Disclaimer:
Firstly, let me prefix this with the standard disclaimer. This is not financial advice, investing in any cryptocurrency project is a risk regardless of what it is, who the team is and so on. Lastly, you should never make investment decisions purely off of opinion pieces such as this, always make informed choices, invest money you can afford to lose and so on. I also have no affiliation with Monaco Card, but I do own some tokens.
In this post I am going to be talking about a cryptocurrency project that is flying under the radar at the moment, has some things coming in the pipeline and has lowkey been creating one of the strongest teams in cryptocurrency: Monaco Card.
This cryptocurrency has had its ups and downs as a result of some setbacks and FUD, but in this article I am going to explain why investing in Monaco Card is probably one of the best decisions you can make as an investor in 2018.
I strongly believe that Monaco Card is a long-term investment, that has some strong features planned and also leveraging the MCO token itself into the planned features will see the token become utility based and therefore have a value that is driven from the success and use of the MCO token itself.
Let's begin.
What is Monaco Card?
Monaco Card is an ERC-20 based cryptocurrency built on the Ethereum blockchain, with the intent on providing a Visa debit card and accompanying wallet application.
The intention of Monaco Card is to initially offer a Visa debit card, accompanying wallet application and supporting about eight different cryptocurrencies which can be spent via the card. Similar to something like Paypal or your conventional internet banking, you'll also be able to send money to over people through the app at real exchange rates and numerous localised currencies.
Initially Monaco Card will be a Visa debit card with accompanying mobile application for Android and iOS with card rollout slated for early 2018 (rumoured to be in January sometime) in quite a few countries.
Out-of-the-box the application will support quite a few fiat and cryptocurrencies including US Dollars, Australian Dollars and a few others as well as cryptocurrencies; Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and Binance's BNB token (thanks to a partnership with Binance).
The application will allow you to use tap-and-pay NFC payments if your phone has an NFC chip, via Android Pay, Samsung Pay and Apple Pay. So, if you lose your wallet or leave your card at home, you can use your phone to pay where wireless tap payments are supported in your country.
Also, the application will allow you to swap between currencies as well as send/receive money (a la Paypal) - with the aim being to make it easy for anyone to buy/sell and spend major forms of currency (fiat and crypto).
Sometime in 2018 Monaco Card will expand and deliver on their roadmap to release a credit card feature as well as numerous investor-oriented features, most likely some form of loan facility that expands upon their credit card offering, cryptocurrency loans is an emerging niche of cryptocurrency that will become a little more mainstream in 2018.
While there is no shortage of cryptocurrency debit cards from competing offerings, what Monaco Card are aiming to achieve goes beyond being just another cheap plastic debit card with high fees and horrible user experience.
Unaffected by the recent WaveCrest ban
While I was writing this, something shocking but unsuprising happened: WaveCrest a third-party issuer for Visa cards saw its Visa agreement canceled. This affected quite a few cryptocurrency debit cards, including TenX Pay which relied on WaveCrest to issue cards throughout Europe.
The problem with the WaveCrest situation was they were going against Visa's terms by issuing cards globally and presumably other violations of the agreement they had with Visa.
It is worth noting that this did NOT affect Monaco Card in any way because Monaco opted to use Wirecard as their issuer and BIN sponsor, apply to become a Visa Program Manager and are responsible for distribution/management of cards from Gemalto (the manufacturer).
This is what separates a shortcut from using an all inclusive third-party who handles everything for you, you lose the ability to set your own fees, you are beholden to the third-party doing the right thing and remaining compliant with companies like Visa (which in the case of WaveCrest, was not the case).
I have seen people say that the only reason Monaco was not affected is because they don't have cards out in the wild, which is untrue. If Monaco had cards released, this wouldn't have affected Monaco at all and the reasoning behind Monaco being unaffected in all of this is because the CEO Kris believes in being compliant and adhering to all rules set forth by Visa, Wirecard and government regulations surrounding financial products.
Even though Monaco have been moving a lot slower than competing debit card offerings, they are taking their time to ensure they are legally compliant in every way, shape and form. This WaveCrest situation really highlights the consequences of taking shortcuts and rushing a product to market with no redundancy and skirting the strict rules that Visa have in place for card issuance.
Reasons to invest
Ignoring the fact that Monaco Card has yet to release their cards or any other product features just yet, there are numerous reasons to be excited about Monaco and why you should consider buying into Monaco Card now before features start being released. This project is going to cause a lot of FOMO once they start delivering on their promises.
Ultimately you should do your own research, but I have compiled a few selling points which should serve as a good starting point for any investor who wants to look into Monaco Card before deciding if this project is the right fit in their portfolio.
