Bitcoin Gets a Boost as United States can now spend Bitcoin everywhere Visa is

Bitcoin a digital global currency keeps getting more voice and audience as NEW YORK —Visa may be everywhere you want to be, as the credit card company’s old slogan declares. But a new Visa debit card that lets owners spend bitcoin on everyday goods is only available to people in about half the United States.

We just discovered, San Francisco-based Coinbase debuted the Shift Card to let their customers in twenty-four states spend bitcoin at 38 million global merchants.

“Merchant adoption has come a long way over the past few years, but it’s still difficult for people to make regular purchases with bitcoin,” the company said in the post. “With the Shift Card, you can now spend bitcoin anywhere in the world that VISA is accepted.”


But only people living those states, including New Jersey, Texas, and Washington will have that ability. 1,000 California residents will also be given beta access to the bitcoin debit card. A representative of Coinbase told New York Business Journal that Shift and Coinbase "are working through legal and regulatory matters in other jurisdictions."

The card costs $10 to Coinbase members and includes no annual fees or charges for domestic transactions. An ATM withdrawal in the United States costs $2.50 and outside the U.S. costs $3.50. There is a three percent charge to international transactions, which is actually higher than what American Express, Visa, and Mastercard charges, according to CreditCards.com. The fees are the same as are charged by Shift for a similar integration announced earlier this year using an open API from Iowa-based Dwolla.

According to a Wired report only 20 percent of the global bitcoin transactions are on actual goods or services, with the other 80 percent conducted by speculators. Since Coinbase makes its money by charging a 1 percent fee to convert fiat currency—including U.S. dollar, British Pound and Euro—into bitcoin it stands to increase revenue from those transfer fees by making it easier for people to spend the cryptocurrency.
While Coinbase is the first company to attempt such a service in the United States, it is not the first bitcoin debit card. That title belongs to Palo Alto, Calif.-based Xapo which luanched its debit card in August 2014 for use outside the United States.


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