BitPay Launches Prepaid Mastercard in the United States

[JollyGood]

I do remember reading years back about BitPay launching a VISA card, not sure if that will run alongside their Mastercard service or even if their VISA card service is still running.

Many people might have been tempted to give it a try but with the name "Ver" attached to some part of BitPay, maybe it will be difficult and they prefer to give it a miss.

BitPay used to have a visa card. Not sure if it stopped running at some point but it used to be considered one of the reliable services for US. Now loading up their page from my country tells me to sign up for their mailing list as their new card might be coming soon to my country. That's interesting to hear, some competition is always good. But it's rather sad the route BitPay took for their retail payment business. They adopted a controversial protocol for bitcoin payments and no longer support depositing to a plain address. Ironically Roger Ver's proprietary wallet is one of the few ones that supports BitPay's obsolete BIP.

But if their card has good rates it should be judget on its own merits. If they can offer a good product for conventional payments, hopefully they'll change their retail payment strategy for bitcoin too.


I had a thread monitoring bitcoin debit cards. Now with more cards coming in perhaps I should start updating it again maybe.

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[DaveF]

I do remember reading years back about BitPay launching a VISA card, not sure if that will run alongside their Mastercard service or even if their VISA card service is still running.

Many people might have been tempted to give it a try but with the name "Ver" attached to some part of BitPay, maybe it will be difficult and they prefer to give it a miss.

The Visa is running through the end of the year. You will no longer be able to load it soon, but will be able to spend any funds on it.
I have been using the Mastercard on and off since I got it.

Eliminating all other things the biggest drawback for me is the lack of anything special about it.
My discover is giving me 5% cash back on restaurants. The Bank Of America Visa is 3% cash back on internet purchases. AMEX is doing the "Shop small / local" thing so $5 back on a $10+ purchase at lots of local places. Even my debit card from my bank gives me 1% back in crappy travel rewards.
This give you nothing but the ability to spend BTC on a card. But, even getting gift cards through bitrefill gets you 1% or more back.

The get some cash back when checking out is not bad, but that's about it.

As for the "Ver" attached to it. I have less of an issue with him then some people who are more actively involved with BTC, but this is not the place to discuss it. YMMV.

-Dave

[DaveF]

Figured I would give a 90 day update.
Used it a few times since July. Mostly to load / spend / swap for cash ETH that people have sent me for stuff.

No issues with the chip, the tap to pay has failed a few times with network errors meaning that the back end that the card uses was down.
A few times in the app the card or balance would not appear. I do not know if those 2 things are related.

Otherwise it's as I said. A somewhat simple way to spend crypto and get converted to cash.

Rates are still average. I do notice a lag in both directions up or down vs what the app is giving me.

-Dave