BitPay Launches Bitcoin Debit Cards in All 50 U.S. States

Rage Comment : The New York Consensus 2016 Conference, hosted by CoinDesk, Digital Currency Group, the most active investor in the blockchain field, and Coin Center, a public policy research and support center in the blockchain field, is an industry-leading event. Many investors, financial institutions, scholars and policymakers attended the conference, which has a decisive role in the future development direction of the blockchain field. At the conference, Bitcoin payment service company BitPay released a new Bitcoin debit card in the technical demonstration session. The card issuer is Metropolitan Commercial Bank, which is issued in 50 states in the United States and supports Visa ports. The company's CEO Stephen Pair believes that although many people are not optimistic about the prospects of Bitcoin, increasing the channels for Bitcoin use will help improve the status of Bitcoin.

Translation: Annie_Xu

Bitcoin payment service BitPay has unveiled its new bitcoin debit card during a technical demonstration at the Consensus 2016 conference in New York.

The debit card is issued by Metropolitan Commercial Bank and is currently issued in all fifty states of the United States. Users can make payments on the Visa POS system and withdraw cash at Visa ATMs.

BitPay CEO Stephen Pair emphasized in his speech that the product can bring value to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

"We believe that if Bitcoin can be used in many channels, then Bitcoin will be more valuable."

During his presentation, Pair outlined BitPay’s existing B2B and consumer payment products, emphasizing that businesses are growing despite some saying bitcoin usage is declining.

Users can now pre-order a Bitcoin debit card for $9.95 and receive it in 7 to 10 business days. Users can then load funds to the debit card through a Bitcoin wallet or deposit money directly through the BitPay payroll API.

As for fees, a long-standing concern among bitcoin users, debit card fees are associated with certain actions taken by users, Pair said.

“There are fees for opening a card and using an ATM, but we have deliberately made Bitcoin loading a free service.”

BitPay’s speech was part of a broader bitcoin event at the Consensus conference that also featured major blockchain presentations from CME Group and Amazon Web Services. The news hints at broader institutional support for digital currencies amid hype about use cases for private and permissioned blockchains in general.