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Binance to Issue Crypto Card in Collaboration with Swipe

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In a recently deleted web page cryptocurrency exchange giant, Binance acknowledged its collaboration with Swipe to launch its crypto card. Through an accidental update on its website, Binance affirmed the collaboration stating:

“Binance has partnered with Swipe to provide a Card platform for Binance users.” Binance plans for a branded card have been in preparation since March 2020. Besides, in the recently erased web page, Binance wrote that its card would allow “real-time” conversion of cryptocurrency to fiat currency to be transacted by merchants worldwide.

Binance expanding its scope

Notably, Binance is one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange platforms. It introduced its first crypto card in March 2020, which they stated was just like any regular bank card. However, the crypto card has some extra features that allow users to pay for their purchases with their saved cryptocurrencies.

The card can be used globally without any geo-restrictions. Advance card registration was $15,  on the other hand, Swipe has business operations in Estonia and the United Kingdom, with headquarters in the Philippines. It has its own crypto debit card that supports approximately 30 digital currencies. Swipe’s crypto card can be acquired through Contis Financial Services Limited, a Visa member licensed by the UK Financial Conduct Authority.

Binance crypto card features yet to be disclosed

Binance is becoming a well-rounded player in the cryptocurrency industry, with several crypto community experts panicking that it will become a monopoly in the future. Binance, however, dismissed these allegations and explained that they believed in co-existence.

In conclusion, The Block reported on a possible investment in Swipe by Binance, assuming a majority stake in the company. None of the two companies, however, has confirmed this. Binance has not yet formally revealed its collaboration with Swipe, as well as the features of its crypto card.

Wirecard to Resumes Operations After FCA Lifts Restrictions

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The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority ( FCA) announced on 29 June that it would lift the restrictions imposed on the German payment firm Wirecard AG, allowing Wirecard to resume operations. The watchdog noted that it had provided a written agreement to Wirecard ‘s subsidiary, Wirecard Card Solutions, to resume its e-money and payment services, although some limitations remain.

The UK financial watchdog ordered the e-payment firm to halt operations on 26 June, following the submission by its parent company of an insolvency application in Germany. The move to lift the ban allows the users of the firm to access the financial services they have been locked out.

Wirecard’s clients can now access financial services

The limitations imposed on the fintech firm include not being able to dispose of any assets or money, not to run any regulated activity, and put a statement on its official website notifying users that it is no longer authorized to carry out regulated activities. Nevertheless, clients can now use their debit cards freely without interruptions. A statement by FCA reads:

“We know that some people may have faced difficulties over the weekend and we worked with DWP, HMT and the Home Office in order to help anyone suffering financial distress. Anyone who is still in difficulties should see our website for more details.” 

Insolvency proceedings

Despite the lifting of the restrictions by the FCA, experts suggest that the issue could have permanent damage to people’s trust in fintech firms. In particular, firms such as Curve and Anna rely on their e-money licenses to manage payments but do not hold banking licenses to hold client funds. The funds are instead ring-fenced with a third party financial institution.

Germany-based Wirecard has stated that it will continue to operate despite insolvency filings last week. The company also stated that it is exploring whether its subsidiary firms will also be required to apply for insolvency. In addition, the American subsidiary of the company which it acquired from Citigroup in 2016; stated on 29 June that it was looking for a buyer.

Crypto Debit Card Issuer Wirecard Files for Insolvency

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Troubled fintech crypto debit card issuer, Wirecard, has allegedly filed an open insolvency proceeding. According to the Wall Street Journal ‘s report of 25 June, the Munich-based crypto card firm applied to the Munich District Court to initiate the insolvency settlement process.

The global Fintech firm cited its imminent insolvency and excessive debt as the chief encouragement for the application, referring to the $2.1 billion missing from its balance sheet. Situations have rapidly changed for the crypto debit card issuer after finding out that 32 percent of its balance sheet did not really exist.

 

Crypto debit card Issuer not yet bankrupt

Immediately after the discovery, Fintech became a leaderless company as the CEO and other top officials quit their positions. Wirecard ‘s insolvency application suggests that the company can not meet its liabilities for a short period of time. Insolvency may be the result of either a cash-flow deficit or a negative net asset balance. In the case of Wirecard, this seems to be the latter.

“The Management Board has come to the conclusion that a positive; going concern forecast cannot be made in the short time available. Thus, the company’s ability to continue as a going concern is not assured,” stated Wirecard.

As per the most recent financial filings in 2018, the Crypto Debit Card Issuer has a net profit of $350 million. However, as per the latest developments, investors might want to do a careful study on the figures. During the insolvency process; firms will typically implement radical policies to keep treading waters; such as scaling down staff and expenses, reorganizing debt, selling a section of their assets, and other measures. 

Bankruptcy vs. insolvency

Bankruptcy happens when a firm is completely incapable of meeting its debt obligations. Insolvency, on the other hand, is a precondition for bankruptcy. Insolvency does not suggest that the company has completely failed.

In conclusion, Wirecard ‘s business areas include the issuing of crypto payment cards to Cryptop.com and Tenx. According to a Tenx representative, client funds in fiat and digital currency have not been affected by the latest drama of the crypto debit card issuer.

