More than one year ago I was publishing a bilingual (FR | EN) report on my new Crypto.com "Ruby" VISA card.
I've used the Crypto.com VISA card quite extensively since then, despite a continuous worsening of the "perks". Indeed the "cashback" on the Spotify subscription (for my daughter) stopped after six months (it was supposed to last for as long as I held the card when I first ordered it).
But frankly, I don't blame them: pulling out a well-balanced tokenomics system is far from easy: they were simply printing too much CRO and, in a crypto winter, this was weighing down heavily on CRO's price. It went from around 0.11 cents to around 0.05 cents during this interval. The cashback in CRO is nice but if the CRO price craters, it doesn't feel nearly as good. I'd rather get less CRO in cashback and see its price soar.
Anyway, I kept accumulating and bought a little CRO here and there. With crypto spring approaching, the price of CRO picked up again, and I managed to reach the next threshold, the equivalent of $3500 in CRO. At which point I asked to upgrade to the next tier, the "Jade" card.
Here it is, in all its beauty. Frankly, the main driver for me was not as much the cashback (although getting CRO back feels nice and playful, and I like games), but the actual physical card.
The card is made of metal: thick, rigid, heavy, rough. It's distinctive, it has a good feel about it. I identify it easily in a stack of cards when diving in a pocket with several cards, I love to handle it. Call me frivolous if you will.
But of course the sine qua non was that the card actually works. I can send euros instantly from both my Luxembourg banks to a virtual bank account with a Maltese payment operator (it used to be a Lituanian provider one year ago, but the change was inconsequential). The virtual account is in my name (not comingled like for the Binance card). From my Crypto.com fiat account I can charge my card and use it.
The card can be used in ATMs, in POS with the chip or via NFC, and it can be added to Google Wallet (at the very least; I don't have an iPhone). It is accepted in my experience almost everywhere. I do keep a second credit card in my pocket for the 2 -3 % of cases (outside of Luxembourg) where the Crypto.com card was not accepted.
I had the Binance card as well. They are discontinuing it at the end of December I heard. Their card was a cheap, thin plastic. The perks were better but there was so much I didn't like about that Binance card. I almost didn't use it.
One other thing that drew me to the Crypto.com card was that the Crypto.com exchange has listed SPS, the governance token of the Splinterlands.com "play to earn" (P2E) game (a BSC BRC-20 token). I have investments that produce SPS at regular intervals - I can send them to the Crypto.com account, sell for euros and then spend on groceries. "Living the crypto life" as they say.
Anyway, as Kris Marszalek writes, this product works for me, so I'm telling around. The more people adopt crypto, the better for all of us.