn't strike me as looking particularly trustworthy...?
And to order your basic level card, which can load up to 250$ MAX, i have to pay 69EUR for the card alone, with no VCC available? Doesn't sound like a very good deal to me, compared to the site linked above. *(Although that site sounds a bit too good to be true*)

Anyways, how does this all work, since the providers of these cards most likely get them from VISA, what will happen if they go out of business? Will my money in those cards vanish into thin air or?

[BITVISA]

Dear
If you looking for bitcoin and cryptocurrency supported Debit or Credit card, you can order card from us, BITVISA: https://bitvisa.cc/
Our topic in bitcointalk here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5113581

your site doesn't strike me as looking particularly trustworthy...?
And to order your basic level card, which can load up to 250$ MAX, i have to pay 69EUR for the card alone, with no VCC available? Doesn't sound like a very good deal to me, compared to the site linked above. *(Although that site sounds a bit too good to be true*)

Anyways, how does this all work, since the providers of these cards most likely get them from VISA, what will happen if they go out of business? Will my money in those cards vanish into thin air or?

If you want bigger limits, card can be upgrade to bigger level.

[alyssa85]

No cryto debit card is ever actually handled by a crypto company. They're all operated by third party Visa issuers. The reason there used to be so many is that almost all of them were issued by the same company who glued a different label on each one.

And this is basically the problem with bitcoin debit cards. They plug into the VISA system, when bitcoin was really meant to be a separate payment system.

If you want to spend bitcoin, it be better to make an effort to find retailers that accept bitcoin direct. If people start buying things with bitcoin, other retailers will also enable payment by crypto and pretty soon we won't need Visa at all.

[gentlemand]

Anyways, how does this all work, since the providers of these cards most likely get them from VISA, what will happen if they go out of business? Will my money in those cards vanish into thin air or?

When all the Wavecrest cards shut down, Xapo, Bitpay etc you had to apply to them for a cheque to be sent to you.

Whoever's supplying the card, the fiat will be sitting in their bank account. I have zero faith in some no mark coughing up and I'd never bother with an unknown card provider. I can't see there being any type of official protection. Any random prick can become a card provider. Visa don't care until they do.

[virasog]

I don't know if you use Bitcoin debit cards but to my opinion there is serious lack of their providers in the market. In one moment we had a flood of such cards that appeared (Xapo, Advcash, Mistertango, Wirex) and when Visa pulled back their services many gave up permanently.
Now I think that only Wirex has a properly working card.

To my opinion there are many users interested in crypto debit cards services but still there are no new providers appearing at the market. What do you think that is reason for that and will that change in the future?

The Bitcoin debit card trend is not yet started and also there is not much need of it as of today. Since you can do the transactions directly through wallets, the only need for bitcoin debit card is when you need to convert your Bitcoin into Fiat Currency.  Maybe the Visa or Mastercard need to rethink and integate bitcoin with thier services  and then we may see a rise in the number of compainices who will also offer Bitcoin Debit cards.

[noormcs5]

There are several reasons as to why bitcoin debit card are scares. I believe if it was a profitable venture for entrepreneurs, then it would have been a prevalent mode of business.
One of the reasons why it would be difficult to give a bitcoin debit card is due to the volatility of the market.
Another reason is due to the regulations which has made the use of Bitcoin prohibited in some countries.

In 2017/18, many ICO started to claim that they will start the bitcoin debit card service and collected huge amount of money. Once the ICO were over, they just packed their bags of money and did not further developed their project. This made people lack of interest in companies claiming to release bitcoin debit card.
Also the bitcoin debt cards can only be used in the countries who have made bitcoin legal. You cannot just use the bitcoin debt card publicly if the bitcoin is prohibited in your country.

[gentlemand]

In 2017/18, many ICO started to claim that they will start the bitcoin debit card service and collected huge amount of money. Once the ICO were over, they just packed their bags of money and did not further developed their project. This made people lack of interest in companies claiming to release bitcoin debit card.
Also the bitcoin debt cards can only be used in the countries who have made bitcoin legal. You cannot just use the bitcoin debt card publicly if the bitcoin is prohibited in your country.

Any debit card that started off claiming it needed a token should never have attracted one penny of anyone else's money. There seem to have been a lot of them too. The only reason you need a token is to steal money from your future non customers.

Of course you can use a Bitcoin debit card publicly anywhere in the world because there is no such thing as a Bitcoin debit card, it's a Visa card pre funded with fiat by a Bitcoin sale and Visa is usable almost everywhere.

You won't be able to get one issued to you any more if you live in places like Bangladesh, but someone coming from elsewhere can use it just fine.

