Bitcoin Debit Cards Suspended After Upstream Visa Rules Infraction (thenextweb.com)

At least four pre-paid debit cards that accept cryptocurrencies abruptly suspended service on Friday. An anonymous reader quotes TheNextWeb: Speaking to their customers on Twitter, the affected companies have said the move is the result of actions from their card issuer, [WaveCrest], who was acting on behalf of Visa Europe... A statement from Visa Europe obtained by The Daily Beast reporter Joseph Cox said the action was taken due to WaveCrest's "non-compliance" with VISA's membership regulations... In its statement, Visa makes clear that this isn't a crackdown on cryptocurrencies, but rather action against one company that broke its rules.
"All funds stored on cards are safe and will be returned to your Cryptopay accounts ASAP," one of the affected debit card companies assured users on Twitter, adding "Sorry for all the inconvenience caused..."

According to the article, "Some users on Twitter are reportedly stranded abroad without funds."

Comments

Re:Stranded?

[Daemonik]

Bullshit.

Who the hell travels exclusively backed by Bitcoin?

Dumbass techies. Probably dumbass techie Libertarians.

Without "funds"

[quonset]

Some users on Twitter are reportedly stranded abroad without funds."

If only there was some form of exchangeable item these people could use. Something accepted everywhere which could easily be carried on their person to pay for goods and services.

If only such an item existed. That would solve their problem of having no "funds".

Re: Without "funds"

[Anonymous Coward]

You are obviously not a very seasoned international traveller. Glad to see youth understand so little about the world that they assume their US credit card and cash must be accepted everywhere.

Get some sense.

Re: Without "funds"

[joe_frisch]

If you travel a lot, you lean to have several forms of funds. At least 2 credit cards. Some of the countries local cash. Some of a major currency (Euros, Dollars, maybe Yuan).

Its easy for any credit card to get canceled, always good to have multiples.

Re: Without "funds"

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Where can you not use US currency? I mean, you may get hosed on the exchange rate, and you may have to find the couple of people in town who can accept it, but given a good amount of US cash (robbery concerns aside), you should be fine anywhere I can think of.

Re: Without "funds"

[thegarbz]

My regular US visa has been suspended when travelling many times, us cash not accepted.

Sounds like an interesting US problem. I have travelled all over the world and never had a card cancelled. Likewise every place that accepts credit cards also has some form of currency exchange available.

Travelers checks? What is this, the 60s?

Re: Without "funds"

[jrumney]

AC probably means blocked not cancelled. Since the AC only has an old CDMA phone, when the bank calls to verify the transaction, it is out of range and they block the card for security. It's a problem that those of us living in the rest of the world that have been accustomed to relying on global standards and roaming agreements for our mobile phones since the 1990s aren't familiar with.

Re: Without "funds"

[SirSlud]

When you travel, just tell the cc company where you'll be and when. They put a note on your account, then they don't block you.

Re:Without "funds"

[luvirini]

Well, strange enough some travelers actually make sure they have more than one card from more than one company...

Well and having some Euros along as you suggest is a good thing too, but cumbersome to pay with as you need to first usually convert them to local currency whereas cards work directly.

Re: Without "funds"

[mjwx]

If you travel a lot, you lean to have several forms of funds. At least 2 credit cards. Some of the countries local cash. Some of a major currency (Euros, Dollars, maybe Yuan).

Its easy for any credit card to get canceled, always good to have multiples.

This. I only really use one card in day to day life (my main UK debit card) but when travelling I have 4 to choose from in case one gets locked. I usually have some GBP in my wallet anyway, but I would get some local currency as a backup rather than relying on Pounds, Euros or Dollars, swapping currencies is a right PITA in some countries and not something I'd like to do in an emergency..

What may shock some people is that I haven't used a credit card in almost 2 years. Since moving to the UK, there's been no need. I've usually pre-pay for rental cars, hotels are either pre-paid or paid on departure with cash or debit. The only reason I still have a credit card is purely for holding deposits and I don't see that role changing in any way in the future.

Re:Stranded?

