As Bitcoin acceptance and user base grows, due to recent price spikes and its adoption as an official currency by many countries, users around the world have started looking for the best ways of spending it. The corresponding growing ubiquity of shops that accept Bitcoin makes it easy to send it directly from one’s wallet to the cashier or recipient.
However, the transaction fees when it comes to micropayment are still a major obstacle to paying with Bitcoin everywhere. As a result, one way of ‘taking your coins with you everywhere’ becomes a Bitcoin debit card. Nevertheless, not all bitcoin cards are created equal and we believe it is important to highlight the key differences between various Bitcoin debit cards to everyone who is considering to get one or is currently using one.
In a nutshell, it is a card that can be loaded with Bitcoin or any other crypto currency and used anywhere. Similar to your bank card that is denominated in a single currency, once you load it with money, Bitcoin cards also come in different local currencies. The most common ones are Euro, USD, and GBP. Once topped up you can spend your coins anywhere you go, whether online or offline. You can use your card to pay for coffee at your local store, book flights online or cash out at any ATM when you’re traveling.
With the exception of the margin (the difference between the relevant provider’s Bitcoin to Euro rate and that of Bitstamp), all of the criteria used in the table below were shown on the respective provider’s website on July 19th, 2017. We have included the time in which the information was shown. To see how high the exchange rate is we need to compare the price which Bitcoin is bought for.
In our test, we compared the prices between the relevant providers and Bitstamp, an online Bitcoin and Altcoin exchange, to show how big the spread really is. Our comparison is only a snapshot of the exchange rates and therefore we can only show what the margins were at that time. We are not claiming that they are always the same and invite you to make your own comparison.
