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European cryptocurrency card holders are awakening to discover that their plastic is now worthless. A Visa-led crackdown has seen several crypto card issuers forced to call an end to their services across Europe. Visa subsidiary Wavecrest is being blamed for the withdrawal of service, which affects scores of crypto card issuers including Bitwala, Tenx, Bitpay, and Xapo.
Visa Issues a Veto
Seemingly overnight, Visa, acting via Wavecrest, has put an end to cryptocurrency cards. The prepaid cards, which have become extremely popular in the crypto community, provide a means of indirectly paying for goods and services using cryptocurrency. The cards are a means of bridging the gap between the fiat and crypto worlds, preventing hodlers from needing to cash out to spend their digital assets.
As a result of the surprise crackdown, companies such as Cryptopay, Bitwala, and Bitpay have been left with no choice but to end their European services and return funds to users. Upon news of the clampdown emerging, the price of the PAY token linked to the Tenx card dropped by 15%. With the Tenx wallet on Bittrex still offline, seemingly as a result of the Spectre bug being patched, many token-holders have been unable to transfer PAY from their mobile wallets to their normal exchange. The Tenx PAY token was trading at $5 hours ago, but is now sitting at around $4.30.
Cryptopay tweeted: “Unfortunately, our card issuer instructed us to cease all Cryptopay prepaid cards starting January 5th, 2018. All funds stored on cards are safe and will be returned to your Cryptopay accounts ASAP. Sorry for all the inconvenience caused, we’re working on the solution!”
Other crypto card companies have yet to pass comment, but it appears that the vast majority of European cryptocurrency cards are reliant on the Gibraltar-based Wavepay including Uquid, Coinsbank, Spectrocoin, Advcash, and Wirex.
Cryptos is under pressure of governments, sad fact! The most weak point is a fiat-crypto exchange, so not a surprise for me
Sad news and should get worst :/
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