Cryto Credit Card

Chances are, you have not. Bitcoin debit cards are a relatively new financial tool, designed as a solution primarily for the Bitcoin community as a way to easily spend bitcoin. The bitcoin community is limited to only thousands of shops around the world that accept bitcoin as payment. In Malaysia, only a handful of shops accept bitcoin - like this cafe and this VPN service. The bitcoin debit card solves this problem, as the Visa or MasterCard-linked cards are almost universally accepted at millions of places around the world.

Like many financial innovations, bitcoin debit cards started off from a small community of early adopters. As bitcoin became widespread, more people and financial institutions realised the potential of blockchain-based finance, and thus bitcoin debit cards are becoming popular among mainstream users. It turns out that bitcoin debit cards can offer many advantages over the standard bank-issued debit cards. Here are some of its advantages!

Note: Different bitcoin debit card products may have different features than the advantages listed here. This article was based on the Wirex card, which the author owns. Disclaimer: The author provides some work for Wirex, but is also a keen customer.

Advantage 1: Bitcoin debit cards make holding and spending bitcoin easier

Many Malaysians are interested in bitcoin as an investment vehicle. Bitcoin debit card makes it easy to both hold and spend bitcoin. A bitcoin holder can choose to convert bitcoin into cash when the price increased, or hold it as bitcoin for long-term investment. The flexibility and ability to take advantage of bitcoin’s price anytime is very appealing for many bitcoin holders.

As covered above, bitcoin debit cards are also accepted at a lot more shops than bitcoin itself. Most places that accept Visa and Mastercard will accept the card (in fact, they won’t even know that it is a bitcoin debit card because it looks like a normal card!). This makes it easy to use bitcoin to purchase practical items like groceries or petrol.