One of the most annoying events in the short history of the crypto world happened at the beginning of this year and is now known as VISAGATE.
On January 5th 2018, VISA abruptly canceled WaveCrest Holdings debit cards license, which left dozens of thousands of card holders with their funds frozen. Eventually, the situation was solved, everybody got their money back, but the consequences were long lasting. WaveCrest holdings was used by a lot of crypto-powered debit cards companies, among them: Bitwala, Spectrocoin and Wirex.
It's been a little over 10 months since this event and I thought it would be a good time to make a short recap and see where are those companies now.
Spectrocoin: The First Is Now The Last
Although Spectrocoin was one of the first crypto-powered debit cards out there, and their user base is huge (more than 800, 000 users, according to their own statements) they're not in a very good shape, lately. The team behind Spectrocoin started Bankera, as a spin-off, which was supposed to be a crypto-bank. VISAGATE caught them in he middle of their ICO - which reached more than $120 million, by the way - and their PR was the best. They handled communication very professionally, even showing a picture with a few plastic bags filled with the new cards, "which are already in testing".
10 months after, the cards seem to be still in testing. Bankera failed almost every milestone until now, and there isn't yet any usable crypto-powered payment instrument under the Spectrocoin / Bankera group. The main reason behind this unfortunate situation seems to be some legal issues: Spectrocin recently took a fine of almost 1 million EUR from Lithuania Central Bank for not complying with regulations. Hard to tell which are those regulations, in such a fresh market, but then again, central banks are still the game makers, these days.
If Bankera will eventually launch their own exchange, as planned, by the end of the year, things may recover drastically, in the good direction. But it remains to be seen if the company will get back on its feet after such a consistent penalty.
So, Spectrocoin is at the bottom of the food chain, after being the first to shape the market.
Wirex: From Foggy To Leader
The big winner seems to be Wirex. Last year, Wirex was in a really bad shape: their app was hardly working, their fees were ridiculously high (they're still relatively high today, by the way) and their customer support was almost inexistent. I don't know what changed, but now Wirex not only has working crpto-powered debit cards for EUS, GBP and EUR, but seems to be on a roll lately with new developments.
With a Wirex card you get an associated IBAN account, which you can top with fiat, and from there you can buy BTC, ETH, LTC or XRP. The reverse, in which you exchange crypto for fiat is also working, obviously. Wirex is the only crypto-powered debit card provider to offer a rewards program: you get back 0.5% of any purchase you make with those cards, directly in Bitcoin (satoshis, obviously, but you got the idea). 0.5% is not that much, but, compared with other players, is quite an advanced user retention measure.
Recently, they also introduced a referral program, in which you get a few rewards if you bring new people to their products. If you want to know more about how this works, you may start here.
Bitwala: Getting Ready To Relaunch
Somewhere in the middle is Bitwala. They seemed the most affected by VISAGATE and I remember they even sent an email to their customers in which they were pondering if it's still worth to continue. Apparently it' still worth for them, because they are very close to relaunch their cards (probably during the next week) and, just like Bankera, they aim higher: namely, to create a crypto powered bank. Here's how a recent tweet of them is advertising their new venture:
So, if you want to pre-register, you can do it here.
Bankera seem to be coming really fast from behind.
Riding The Wave Of The Unpredictable
As I read this article I realized that all these changes took place in less than a year. In less than 12 months, 3 payment companies, with incredibly difficult to launch and maintain products (we're talking about payment instruments, not popcorn) went from being market leaders to the brink of extinction and then bounced back even higher (some of them, at least).
We live very interesting times, for sure.
Do you have any examples of crypto-powered debit cards out there? If so, please leave some info in the comment, I'd love to check the out.
Disclaimer: I own and use some of the cards described in this article and the links are affiliate links.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me 
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