A consumer friendly tiered card lineup
This is one unique thing that sets Monaco Card from competitors, they have a wide variety of tiered cards. With exception of the free Midnight Blue card which is plastic, the rest of the cards that Monaco Card offer are premium Visa metal cards. All cards in the lineup support tap-and-go NFC payments.
All cards in Monaco's tiered lineup are free, requiring no upfront fees or postage costs to receive a card (in the case of the plastic card, it is completely free), the metal cards as you'll read require locking up MCO tokens for a six-month period (that you get back).
All cards have no monthly or annual fees like a traditional bank account would, the Monaco Card team have opted for tiered perks/restrictions on each card instead. Specific details and limits is mentioned below for each card.
Midnight Blue
The Midnight Blue card is the lowest of the card lineup and it is made of plastic. You get a $2000 monthly interbank exchange rate limit and a monthly $200 free ATM withdrawal limit. This is an introductory card that will appeal to newcomers into cryptocurrency, as it carries the less risk.
The Midnight Blue has pretty low limits, but offers cardholders enough to use it for a few basic purchases and make a decision as to whether or not a cryptocurrency debit card is right for them.
Think of the Midnight Blue card as a gateway drug for the higher-tier cards, allowing people to try before they buy.
Ruby Steel
The Ruby Steel is the first card in the premium metal range and it requires a lockup of 50 MCO tokens. This is where the perks start to get a lot nicer, you get a $4000 interbank exchange rate limit (per month, 0.5% thereafter), $400 ATM withdrawal limit (per month, 2% thereafter) and 1% cashback on all purchases.
Precious Metal
The Precious Metal is the middle tier card and it requires a lockup of 500 MCO tokens. You get 1.5% cashback on all purchases, LoungeKey Airport Lounge Access, $10,000 interbank exchange rate limit (per month, 0.5% thereafter) and $800 ATM withdrawal limit (per month, 2% thereafter).
Obsidian Black
The Obsidian Black card is the top tier premium metal card that requires a lockup of 50,000 MCO tokens and this card is a rare limited supply card of 999 cards. This card will give you 2% cashback on all purchases, Loungekey access, unlimited interbank exchange rate limit and a $1000 ATM withdrawal limit (per month, 2% thereafter).
This card isn't really for the average consumer and is more aimed at cryptocurrency investors who have the kind of cash to splash on a card like this, holding large amounts of cryptocurrency and fiat.
It has been all but confirmed from the team that there will be another card added into the lineup soon most likely requiring a lockup of 5,000 MCO tokens as the jump from 500 to 50,000 MCO tokens is quite dramatic in the current offerings.
To give you a sense of the anticipated demand, the Monaco team ordered 500,000 cards from Gemalto (exact breakdowns have not been revealed).
It costs nothing to get a card
To my knowledge, no other competing cryptocurrency debit card offers a free card without requiring some upfront cost to get the card. In the case of TenX Pay, it will cost you $15 USD (including shipping), so approximately $19 AUD to get a TenX Pay plastic debit card.
In the case of TenX, they are currently not even able to issue cards but oddly enough they are still catching unsuspecting people signing up and paying the $15 fee to reserve a card, only to discover that new cards have yet to be issued.
For Monaco Card, it is a pretty ballsy move to offer a card for free and shoulder the cost of not only personalising the cards, but also the packaging and shipping costs for those cards, especially the free Midnight Blue card.
Technically, if you are wanting one of the premium metal cards, you are required to purchase MCO tokens (which some would argue is paying for a card).
However, the difference between buying MCO tokens to lockup and paying for a card outright, is you get the tokens back after six months and aligning with the lockup model, the value of those tokens would have gone up in value (theoretically). Those tokens can then be spent anywhere using your Monaco Card or Monaco App.
At the time of writing this, cards have yet to rollout but if you take a look at the Monaco Card Youtube channel, they shared a video of what the packaging for the cards will look like and it appears as though they didn't phone it in and actually put some thought, effort and design work into what the packaging looks like, including a nice little pull out card holder.
As mentioned above in the card lineup section, the free Midnight Blue card (which is plastic) requires no token lockup or anything else other than confirming your identity in the app. This kind of approach is actually how actual banks do it, most banks will charge you nothing to open an account and send you out a card.
Visa Program Manager and Wirecard as issuer
Unlike other cryptocurrency projects who took shortcuts and knowingly chose WaveCrest to exploit loopholes which Visa subsequently slapped WaveCrest across the face for doing, Monaco went the compliance route and opted to do it properly.
As a result, Monaco is a Visa Program Manager (under the company name Foris Limited), uses Wirecard as its issuer and BIN sponsor, and finally chose Gemalto as its card manufacturer who is responsible for all facets pertaining to cards and personalisation.
Sure, deciding to go the safer route has resulted in Monaco taking a lot longer to get there than expected, but it means when they do get there, the risk of losing their ability to issue cards or run as a proper fintech company is not hindered whatsoever.
