Coinspot digital debit card: Ever dreamed of paying for Uber Eats with Bitcoin? How about rolling into your local BWS to buy a case with your hard-earned Dogecoin? Well, now there’s a new way to do it.
CoinSpot, one of Australia’s largest crypto exchanges, has launched today a crypto debit card allowing its users to pay for goods and services in crypto.
CoinSpot Card: a new crypto payment method
The card will allow CoinSpot customers to directly spend their crypto balances without having to deal with the hassle of manually converting crypto to fiat.
While the card doesn’t cost anything to set up, every purchase made through the card will incur a 1% conversion fee.
It’s worth noting that CoinSpot’s card is digital only, with the exchange explaining that they didn’t want to introduce more plastic cards into circulation as the reason behind the move.
When customers make a purchase the crypto linked to the card is converted into Australian dollars for a conversion 1% fee. This is then used to complete the transaction.
Cardholders can only ever assign one cryptocurrency to their card at a time, however they can choose to change up the connected asset at any time. Users will also be able to access a number of in-app security options, such as “freezing” the card as well as setting up spending limits and turning the card ‘on’ and ‘off’.
No rewards but a pretty wide selection
While the CoinSpot card doesn’t offer rewards or buybacks like some of its competitors’ do, the card will allow users to spend the exchange’s 370+ available crypto holdings at participating Apple Pay and Google Pay retailers, which features big names like Bunnings, McDonalds, Coles and BWS.
“The launch of the CoinSpot Mastercard effectively makes this the easiest and most secure way to spend your cryptocurrency in Australia and around the world,” said CoinSpot’s Chief Product Officer Gary Howells in a statement.
CoinSpot’s new card is powered by payments services provider EML Payments (ASX: EML).
The launch of the card comes at a good time for crypto adoption in Australia, with a new report showing that roughly one million Aussies — 26% of the entire population — are on track to invest in digital assets over the next year.
Speaking to the high rates of Australian crypto adoption was EML Payments Australia CEO, Rachelle St. Ledger said:
“Australia has one of the world’s highest cryptocurrency adoption rates, with 23% of all Australians owning one or more digital assets.”
While using crypto for payments still isn’t exactly mainstream in Australia, there’s a pretty significant increase in the number of Aussies merchants accepting crypto as a viable form of currency.
Earlier this year, convenience store chain On The Run (OTR) began accepting Crypto.com payment capabilities across its 170 stores in South Australia and Victoria, allowing customers to purchase servo classics like petrol, sausage rolls and iced coffees with more than 30 different cryptocurrencies.
Outside of the payments space, competition across the Australian crypto landscape is heating up, with the publicly listed US-based exchange Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) launching its expansion into the land Down Under earlier this month.