 

DeFi-enabled Crypto Card Verified by Visa for EU and UK

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Spending bitcoin or other digital currencies in day-to-day life is not straightforward as traders prefer to avoid the volatile nature of digital currencies. To link the traditional financial system to the new age of digital assets such as Bitcoin, a Swiss-based cryptocurrency startup, Eidoo, has launched a new DeFi-enabled crypto card that uses stablecoins for fiat-to-crypto conversions.

The new De-Fi enabled crypto card was approved for operation by the major payment company, Visa. In addition, the card, dubbed the Eidoo Card, will now enable more than 40 million Visa merchants to accept crypto payments from fiat currencies such as the UK Pound and Euro.

DeFi-enabled crypto cards to facilitate cryptocurrency payments

The CEO of Eidoo, Thomas Bertani noted that the latest confirmation by the payment giants is a part of his firm’s collaboration with Contis, which holds a UK’s e-money license and a principal member of Visa Europe. According to Bertani, the payment giants verified all cards to be issued by Contis and UK-based financial services firm Moneyfold. 

Meanwhile, Contis will act as the issuing firm of the Eidoo Cards same way cards like Monolith work. Meanwhile, Moneyfold’s stablecoins based on the Ethereum blockchain,  Moneyfold Euro and Moneyfold GBP, will open up a greater deal of transparency and decentralization while converting between fiat and crypto. 

“People have a given crypto token, they sell it for the stablecoin via DeFi DEXes like Uniswap. Then the regulated stablecoin obtained from there is topped up with a 1:1 exchange rate; (1 Moneyfold EUR = 1 EUR) on the crypto card when the payment occurs,” Bertani explained.

Decentralizing debit cards

Moreover, the co-founder and CEO of Moneyfold, Nikola Tchouparov highlighted the special nature Eidoo Card which is stablecoin-based. “It will be the first time the back-end of a crypto card is done via stablecoins and DEXes,” Tchouparov stated.

Furthermore, Eidoo users are required to stake or burn their EDO holdings before pre-ordering the Eidoo Card. EDO is the native token of Eidoo platform. The terms state that a user should burn 100 EDO tokens to get the card or stake 25,000 EDO tokens.

Nexo collaborates with Mastercard as the crypto loan firm introduces credit card

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Mastercard, one of the well-known multinational financial services cooperation, has recently collaborated with the crypto loan provider Nexo to introduce crypto credit card.

Though Mastercard does not provide with the service to buy cryptocurrencies with its Credit Card, it doesn’t reflect that Mastercard is holding back from the crypto space. The recent launch of the credit card by Nexo is the first-ever crypto credit card that will let the users buy items on loan and then, later on, pay for the stuff.

The co-founder of Nexo, Antoni Trenchev, said that the Nexo Credit Card would offer users to spend the value of their cryptocurrency without really spending it. Furthermore, the card does not deem any monthly, annual, and foreign exchange fees, which makes it more attracting and favorable product for crypto users.

Comparing the Nexo credit card with the likes of Crypterium and TenX that transforms the digital currencies to fiat currencies for each transaction. Whereas, Nexo card would collateralize users crypto and then supply it with a fiat loan at the same amount.

So far, Nexo has lent almost $700 million worth of crypto to over 200K users. Through the money borrowed, users can buy different products at merchants that accept the Mastercard.

Trenchev stated that the card’s issuer has the permit (license) inside the European Economic Area. By the end of this year, Nexo plans to increase its network across different countries, and they are preparing to launch its services across Asia and the U.S.

Nexo in their press release mentioned:

“When using the Nexo Card to purchase goods and services, you actually pay using your Nexo flexible open-ended revolving credit line that is backed with your crypto holdings and thus not selling any of them, which is giving you the freedom to spend today and sell your holdings whenever you want in the future to pay back the loan.”

Once a user takes a loan through the Nexo credit card, while returning the money, they would be charged with about 8-24% interest rate that would be based upon the rules and loan structure.

While repaying their loans, users would be given both options of the fiat and crypto. Using Nexo’s token would decrease the interest rate to a massive 8%.

One significant advantage is that minimum payments will be removed in case the price of Bitcoin rises. This means that users debts would decrease if the collateralized assets escalate respective to the market, which makes the credit line ‘dynamic.’

Nexo acts under the Know Your Customer (KYC) protocol and goes after the international sanctions. Moreover, the blockchain investigators are linked with the crypto firm to inspect any illegal activity through a process called ‘Chainalysis.’ This keeps a proper check and balance in the entire ecosystem.

The Nexo official added that in case if the cryptocurrencies collapse, users would either have to deposit more crypto, pay a part of their loan to reduce exposure, or sell a portion of their collateral to restore the loan-to-value ratio.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

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Ternio (Tern), Stellar (XLM)-based Token, issues the crypto debit card in the USA

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Ternio is one of crypto verse’s most ambitious and focused projects. The name itself means “a series of three” about the trinity typical of the digital advertising environment: user, publisher, and advertiser. The name is carefully chosen because the project seeks to disrupt the yearly USD 224 billion digital advertising market using blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

Digital advertising is as modern as it gets, but it’s a complex environment subject to challenges such as domain fraud, bot traffic, murkiness, and complicated payment models. Ternio thinks that the blockchain can make everything more straightforward, more transparent to all the parties involved in an advertising campaign. The project also includes a native asset which is verifiable and decentralized thus empowering advertisers to verify how their money is being used to advance their cause while also giving publishers the certainty of being paid as they deliver the product.

