Coinbase will issue a debit card which is tied to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. So, instead of your bank account, Visa will connect to your Coinbase Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency account. In this one feature, Coinbase has solved two key challenges in the crypto community: made cryptos like Bitcoin easily divisible and usable on the streets for things like coffee and bus ticket, and cushion a future for Visa that even if the crypto era arrive, Visa will be protected from disruption. Simply, it has inserted itself into the future of whatever comes in any potential cryptocurrency era. This is a huge moment in the evolution of cryptos.
The bitcoin price, which leaped higher last week to trade around $5,000 per bitcoin, has been called too unstable and volatile to be used as a means of payment, resulting in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies being used more of a store of value, like gold, than traditional means-of-exchange currency.
Now, major bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has teamed up with global payments processor Visa to try to change that, launching the Coinbase Card which allows users to “spend crypto as effortlessly as the money in their bank.”
The Visa debit card, which has a £4.95 ($6.50) card issuance fee, can be used to spend Coinbase bitcoin, ethereum, Ripple’s XRP, and litecoin balances “in millions of locations around the world,” by converting the cryptocurrency to fiat when the card is used—the merchant or store gets paid in traditional fiat currency.
Coinbase users can choose which cryptocurrency is used on the card through a new app which supports all crypto assets available to buy and sell on the Coinbase platform. The app also offers instant receipts, transaction summaries, and spending categories, to help people keep track of their spending.
This amazing product from Coinbase fixes what I have called Bitcoin defect. And it will surely help the coin-believers congregate at deeper levels across the world.
Bitcoin has value. Gold, US Dollars, Nigeria Naira, LinkedIn account, smartphones, etc all have values. But having value is not enough to be a functioning currency: you must also be an effective means of payment. …Simply, owners of Bitcoin are holding it or hoarding it instead of using it as a means of payment. That is the reason why the price has become a domino. When the primary motivation on a currency is to “hold” instead of a means of payment, the equilibrium-value point shifts. Over time, the value becomes speculative. Why? There is scarcity, not out of demand velocity, but exogenous interests.
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