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Xapo – Bitcoin debit card

xapo.com

31–34 of 34 posts

Re: Xapo – Bitcoin debit card

#31
post #29

This is interesting, an odd mishmash. whilst the FAQ is big it is not specific - eg 'we are not a prepaid debit card' (do you have a deposit license?) ... 'We automatically withdraw money from your xapo wallet' (and that doesn't count as preloading?). To me, it looks like they've taken a standard visa backed prepaid debit card (although not putting visa logo on it I thought was a breach of scheme rules). They've adde…

My intuition for their setup was something like this: You know how a company like Oracle might give its top sales people creditcards with spending limits (for sales dinners with big customers), and Oracle pays for this? I think Xapo is similar. But instead of giving the card to its employees, it sells it for $15 to its customers. And the spending limit? That's dynamic, based on the amount in the bitcoin wallet. At th…

> That means there's no bitcoin or blockchain technology involved anywhere in the process. And yes, it's just as expensive as legacy banking products.

Except I'm pretty sure that a bitcoin transaction for a money company is more expensive in every regard than a "legacy banking product".

Re: Xapo – Bitcoin debit card

#32
post #29

This is interesting, an odd mishmash. whilst the FAQ is big it is not specific - eg 'we are not a prepaid debit card' (do you have a deposit license?) ... 'We automatically withdraw money from your xapo wallet' (and that doesn't count as preloading?). To me, it looks like they've taken a standard visa backed prepaid debit card (although not putting visa logo on it I thought was a breach of scheme rules). They've adde…

My intuition for their setup was something like this: You know how a company like Oracle might give its top sales people creditcards with spending limits (for sales dinners with big customers), and Oracle pays for this? I think Xapo is similar. But instead of giving the card to its employees, it sells it for $15 to its customers. And the spending limit? That's dynamic, based on the amount in the bitcoin wallet. At th…

It's a thought - but I'm not convinced on scale. The market needs to be liquid enough to convert btc into target currencies easily. Otherwise, banks basically get btc, convert to domestic (regulated / 'insured') currency at point of receipt and then you're back in old world payments. N.b. I am straying from my area of knowledge but I am confused as to what would stop a btc based bank going bust or suffering from the same currency controls Cyprus put in place if you have put it in a wallet somewhere (we used to call this a deposit!).

Re: Xapo – Bitcoin debit card

#34
post #10

Does it have chip & pin? It will need that to work well in Canada.

I've successfully used chip and signature in Canada and in Europe.

Hell, in larger cities I've successfully used mag stripe in Canada and in Europe.

My general experience is that all the "you must have a chip and PIN card or you'll never be able to buy anything anywhere" advice is overblown.

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