I listened to the Chain Chatter recording with one of the prominent figures of the Thorchain ecosystem.
I admit I didn't understand everything Khal and "JP Thor" talked about, not paying full attention to all the novelties coming to Thorchain in real-time, as Khal does, understandably, since he is deeply invested over there.
JP Thor said a couple of interesting things, and I appreciate their focus on decentralization, where they meet well with Hive, and the fact that Thorchain offers blockchain-agnostic services using native coins and tokens. And when we say Thorchain, you can think of the Maya Protocol where LEO is listed as the younger and more playful brother of Thorchain.
I got very curious toward the end of the meeting when JP Thor talked about the ThorWallet interface, which included the possibility of on/off ramps.
So, after the recording was over, I looked it up, to see what this was all about.
Well... I guess I was expecting wonders... But we are still way too soon to expect a global solution that doesn't go through the infrastructure of the current card issuer behemoths or the banking system.
There are some good points too:
- you can get a free Swiss bank account "
- you can get a free VISA card, linked to crypto and the Thorchain ecosystem "
(") if you are from one of the supported countries. See FAQ.
Now, Swiss bank accounts aren't as private as they used to be - and it wouldn't matter anyway since you'd use the VISA network - but it still has a certain "global censorship resistance" sound to it, even though stained by tenebrous stories of massive wealth being "lost" in that system post world wars.
Back to ThorWalet's VISA cards... As we have seen other projects that offer VISA cards, they are tiered-based, and tiers are set based on the stake of TGT held.
The Standard tier offers:
- Free Bank Account (CHF, EUR, USD)
- Free EUR Visa Debit Card
- No Reward Multiplier
- 1 % Crypto Topup & FX fee
and has no stake requirement.
The offer talks about a reward multiplier, but I haven't found other mentions regarding what the reward is. Is it cashback or something else? And "no reward multiplier" means "no rewards"? If we look at the "Community" tier and see a 1x multiplier, I am inclined to think "no multiplier" means "no rewards". That makes sense since there is no staking requirement.
Other than the reward multiplier, nothing is different between the tiers, higher tiers also pay the same 1% Crypto Topup fee and FX fee.
At this point, I wonder why would anyone want to be in a higher tier than Standard.
The base currency of the card is EUR and can be topped up with Arbitrum USDC or directly debit to the Euro bank account.
If you already have another crypto-linked VISA card, why would you be interested in this one? And why not?
Pros:
- from my understanding from the scratchy information I've read so far, this comes with an individual (Swiss) bank account, not a segregated one for multiple clients, controlled by the 3rd party company (like in the case of Crypto.com card, for example)
- may be preferable if you need a EUR-based card
- the ThorWallet VISA cards are linked to the Thorchain ecosystem, so by using it instead of another crypto-linked VISA card you have, you may shorten the number of transactions and amount of fees needed to pay to off-ramp in some cases
- no need for a CEX middleman; Crypto.com has pretty high fees from what I remember, so I expect the swap fees on ThorWallet would be more competitive
Cons:
- 1% fee to top up the account with crypto; this fee can be avoided if you wire fiat to the bank account directly
- staking requirements if you want to access higher tiers (I don't see a reason to, without further explanations)
- like all fiat operations, these go through regulated operators you may know little about; in this case, they are called "Fiat24"; you would become their customer, and go through KYC, with the whole package that implies
- hidden things?
They seem at the beginning of the road with ThorWallet, so frankly, I wouldn't be in a hurry to get this card. Maybe later...
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
I think this is huge. One of the problems I see with businesses offering crypto payments is the difficulty of converting their earnings to fiat so they can replenish their stock. This solves that problem. If they can buy the goods or produce with this, then the cycle is complete. I don't like how we need to go through Visa for it though. It would be nice if V4V and VSC can make something similar with HBD.
If they could, right now it would also be through a 3rd party regulated partner that works with the bank and VISA. Basically, nothing beats VISA when it comes to its network accepted by merchants right now.
