Most people who are familiar with cryptocurrency are well acquainted with using brokerages and exchanges to buy and sell their cryptos. Exchanging your coins back to fiat often takes time, with bank transfers from reputable brokerages like Coinmama or Coinbase taking up to 7 business days at a time. But what if you want an easy, instant, and accessible method for the spending of bitcoins? Well, prepaid bitcoin cards might be your answer.
Bitcoin prepaid cards allow users to make purchases for goods and services at regular vendors who accept regular debit or credit cards such as VISA, MasterCard, or AMEX. This overcomes the issue of not being able to spend your cryptocurrency at shops who don’t currently accept non-fiat currencies. But how does this work? Effectively, the bitcoins stored on a prepaid card are exchanged into standard fiat currency (e.g. USD, EUR, GBP) either at the point of loading (the moment bitcoins are stored or loaded onto the card), or at the point of sale (right when a payment transaction is being made), depending on the card provider.
Now, you can finally spend your bitcoins during your next grocery haul, shopping spree, or holiday abroad! However, before you look into getting such a card, I’d encourage you to take a look at CryptoSuper.market’s article on prepaid bitcoin cards, which provides a simple, informative, yet thorough breakdown of how to use these cards, their advantages, disadvantages, and a comparison of the top prepaid bitcoin card providers within the UK. Also, if you’re a UK-based user and you’re wondering about how the VISA shutdown of WaveCrest holdings earlier this year affects card providers, don’t worry, they know what’s up.
Another thing to be thinking about as someone who might be looking into a prepaid bitcoin card is whether or not you simply stick with a virtual card. If you’re only interested in making online purchases with your bitcoins, a virtual card will do the trick, whereas a physical card allows you the added functionality of being able to spend your bitcoins at your local store, just like a normal credit or debit card would.
The only type of payment you wouldn’t be able to make is a rolling one, such as telecom month-to-month contracts. If you’re frowning at this, you might want to have a look at the option of grabbing a crypto debit card, which would allow for the creation of such payments. Happy shopping!