Cryptocurrency cards in 2020, where do they stand?

Published in

Globcoin.io

4 min readMar 8, 2020

After Coinbase’ announcement in February 2020 to partner with Visa; the subject of cryptocurrency cards is once again on the table, and served hot. This means that this cryptocurrency giant, supporting transactions in 190 countries worldwide, will soon be able to issue cryptocurrency cards without intermediaries, setting a huge milestone for the payment industry.

What are the advantages of crypto cards?

Crypto cards look and work very much like regular debit cards; except for the fact that you can load, pay and buy directly with your cryptocurrency balance; instead of just regular fiat or national currencies.

Many merchants are still reluctant to accept cryptocurrency directly; but they wouldn’t have a problem accepting Visa or Mastercard, for example. And users wouldn’t have to manually convert cryptocurrencies to fiat currencies every time they need to buy something.

In short, cryptocurrency cards would give communities access to a global network of payments.

✓ Freelancers could accept payments in one currency and spend in another.

✓ Organizations could receive donations or transfers in any currency from anywhere in the World.

✓ Global communities could have a globally accepted means of payment.

✓ Tourists and travellers could safely carry money anywhere regardless of each national currency

It’s 2020 already, where are all the cryptocurrency cards?

Today, there are some cryptocurrency cards available in certain regions of the World (mostly Europe), but not as many as one would think by 2020.

Actually, there have been ‘’incidents” in the past. Many will remember in 2018, when Visa terminated its relationship with WaveCrest, a cryptocurrency card provider. Around 500,000 cards around the World were instantly blocked, causing commotion and damage to the industry.

But why is it 2020 and don’t we have many crypto cards? Although they seem like the natural next step in cryptocurrency adoption, the situation is not that simple. As one of the pioneers in the multicurrency card business; we at GLOBCOIN are very aware of the obstacles. In our opinion, these are the most important ones:

The need for intermediaries.
Paperwork and regulations

The need for intermediaries

Companies wanting to offer a plastic card with cryptocurrency balance need to rely mostly on middlemen to do the job. The industry is structured in such a way that they can’t access the huge Visa and Mastercard networks directly — they need third parties to act as intermediaries and providing them with the access to the “giants”, most of the time for a very expensive fee.

Laws and regulations

As with all things related to crypto; one of the biggest limitations for development are regulators. Many governments and official institutions are weary of crypto developments and some of them have been harsh in restricting digital money in their jurisdiction. Users often need to pass extreme KYC and AML checkups to access the benefits of a crypto card. Moreover; there is a lack of consensus around the world; making it difficult to make cryptocurrencies a truly global alternative.

What would be the ideal cryptocurrency card?

The ideal card isn’t necessarily a cryptocurrency card, strictly speaking; but a global card giving you an array of accessible options to use in real time, allowing you to pay in either fiat currencies or a digital currency.
Ideally, this digital currency would have a stable value, instead of being constantly affected by a fluctuating market and the typical volatility in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
This card would be linked to a multicurrency wallet, where you can hold balances in different currencies and instantly convert money between them.
This global multicurrency card would have very low fees and would offer a very attractive exchange rate.
The card would grant access to an extensive network of payment locations worldwide. Our multicurrency prepaid card, for example, available since 2017, gives our users access to 37 million locations worldwide.

What the future holds

There’s no doubt that cryptocurrency cards are a key factor in the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies and -even though we can’t speculate on a timeline- almost inevitable in the evolution of global payments. They will finally give digital money real use cases for everyone in everyday life; and will make a space for them in traditional finance.

Slowly but surely, we’ll get there. New products and services are being introduced every month; and we hope that Coinbase’s announcement, instead of meaning the monopolization of a necessary solution; becomes a motivation for other actors in the field to pursue the long-sought vision of global money.