Coinbase Becomes a Visa Principal Member To Double Down On Debit Card

Coinbase has become the only cryptocurrency company with a Visa Principal Member certification. TechCrunch reports: Cryptocurrency company Coinbase has been working with Paysafe to issue the Coinbase Card, a Visa debit card that works with your Coinbase account balance. The company is now a Visa Principal Member, which should help Coinbase rely less on Paysafe and control a bigger chunk of the card payment stack.

The company will offer the Coinbase Card in more markets in the future. The new status could open up more possibilities and features as well. While Coinbase originally launched the Coinbase Card in the U.K., it is now available in 29 European countries. It works with any Visa-compatible payment terminal and ATM. Users can decide in the app which wallet they want to use for upcoming transactions. This way, you can spend money in 10 cryptocurrencies. There are some conversion fees just like on Coinbase. In addition to those fees, there can be some additional fees if you withdraw a lot of money or make a purchase abroad.

Gru Plan

[sexconker]

Create business around crypto currency that can't be influenced, manipulated, or leeched off of by the established financial clowns.
Grow business by gaining trust of users and becoming a middleman for exchanging crypto and fiat.
Get in bed with the established financial clowns, lose user trust, and watch business collapse.

Re:

[ElectronicSpider]

I can se an unintended, very positive, side effect out of doing this, in game currency can get fucked, microtransaction games will get the axe. The bad will be that I might lose my 120€ worth of eTulips.

Isn't this missing the point?

[smi.james.th]

I'm not sure that I completely understand the point of cryptocurrencies, but my understanding was that part of the purpose was to cut out middle-men like VISA. Doesn't this kind of defeat that purpose?

Re:

[Parker Lewis]

Miners are not the man in the middle, in this case? How if Visa wants to become one too?