[AdolfinWolf]

Anyways, how does this all work, since the providers of these cards most likely get them from VISA, what will happen if they go out of business? Will my money in those cards vanish into thin air or?

When all the Wavecrest cards shut down, Xapo, Bitpay etc you had to apply to them for a cheque to be sent to you.

Whoever's supplying the card, the fiat will be sitting in their bank account. I have zero faith in some no mark coughing up and I'd never bother with an unknown card provider. I can't see there being any type of official protection. Any random prick can become a card provider. Visa don't care until they do.

That sucks. I was just thinking of getting a virtual card from Cryptopay.me , and still are. Just trying to calculate if the risks offset the upside (anonymous VISA card..)

Not sure yet.. 

Anyone know https://cryptopay.me/bitcoin-debit-card, or has a better alternative? I'd love to hear it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

At the moment, I still think the best option is to get a credit card from a reputable bank (which also isn't shutting down accounts of anyone associated with cryptocurrencies), sell your bitcoins privately or on an exchange, and then use that fiat to pay off your credit card. As mentioned, most companies which are offering "bitcoin cards" are just after ICO money. I'm not a huge fan of doing KYC for anyone, but I'd much rather do it for a reputable bank than I would do it for a bunch of anonymous internet strangers.

You are also likely to get a better exchange rate doing it yourself than with the fees you would have to pay on any bitcoin card.

[gentlemand]

That sucks. I was just thinking of getting a virtual card from Cryptopay.me , and still are. Just trying to calculate if the risks offset the upside (anonymous VISA card..)

As long as you don't put serious amounts on it it's worth a punt.

The Bitpay card didn't let you keep BTC on it, everything sent to it was instantly converted to GBP or EUR.

When it shut down, with literally no warning, there were people tweeting them with balances of £5-10,000 who were halfway around the world with no other option. That's bad. Obviously poor planning on their part too. They were prompt enough about sorting out the balances within a few weeks but that's not much use if you were in country trying to fund your Filipino hooker's womb transplant.

At the moment, I still think the best option is to get a credit card from a reputable bank (which also isn't shutting down accounts of anyone associated with cryptocurrencies)

That's why I'm happy to take the modest hit they have. You never know when your bank will strike in the UK. It's something I'd rather keep completely separate. I can't be arsed to create a burner bank account.

[o_e_l_e_o]

You never know when your bank will strike in the UK. It's something I'd rather keep completely separate. I can't be arsed to create a burner bank account.

You make a good point, and you never know when a bank will strike in any country, to be fair. My biggest stumbling block to getting one has always been doing KYC for a company in such a poorly regulated space, with unknown security measures and often anonymous or unknown people behind it. I wouldn't worry too much about it being shutdown suddenly, because I'd only ever be storing a small amount of funds on the card at any one time. If anyone could recommend a good international card from a company with a good reputation, I would be all ears. Even big companies in this space that you would think would be trustworthy (thinking of Coinbase here), have shown they can't be trusted with your data.

[sheenshane]

Cryptocurrency based debit cards are not that effective. The regulation against the Cryptocurrency is still under observations and monitory.
That is one point of the reason that Institution doesn't accept the crypto debit. Also as a point of view of a financial institution, you have to know if you can have a profit with the service you will be giving. For now, the crypto debit card is really unpredictable.

Well, let's just see the future if we will have it again. But I think a debit card with crypto won't work as of now.

[eternalgloom]

I've recently started using a Bitcoin debit card that's not actually marketed as a Bitcoin debit card, namely the one from Neteller.
Aside from supporting Bitcoin, it also supports about a dozen other payment methods to load up your card, like bank transfer, Paypal, various local payment options (Ideal, Bancontact, etc.), ...

They do charge a 2.5% fee for depositing Bitcoins, but other than that the fees are pretty limited.

Have you ever made a Bitcoin deposit and then withdrawn money to the ATM with the card?
Because I always believed that with Neteller we could only deposit (wallet only) and it was not possible to convert it to $/€/£ and then withdraw the money with the card.

Well, I thought I had, but actually not, I'd withdrawn the funds that I had deposited through other payment processors.
Just read this bit in their FAQ:

Note: Funds deposited via Bitcoin/Bitcoin Cash are available only for transfers to merchant sites, and to other NETELLER members. These funds cannot be withdrawn via ATM*, used for point of sale purchases.

https://support.neteller.com/PAYMENTS/Deposits-Money-In/85238436/How-do-I-deposit-via-Bitcoin-Bitcoin-Cash.htm

That sucks, it's the primary reason why I ordered their card :-/ Just have it since 4 weeks ago.