BitCoin Card To Launch In 2 Months, Says BitInstant

hypnosec writes "Charlie Shrem, co-founder of BitInstant LLC, has confirmed that a BitCoin-funded international debit/credit card should be available very soon. Giving a time frame of 6-8 weeks, Shrem said over an IRC chat session that the card will function like any other credit or debit card, and that it can be used at places where MasterCard is being accepted. Shrem has also said that the initial 1000-odd cards will be given for free and subsequent cards will carry a charge of around $10. Any transaction that is carried out through the card [will incur a] 1% BitCoin transfer fee on top of the $1.50 ATM withdrawal fee."

Comments

Re:Dreading the Day

[LodCrappo]

if it happened no one would think of it that way, at least not any more than we currently think about driving cars around at some fraction of light years per second.

Re:Dreading the Day

[Gunfighter]

Us old folks still remember the day when the speed limit was 2.5989246 × 10^-15 light years per second on the highway. Nowadays, you see people zooming along at 3.78025396 × 10^-15 light years per second in the 3.07145635 × 10^-15 light years per second zone. It's MADNESS!

Where's my cane?

Re:limits and fraud

[IamTheRealMike]

You have failed the understand the problem here.

The fraud problem is not with Bitcoin. Bitcoins security model is very simple and easy to understand - you have private keys, protect them. If they're stolen, so is your money. There are no chargebacks. How secure you make those keys is entirely up to you. I have most of my money stored in an offline wallet encrypted under a very long passphrase, which is very secure but somewhat inconvenient. Then I have a smaller amount of money stored on my phone which doesn't require any passwords to use and I just accept that if my phone is stolen or lost somehow then I lose that money, but it's very convenient.

The fraud problem comes from the world of credit cards and traditional banking which are hopelessly insecure. Rather than give people the tools they need to secure their money, the managers of these systems simply shift the pain onto merchants who can do nothing about it beyond try and protect themselves with strict transaction limits, complicated risk analyses and just accepting that they'll lose some of the time.

There are also other reasons which you conveniently elided, such as government regulations that forbid / complicate large transactions.

Re:Hookers, drug dealers and Russian Mafia rejoice

[ultranova]

Finally you can trade your services to each other directly in meatspace with the simple swipe of a card.

Please don't bundle the hookers with the rest of those, for they are service workers who involve nobody but themselves and their willing customers in their transactions. Also, please don't bundle the drug dealers, who are mere black market resellers, with extortionists and assassins.

Hookers are completely legit service providers, whether they happen to offend your personal morality or not. Drug dealers may or may not be legit, depending on their business practices. The Mafia, Russian or otherwise, is just a bunch of parasites which often preys on the first two groups. There's no other connection here.