But that time will come, and soon. Because once we can pay with our phones, the network automatically becomes much larger than VISA. It's just a matter of making the step and becoming accepted by merchants. It doesn't even matter what crypto will be accepted for payment.
That is true. I guess for it to happen now, a big bank or credit card company needs to accept stablecoins.
I think they are afraid to be put down by the government, otherwise they would have made this move.
Technically, it's simple. They put out an app or add the option to accept stablecoins in the banking app they already have.
The problem for them begins next. What do they do with the stablecoins? I don't think they can hold stablecoins, according to the banking laws, and they need to comply with regulations. Once these things become clearer, we will probably see a proliferation of the stablecoin payments with mobiles.
That makes a lot more sense now. Thanks.
It felt like extra utility for those who are already willing to stake for that upto 5.23% APR. TGT is very cheap at the moment ($0.02617). The extra rewards could be worth staking $915 if you are a large spender. Large spenders on the other hand are already receiving large rewards from TradFi credit cards. Overall, THORWallet has a lot to improve here.
In the end the best case scenario is seeing better acceptance for P2P cryptocurrency payments. In some ways our products are far superior to TradFi offerings in cost, speed, UI and ability to control your own funds and have some level of privacy. The biggest missing piece at the moment is the lack of acceptance.
Where did you find the info on APR? Yes, I noticed the price of TGT is low, the problem with that is that every such platform has a token, and if you want a higher tier on multiple platforms, you need to buy their platform token on each such platform, which in many cases can be considered a shitcoin...
Visit https://www.thorwallet.org and search for APR.
I have seen this strategy fail again and again due to lack of a wide range of utility. CRO has been one of the rare exceptions.
I have a feeling it's been allowed to grow its network and maybe protected by some forces we can't see.
I'm not going to be eligible because of where I live. It's still required KYC which is always something I hate, but when dealing with banks it's probably unavoidable. I love this list of ineligible countries.
I won't be signing up anytime soon either...
What do you love about the list? That the USA is listed next to some of the countries they are not friends with? 😀 It seems to be by choice.
I don't like this offer, a swiss account must be kyc and then you might have problems with state taxes, you need to declare it and tell how much money you have...also bank can do what it wants
I remember KYCing on crypto.com. I don't remember if there was any way to not KYC there if you wanted the Visa card, so it's probably not only the bank account, it's Visa too.
Is Thorchain ever related to Leo in anyway or what?
Not directly... yet. LEO is listed on the Maya Protocol which is a "friendly fork" of Thorchain. Basically, they are related. From what Khal says, Maya will be an aggregator for Thorchain, meaning there will be a direct connection between the Thorchain ecosystem and Maya, which would expose LEO to assets on Thorchain.
Yes, I think this is like the MVP right now. Over time, the process will be refined and product becomes better. Given the pros, it's probably a great option for those who value decentralization, individuality or autonomy.
Good points. I would still wait for the project to mature a bit and hit various obstacles before deciding whether I want this card or not.
Having a VISA card linked to crypto sounds good
Yes, but the card will still be fiat-based. You just load it (top up) with crypto, which is converted to fiat.
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I don't think I would want to get one of those cards right away anyways. It would always make me wonder just how they convert tokens and how bad things can get if you aren't paying attention. It is a good option though but I don't know if I like all the KYC there.
Yeah, I don't like KYC anywhere. But I don't think there's any workaround for now where the banking system is involved.
On the crypto.com card, I don't keep more than I need. But I never had any issues topping it up with crypto. I can't be sure about this one from ThorWallet, since I haven't used it.
Yeah, I'll probably pass for now, too. But in a few years, my crypto.com card expires. To issue another one, it's 50 USD or EUR. Or it was. It's good to have options.
Hello, @gadrian. This is interesting about Thorchain. It's awesome they are connected with the Swiss bank. Swiss bank accounts sound impressive to me because I have heard about them for many years. To me it was popular and still might be popular. I don't know for sure. The Visa cards look nice and attractive. I wish I had some Thorchain now. Thanks for the post! Barb !BBH !CTP #ctp
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