Could buying a meal with Bitcoins be as simple as swiping a card?

in #cryptocurrency7 years ago

That is the goal of a startup in Singapore.

TenX is a startup in Singapore that is pitching it's debit card as way of transacting and instantly converting digital currencies into fiat. 

As of right now the company can convert from virtual currencies into dollars, yen, and euros. 

Currently it is able to convert 8 digital currencies, but there are plans to include many more.

How does it work?

The company has built an app that serves as a digital wallet which is then connected to their Visa debit card. The card can then be swiped at a restaurant or any local merchant. Once swiped, the merchant is paid in the local currency while the users account gets debited. 

The company said that it takes a 2% fee from each transaction. 

Currently they have received orders for more than 10,000 cards from would be users. The transaction amount per year is capped at only $2000 USD, unless certain verification procedures are met.

Which is a good thing as something like this could be a haven for money laundering. 

However, once verification procedures are met, the limit is increased multiples of that. 

This is yuge!

This could be exactly the kind of thing that virtual currencies need to spring board them into the next phase of adoption.

Mati Greenspan, an Isreali-based analyst, agrees:

"It's an incredible concept." 
"At the end of the day it's going to depend a lot on customer relations. Are they meeting the customers expectations or can somebody else do it better?"

There you have it, if customers want it and start to indicate that there is a demand for it, either TenX or someone else is going to figure out how to best get it done. 

TenX currently does about $99,000 USD worth of transactions per month. The goal at the end of 2018 is to do about $99 million USD in monthly transaction and have over 1 million users.

Is this the future?

So far TenX is the first mover, but you can be sure that many more are soon to join the space, especially if any kind of demand is shown for the service.

Major financial institutions with deep pockets and very good connections are sure to be hot on their heels if this thing takes off.

Either way, this can only be good news for Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto space. User adoption is really the missing ingredient to fully take these things main stream. 

Stay informed my friends! 

Sources:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bitcoin-cryptocurrencies-visa-cards-work-in-real-world-payment-digital-tenx-a7857021.html

Image Sources:

https://www.ethnews.com/card-innovation-to-let-users-spend-ether-as-cash-at-outlets

https://twitter.com/tenxwallet

https://cryptojl.wordpress.com/2017/06/25/tenx-ico-sold-out-in-8-minutes/

Follow me: @jrcornel

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Amazing post! I think one day very soon we will see something like this be main streemed. I think in the near future as well!

BitPay Competitor (2% fee instead of 3%)... someday it will be 0%, just wait for it... its a matter of time! Competition is amazing on the open source world.

I wish I sold a cheese pizza 7 years ago for 10k bitcoin.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.0

This is the logical next step

everyone already has a card

and just having another one pretty much solves all issues people have with cryptos

ive tried paying before with bitcoin in a store, it was basically both me and the owner fumbling with our phones getting QR codes to load as we held them near each other so they could scan the image, and then wait 45 awkward seconds for confirmation

cards that can be swiped would solve all these issues

Agreed. It is somewhat a combination of the old financial world and the coming one. :)

Many of this debt cards are popping up, and will make spending coins cheap and easy. Soon even the avg joe will be using bitcoin!

Oh damn! This is the beginning of cryptos pushing over fiat currencies

Yup! man this is going to be normal in future day good post keep sharing man :)

Nice now I have another option in cards! Tell me something how to do write so well, what is the secret because im trying to come up myself ya know and I seem to have hit a road block! heee kidding great information as usual full upvote and a RS.

Looks interesting

Do you know how this card stacks up to similar ones like Monaco and Wirex?

A project called Shift has already taken a stab at this idea and is very successful. Shift has been proven to be a very dependable tool to use to buy goods in fiat currencies by instantly converting Bitcoin. Shift connects with a Coinbase wallet and costs $10 USD up front for the card with no transaction fees. The only thing that needs to be improved upon is the lack of an EMV chip. Its exciting to see more projects to be created to give consumers more options!

I saw this on Bloomberg TV couple of days ago!

Hello, I Just followed and upvoted your post. I will continue to upvote your posts if you can please show me some love in return. Thanks so much!

i think this would be a big step...

