Technology
Coinbase lets UK users spend bitcoins with new Visa debit card
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has launched a Visa debit card in the UK, letting users spend cryptocurrencies in retail stores and online.
The company plans to roll the card out in other European countries next month.
The card is tied to your Coinbase account balance, meaning you can directly spend the coins you hold there. The card itself is issued by payment processor Paysafe and works like any other debit card: You can make contactless, chip and PIN payments as well as withdraw cash from ATMs.
Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and all other cryptocurrencies present on Coinbase are supported, the company said.
The card comes with an accompanying Coinbase Card app, which lets users choose which crypto wallet they want to spend from. It also offers instant receipts and lets users track purchases.
When it comes to crypto cards, there are three very important questions users have to ask before plunging in: Fees, limits, and exchange rates. Starting with the latter, Coinbase automatically converts crypto to fiat currency when you make a purchase. Presumably it just uses whatever the exchange rate is on Coinbase at time of purchase, but I’ve asked Coinbase to be sure that there are no additional fees and will update this post when I hear back from them.
Then there are the fees. You can see a detailed overview here, but these are the highlights: There’s no monthly fee associated with owning the card. The issuance fee (which Coinbase will waive for the first 1,000 people who sign up for the card) is £4.95. Domestic cash withdrawal fee is zero for up to £200 per month, after which it goes up to 1% of value of ATM withdrawal, per transaction. International cash withdrawal fee is also zero for up to £200 per month, after which it’s raised to 2% of value of withdrawal. Domestic purchase transaction fees are zero; purchase transaction fee for countries inside the European Economic Area is a reasonable 0.2%, and the international purchase transaction fee is 3% per transaction.
As for limits, the daily spending limit starts at £10,000, but users can ask to get this increased. The monthly purchase limit is £20,000, with a yearly purchase limit of £50,000. Finally, there’s a daily ATM withdrawal limit of £500.
Coinbase Card is currently available for UK customers only. The company said it plans to support other European countries as well, but the timeline is a bit murky: The press release Coinbase sent Mashable said “next month,” while the company’s blog post says “in the coming months.”
-
Entertainment6 days ago
What’s on the far side of the moon? Not darkness.
-
Business7 days ago
How Rubrik’s IPO paid off big for Greylock VC Asheem Chandna
-
Business6 days ago
TikTok faces a ban in the US, Tesla profits drop and healthcare data leaks
-
Business5 days ago
London’s first defense tech hackathon brings Ukraine war closer to the city’s startups
-
Business7 days ago
Photo-sharing community EyeEm will license users’ photos to train AI if they don’t delete them
-
Entertainment6 days ago
How to watch ‘The Idea of You’: Release date, streaming deals
-
Entertainment5 days ago
Mark Zuckerberg has found a new sense of style. Why?
-
Business5 days ago
Humanoid robots are learning to fall well