The Stellar Lumens-based project believes it’s better than other blockchain projects also geared towards the ad business because they’ve solved the blockchain scalability issue prevalent in the environment; it’s the first project to offer and guarantee Net0 payments for all parties involved; it includes many fraud prevention mechanisms; it’s been moving towards early adoption by advertisers since day one.

BlockCard

While advertising is the project’s bread and butter, it also includes a product called BlockCards, which is aimed towards facilitating cryptocurrency mainstream adoption. It’s a white-label product, so you’ll rarely see it branded by Ternio itself, but you could find it offered by other providers.

BlockCard is a debit card funded with cryptocurrencies (several are supported, but it’s powered by Stellar as noted already) capable of processing payments in real time. It has the edge over the competition because it doesn’t take the user’s crypto to exchange it for the local fiat currency and then complete the payment, but it uses the original digital asset until the point of sale.

The product already boasts an exciting degree of success. More than 5000 consumers all over are already onboard and ready to use it.

Being white-label, BlockCard enables any business to “issue” a crypto-based debit card without actually doing all the leg work needed to make it happen. They just hire the service, print their own logo and other materials on the card, and they’re good to go.

It’s already approved in the US; it’s a Visa CryptoCard.

BlockCards has been on the works for quite some time now, but today the first 100 actual cards are released into the market, thus marking a significant milestone for the project and for Ternio. This is the culmination of the company’s BlockCard beta release phase 1.

If you are interested in this card, you can direct your browser to https://getblockcard.com and register for free.

The launch of Stellar-based Ternio’s BlockCard plastics is only a first step. A BlockCard app is planned for the future (Apple and Android) that will let you use or track your digital assets in any way you wish. Combining the app with the physical card will empower you to use your digital wealth in previously unexpected ways.

Phase 2 is next, and that will see an unlimited number of cards hitting the market. One of them could be yours. Are you up to it (do your own research)?

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.

TRON Foundation discloses GRID, BTT and TRX crypto card, pre-order date

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TRON Foundation has finally released vital info about its newly-formed cryptocurrency card: GRID. TRON stated the pre-order details and the cost involved during the announcement.

The Sun-led Foundation has confirmed that the pre-order date for GRID or BitTorrent crypto-card will be on February 19, 2019.

Tron’s GRID Crypto-card

According to TRON, the GRID crypto-card will be a prepaid card that could be pre-loaded with TRX tokens in 3 different amounts: 15,000, 50,000, or 100,000. Additionally, BitTorrent tokens and monthly airdrops will be awarded to card owners in varying amounts.

It’s worth noting that if a card owner has 15,000 TRX per card, then he/she will be given 1,500 BTT token plus a monthly airdrop of 0.1 per TRX; for 50,000 TRX per card, 6,000 BTT token plus a monthly airdrop of 0.12 per TRX will be awarded; 100,000 TRX card, 13,000 BTT token plus a monthly airdrop of 0.13 per TRX will be given.

The GRID cryptocurrency card was specifically designed for a single-use, which implies that the card cannot be funded with TRX tokens after it has been purchased.

However, the amount of the monthly airdrops that will be awarded will solely depend on the amount of TRXs the owner spent and the BitTorrent token received without the card owner boosting the amount of the token.

Nevertheless, if the card owner decides not to spend any fund or hasn’t spent any money with their GRID card, that will not limit their entitlement to rewards; in fact, airdrops will continue to increase and be enjoyed as a cold storage wallet to invest as an alternative to spending the BitTorrent and TRX tokens.

Other Crypto-cards on TRON Network

At the moment, TRON has two crypto-cards – in which GRID is one of them. The other one is TronCard. The TronCard was the first crypto-card to be produced on Tron Network, and it was created to be a wallet to hold TRX and TRC10 tokens.

It is necessary to note that TronCard customers can access their passcode to integrate their physical card within a virtual wallet when they scan the QR code provided by TRON network.

TRC10 and TRX tokens are tokenized digital assets built on Tron Network; TronCard acts as a secured wallet to save these tokens.

The network behind TronCard was Poppy (a point scale system with integrated Tron Payment processing), and it has created an update for the Clover POS systems.

Nevertheless, GRID and TronCard can now be used in different places that make use of Clover POS systems, due to the update made by Poppy. Since these crypto-cards can only be used in places that make use of the Clover POS systems, they may seem limited, but it does create the platform for increased adoption of cryptocurrencies in the future.

A Great Step towards an Increased Adoption of Cryptocurrencies

The creation of the GRID cryptocurrency card has been seen as a good development in the crypto space, even though SEC might contemplate it on whether it is security or not.

In the meantime, TronCard and GRID can fire-up the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies to surge shortly.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.