Thanks for sharing such a great news! This is what advanced technology really means.

Fees are not too high so Would be nice to try it :)

Soon the Crypto currency will really push out the dollars.

I think this is a great initiative. Another proof, crypto currencies are going to stay. Upvoted and resteemed!

Nice post. I have read and seen quite a bit of TenX, but one of the things unclear to me is how they currently liquidate your Bitcoin amount when you need to pay in USD. So if something costs 2.80 USD at the moment, how will your corresponding .001 XBT you have in position be converted in USD? Via an exchange or some kind of internal liquidity? Anyone know?

That's actually a really good question. Kinda like the superman movie, they could be moving that smaller number over and keeping it when it ads up as a fee.

@jrcornel - I definitely believe that this is the future. At the moment, except for the very initiated ones (in crypto currency), though the appeal of crypto persists with many more, the operation of converting bitcoin to FIAT currency for spending is very cumbersome. Something like TenX would take out that stigma of the bitcoin usage in my opinion. Thank you for this wonderful headsup. Hope I get it soon in my location. Upvoted.

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great article, definitely another step to the mainstream adoption ;)
enjoy your evening! :)

Personally, I think it won't be in card form. We're going to have some sort of device (not a phone) that will be able to perform these transactions.

I think that is very innovative way of spending cryptos direct from your wallet. I see payza have started such a card too. U can deposit a multitude of cryptos and spend it in fiat. So cool. Thank you for sharing

This is great news! I was always wondering how would you integrate bitcoin to be something easily usable. This could really if not be it at least shape the future of how bitcoin can be used for everyday payments

First of all thank you for the post. The idea of having access to your cryptocurrencies anytime is amazing, but it won't motivate businesses to upgrade and start accepting digital currency.

Can you buy a virtual meal with virtual currency?

This will help me a lot as I'm still not sure how bitcoin actually works.

hell yeah it is!

Great Post thank you so much

Very interesting! I would imagine that accepting all sorts of digital currencies, esp. BTC, ETH , LTC and Steem will be par for the course in the years ahead. We've only just begun on how crypto coins will revolutionize the world's economy!

Only .9 better than PayPal or Stripe. I'll come back when it's matching Bitpays 1%

hey, nice post @jrcornel, tremendous information, greetings

I use my Shift card all the time (Coinbase affiliate). I don't get charged fees for regular POS transactions and ATM withdrawls are about normal ($5.50 per withdrawl from the bank and Shift total). Not bad, this isn't new...I've been doing it for about a year now. I find it's a good way to cash out after a new ATH is reached. Peace. Follow, Upvote...Steemit!

Isn't this what Shift card does with coinbase?

A few more years bitcoin will be able to easily perform transactions like a debit card, including in the shopping center. haha:D

anyway anyone get their TenX card ready ? some said that the card is too thin .... anyone can conform it ... Thank

It definitely would benefit the crypto world. 👍🏼

So does that mean that after $100k spent per year, the transaction fees are basically free?

The problem i have with these is that there are huge cost that are happening :

  1. There is the 2% fee. That is huge if on all your daily spend you waste 2%
  2. The conversions of the currency is usually at a pretty hefty price. Anytime I have looked at these services it is between 5-10%

So while this sounds really cool in practice i rather use my existing CC that actually pays me 1-2%

Exactly. These are still a ways off from being able to compete with the existing methods. Speaking of which, those rewards cards sure are great aren't they?! :)

Good article.. been looking at TenX and looks like a solid endeavor. Time will tell how it all shakes out, but might be worth getting a bit and seeing where it goes.

TenX is great! I can see it doing a lot to help generate mass adoption in crypto. A couple others that are playing their role as well are OMG and EVEREX. Don't forget to look into both of these companies, there is still time to invest in the EVEREX.io token sale as well. Thanks for the interesting article!

Great post! This looks similar like uquid, only a bit cheaper. https://uquid.com
I never tried it, so don't know how well it works.

It is a great idea in my opinion that the wallet makes it easier to get access to your money. I have red others expirence in using this card to purchase some thing and I am sure the developers are reading other people opinion and will take it on board going forward, so any promblem will be solved