This morning I was asked in discord if I could look into Tap Crypto Debit cards and do a review of sorts. This is not surprising after yesterdays announcement by Binance that their debit card will be no longer valid to use after the 20th December. I have never heard of Tap before and was definitely worthwhile researching when you read what they offer below.
The first item to check was who was the 3rd party behind Tap issuing the debit card itself. Up till now we have seen the 3rd parties cancel the service provider agreements they have had in place with their clients like Binance and COTI. Transaction Payments (TPML) is the 3rd party card service provider who are based in Malta and as we know is a pro crypto country. The fact that they are based in Malta gives me more confidence over the other service providers.
Tap is based out of Gibraltar and has been around since 29th October 2020 so nearly 3 years already. You will see there are many positives to having this card which I will get too shortly.
The good news if you reside in any of the countries listed then you can apply for a debit card or download the app to your phone. The only downside is you cannot draw money from an ATM with your phone and will need the physical card. The fee for ordering a debit card is 4.99 Euros. There are no fees for using the card except for deposits which carry 1.5% for the basic standard card. There are no service fees for spending, withdrawals or deposits which is a big win.
There are 3 different cards available and the easiest way is to show the picture above which is self explanatory. The Standard card has limitations, but being free is still decent. The Black and Titanium cards allow you to deposit and withdrawal more along with spending power but you need to deposit XTP with is the tap crypto token.
The good news is the price of the XTP token is cheap now being $0.00598952 each with an all time high of $0.40c (March 1st 2021). The Black card requires 250K XTP costing $1475 and Titanium costing $2950. Cheap really considering at the ATH the Titanium would set you back $200K. Who knows this could be an investment that really pays off but even for allowing the extra benefits like extra cash withdrawal limits and spending it is definitely worthwhile. Having the ability to withdraw €4000 monthly compared to €500 from an ATM is such a big difference. I think it is a small enough investment that opens up what a proper debit card should be and why over the next few months will accumulate XTP. Having financial freedom without being dictated to is a price worth paying.
XTP can be purchased from Bittrex and Probit and I suppose you stake the XTP on the app itself. Another great feature is you can freeze the card directly by using the app in case of it being lost/stolen or for extra security keeping the funds safe.
As Crypto debit cards go I don't see any problems and is far better than all the others I have researched in the past. Crypto.com comes nowhere near what this offers and all the others had fairly high service fees which this has none.