[DontBeAMoran]

Everyone who travels inside the Internet Tubes(tm), you ignorant fool.

Unreal

[jwymanm]

It's unreal how much anti crypto talk there is here. This used to be a site for nerds and now it's just frigging negative crabby assholes. Bitpay in the USA was not hurt by this it was the VISA partner in Europe that wasn't following rules. If it were a crack down on blockchain it'd be everywhere and every partner of VISA dealing with it.

Re:Unreal

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a site for nerds. Nerds who have seen it all before.

Re:Unreal

[AmazingRuss]

I think it's just a bunch of people pointing out something stupid that's being done with crypto.

Re:Unreal

[quantaman]

It's unreal how much anti crypto talk there is here. This used to be a site for nerds and now it's just frigging negative crabby assholes. Bitpay in the USA was not hurt by this it was the VISA partner in Europe that wasn't following rules. If it were a crack down on blockchain it'd be everywhere and every partner of VISA dealing with it.

Ok, so baring some breakthrough in technology describe to me the state of cryptocurrencies in 20 years.

Because right now they won't be currencies, nothing I've seen suggests they can scale to the necessary number of transactions.

And they won't be gold either. Right now some unknown relative could die, will me a house, and if I found a pile of gold inside I could turn that into currency.

There's a lot of people who can't access their own cryptocurrencies from 5 years ago.

In 20 years I can see cryptocurrencies hanging around as a form of blackmarket currency, but without something gamechanging I can't see them being anything else.

Re:Unreal

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Us cantankerous ones were told we didn't grok it in 1999, too. Boy, we learned our lesson.

Re:Unreal

[Comrade Ogilvy]

In 20 years, there will be lots and lots of blockchain technologies used under the covers in ways most people will not notice, and only a few crypto currencies that anyone cares about, but the pure vaporous/fiat ones will not be considered important. Bitcoin specifically will be deader than dead, as in worth exactly zero, killed by later generation crypto currencies which were technically superior.

Re:Unreal

[inking]

God forbid people will say booboo things about a payment system that consumes as much energy as Denmark and is largely powered by Chinese coal power plants. Hate the planet much, bud?

Re:Unreal

[DanielRavenNest]

> Because right now they won't be currencies, nothing I've seen suggests they can scale to the necessary number of transactions.

The top 5 currencies are processing about 3 million transactions per day: https://bitinfocharts.com/comp...

That is about 2% of VISA's network average, and Bitcoin Cash alone can scale up to ~11 million per day.

Those 5 currencies have the equivalent value of South Korea's M1 money supply.

Re:Unreal

[quantaman]

> Because right now they won't be currencies, nothing I've seen suggests they can scale to the necessary number of transactions.

The top 5 currencies are processing about 3 million transactions per day: https://bitinfocharts.com/comp...

That is about 2% of VISA's network average, and Bitcoin Cash alone can scale up to ~11 million per day.

Those 5 currencies have the equivalent value of South Korea's M1 money supply.

So that's not as big a gap as I thought, but there's still the delay it takes for a transaction to go through, which in my understanding is restricted by the ability of the network to authenticate and agree on the transaction.

Is the assumption that retailers basically won't bother to wait and eat the fraud risk? Or that they'll still be using credit cards to do the transaction?

Stranded abroad without funds ?

[RedK]

Because they thought backpacking with only a sketchy non transaction oriented currency was a good idea.

Shows that crypto currencies aren't just being used by bright people.

Re:Lies

[cmseagle]

alternative payment systems that are superior to Visa in every way

Except for processing speed, cost, merchant adoption...

Doesn't the fact that Bitcoin holders want a Bitcoin Visa card indicate that there are at least some downsides of using Bitcoin as a day-to-day payment system?

Re:Stranded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbass techies. Probably dumbass techie Libertarians.

Nonsense. I am a DTL myself, and I never travel with only a single CC. The "reportedly stranded" factoid was fabricated to make TFA more interesting.

This is a good sign for Bitcoin

[greenwow]

First there is denial, then push back, then finally acceptance.

