Robert MCMillan of Wired wrote an article on the upcoming Bitcoin debit card from Xapo. The article points out that there are some other prepaid Bitcoin cards out there, the author noted they feel rather “fly by night”. Xapo has actually raised $20 million in VC and is looking to comply with U.S. law.
From the article:
Bitcoin may be the future of digital money, but it has a big problem here in the United States: why use it to buy anything when millions of merchants already accept debit and credit cards?
Today, if you want to buy a bottle of lemonade with bitcoins, you need to scan a QR code with your phone or email a long bitcoin address to the seller. For most people, buying with bitcoins just isn’t as easy as Visa or MasterCard.
Here’s how it works. Xapo, a bitcoin wallet provider, is in the process of becoming a debit card issuer on one of the major credit card networks. That means that, like your bank, Xapo, can issue you a debit card number and expiration date. You get the card number for free. If you want them to send you some plastic so you can gas up or buy beer at a corner store with your bitcoins, then they’ll charge you $15.
Xapo complies with U.S. law by requiring its customers to provide proof of residency and identification before they can open an account. Casares says that his company isn’t sure yet which payment network the Xapo card will use, but the company is testing MasterCard, Visa and Discover. “I think it’s most likely MasterCard, but there’s still a chance that it will be another,” he says.
Read the whole article here
Joseph Peterson says
60 seconds of curiosity showed me that all of these have been registered (none of them by me nor, as far as I know without looking, by anyone I know):
bitcard
bitcards
bitcoincard
bitcoincards
bitcoincredit
bitcoincredits
bitcoinloan
bitcoinloans
bitcoinlending
bitcoinlender
bitcoinpawn
bitpawn
bitloan
bitloans
bitlending
bitlender
bitlenders
bitdebit
bitcoindebitcard
bitcoindebitcards
coincard
coincards
cryptocard
cryptocards
cryptocredit
cryptocredits
cryptoloan
cryptoloans
cryptolending
cryptolender
cryptopawn
coinpawn
coinloan
coinloans
coinlending
coinlender
coinlenders
coinpawn
cryptodebitcard
cryptodebit
cryptodebitcards
cryptobank
bitbank
bitcoinbank
coinbank
cryptobanks
bitbanks
bitcoinbanks
coinbanks
This niche is possibly THE most picked over by domainers.
Humayun Kabir says
Guys, trade your Bitcoin for OlympicCoin (OLY) on Mintpal, it is so cheap right now. OLY only has 58million coins in total and you can buy 1million of them right now for less than 1BTC… that means in a few weeks the 1million will be easily worth 10BTC! OLY developers are working on new projects – that’s all you need to know. REPOST to spread the word. Time for us all to get rich!