As a beginner to the world of steemit and cryptos in general, I was reading about trading, cryptos and blockchains and how you can turn cryptocurrency into real money. Funny enough, a few days ago I signed up in Wirex (cryptocurrency wallet linked to VISA debit card) and today I received this email:
"Yesterday, our partner WaveCrest Holdings, Ltd., which provides our cards, was instructed by VISA to close all of its prepaid cryptocurrency-related and standard prepaid VISA debit card programs. The Wirex card is such a program.
WaveCrest did not provide us with any advance notice of this decision
Your funds are safe
We’d like to assure you that all your funds are safe. Our team is working around the clock to ensure customer funds are transferred back from prepaid VISA accounts ASAP."
I then decided to read about it and it seems like VISA decided to end its relationship with WaveCrest, a large crypto-based card issuer that provides services to various other crypto-based card companies like Wirex, causing quite a bit of chaos amongst people of the cryptoworld. WaveCrest commented that "it was required to immediately close all Visa cards" and that "WaveCrest is required to safeguard funds to cover all of its issued electronic money and we can confirm that these funds are safe and available for redemption through other channels".
On the other hand, Visa did not provide any immediate respond for commenting on the issue.
Is this the first step of EU trying to regulate cryptocurrencies?
And if so, what other rules are they going to bring forward in 2018?
I guess we will have to wait and see...
Any thoughts or useful information is always welcome. I have a lot to learn myself!
Lename :)
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/05/visa-bans-cryptocurrency-backed-cards.html