Re:This is a good sign for Bitcoin

[PPH]

It just seems so dumb when compared to, say, selling 20 bitcoins for US dollars, putting the money in a bank, and then getting a debit and/or credit card.

My reading of TFA leads me to believe that this is exactly what WaveCrest was doing. They were handling the Bitcoin to currency conversion and then loading the (Visa) debit cards with this currency.

I guess we will have to wait and see exactly which rule Visa claims WaveCrest violated.

Re:Lies

[Fly Swatter]

crypto and other alternative payment systems that are superior to Visa in every way

If they are superior to Visa, why do they need Visa?

Anyone know what the actual infraction was?

Re:If only bitcoin stayed to it's original purpose

[Fly Swatter]

It's a research project that got out of hand and took on a life of it's own. Sort of like google search.

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've been into the Bitcoin community since 2010, prove it by sending a whole block of 50 Bitcoins to 18awryFxpSG2C1PRHWCteoak94HfdFbnfD.

After all, 50 Bitcoins was nothing back then and you should have thousands of Bitcoins in your wallet. Fifty less Bitcoins won't make any difference.

It's a site for Nerds and...

[SuperKendall]

This used to be a site for nerds and now it's just frigging negative crabby assholes

It's still a site for nerds.

However it's also a site for people who like to get flogged by nerds. Some kind of sad-masochistic thing, I think... anyway those people come on, knowing their stupid ideas will get pounded by someone with a low-count UID and I think they look forward to it.

Just ignore them and read the nerd posts if they bother you. Would be nice if we could sandbox them a bit though.

Re:If only bitcoin stayed to it's original purpose

[DontBeAMoran]

Wait, are you saying Google Search was... a "re-search" project? Isn't that like, recursive or some shit? Why is there nobody afraid of the Singularity coming out of that?

And you know this,

[fredrated]

something nobody else knows, how?

No you're just wrong

[presidenteloco]

Cryptocurrency, and also smart contract technology, once both are evolved into something easier to use for end users, is going to take over a substantial chunk of world economic functioning.

Yes there's a hype bubble, but just like with AI, there is extremely disruptive and important substance too.
Don't let the presence of hype distract your from the fundamentals of the transformation that will take place.

Did you misplace your bitcoin?

Re:Lies

[gnasher719]

this is a crackdown on crypto and other alternative payment systems that are superior to Visa in every way

If they are so superior, why do people want a pre-paid Visa card?

Re:Stranded?

[Sarten-X]

That sounds about right...

I've known a good number of dumbass techie Libertarians myself, and even the guy who made a road trip with the explicit goal of spending only bitcoin still brought good old dollars with him, just in case.

Even us regular old dumbass techie non-Libertarians tend to travel with multiple forms of currency, to avoid problems

Re:Lies

[AmazingRuss]

... or it's the people trying to process the transactions for you getting tired of getting fucked by the wild fluctuations in exchange rate.

Re:Lies

[jrumney]

Anyone know what the actual infraction was?

Does Visa have a cap on transaction fees the card issuers are allowed to charge perhaps?

Re:Stranded?

[rtb61]

Travel with right credit card (just for that trip), that allows you to draw local currency from secured locations. Have enough in card for entire trip and use local currency for local spend, avoid using the card as much as possible (kill card after trip). When you leave your card details behind, your wallet effectively remain in that country and now you have difficulty challenging claims. Keep in simple. Holiday credit card with cash, withdraw cash to spend, holiday over, so is the card and that account. Seems the safest method.

Re:Lies

[mjwx]

alternative payment systems that are superior to Visa in every way

Except for processing speed, cost, merchant adoption...

Doesn't the fact that Bitcoin holders want a Bitcoin Visa card indicate that there are at least some downsides of using Bitcoin as a day-to-day payment system?

Accepting credit cards are not cheap... or particularly fast. Merchant adoption is the only real reason you've got there.

Serious about the not cheap bit, for many small businesses, they're paying more in merchant service fees than staffing costs (hell, I've seen a case study that Chevron's US retail arm is paying more in interchange fees than staffing costs).

This is why I'll never give up cash, its really is the cheapest, fastest and most accepted form of payment.