Credit card functionality
We looked at the wide variety of cards earlier, but this is one aspect of Monaco: another is a credit product. All cards (even the free card) will allow you to stake cryptocurrency and borrow fiat against it. Essentially, this is a secured loan against the whole amount. This allows your cryptocurrency to appreciate and when you want it back, you pay back the money you borrowed and spent.
This is exciting from a number of different perspectives, the first is clear: you can stake your Bitcoin or Monaco tokens, ride the market wave up and end up with more money than you borrowed (or vice-versa) and the second is this puts Monaco into lending territory which is just heating up in crypto right now (like SALT).
I am sure we have all been in a situation where we've needed money (Christmas, a tragedy or personal emergency) and had to make the hard decision to cash out some of our Bitcoin or cryptocurrency for the money. If you're not new to cryptocurrency, you would know that you only lose money when you sell. A credit card option means you don't have to sell your cryptocurrency if faced with a situation that requires money that's tied up in crypto.
Monaco Card will be a platform
We touched upon this in the opening section where we spoke about what Monaco Card is as a project, and we can piece together the pieces of knowledge that we know about Monaco Cards vision to discover that not only is Monaco Card aiming to be a debit card but they're creating a platform which would firmly place it in Coinbase and bank territory.
At face value this might not seem that impressive, but digging a little deeper we are talking about a cryptocurrency platform that would allow you to easily send and receive money like a bank/Paypal, easily spend different currencies, send money to someone else in their own currency at the real exchange rate and easily top up your wallet with numerous currencies (including fiat).
Kris has repeatedly said that the UX aspect of the application and onboarding process is very important and Coinbase is a prime example of what a great user experience can do, given Coinbase have some of the highest fees for a cryptocurrency platform they are also really the only platform where you can buy cryptocurrency using a credit card and have reduced the process down to a few clicks.
Lastly, on the platform front: Kris has repeatedly reiterated that he does not view as cryptocurrency projects offering debit cards as competitors, he sees traditional banks like HSBC as competitors to Monaco Card and that should be telling of what is coming down the pipeline in terms of vision and scope.
Token Lockup
We spoke about the cards earlier and how all of the metal cards (except the free plastic one) will require locking up Monaco tokens for six months. This is one exciting aspect that will result in supply of MCO tokens being reduced due to lockup, using basic supply and demand logic, one can work out that reducing supply through lockup means a higher price value per MCO token.
At the time of writing this, Monaco almost has 55,000 reservations for cards. We don't know what cards people have reserved, but conservative estimates for lockup that people in the community have done have estimated initial lockup could be as much as 30% of the total supply of MCO tokens.
Token buyback
Kris has mentioned a few times that Monaco the company will be regularly buying back MCO tokens from the market via exchanges with the intention of the tokens that are being bought back from the market to be used for card purchase cashback.
There has also been talk of there possibly being some kind of token burn where tokens are bought back from exchanges and a portion is burned, but that hasn't been confirmed officially. As such, take that with a grain of salt at this stage.
We do know that tokens will be regularly purchased at market rates for cashback and that in itself is pretty awesome.
Monaco and Binance partnership
As far as exchanges go, Binance is one of the biggest there is and while we do not know the extent of things, Monaco and Binance appear to have formed some kind of partnership and there is intentions to deepen this partnership based on what we've been told by Kris.
Just recently Binance ran a great competition where the first prize for trading MCO on Binance was a 2018 Lamborghini Huracan RWD Coupe, pretty fitting that a crypto giveaway is a lambo.
We know that the Monaco app is going to support BNB as one of its cryptocurrencies in the wallet application and there is a possibility that the app and Monaco itself might have deeper integration with Binance, perhaps the ability to link Binance with the app for trading.
During the January 9th Q&A Kris was asked, "Binance mentioned that you have “included support for Binance's BNB token to its platform which includes the Monaco Visa Card and mobile app". What does this mean and can we expect further announcements regarding the strengthening of our partnership with Binance going forward?"
To which Kris replied, "Yes" I think it's safe to say that there is a reason Monaco have partnered with Binance, why they support the BNB token and that future announcements involving both extend beyond competitions.
The team is rock solid
My biggest and most important criteria when deciding to invest in an ICO or purchase a cryptocurrency is the team behind it. Whenever I research a potential cryptocurrency to invest into that isn't Bitcoin or Ethereum which have established teams behind them, I always go to the official website and check out the team.
I then take it further and research each individual team member (sans advisors), what are their qualifications, what is their role and how much experience do they have? LinkedIn is great for this, but also reading into published papers and so on.
The reason that the team behind a project should be the minimum viable criteria behind investing is separating the professionals from the bedroom developers trying to make a quick buck or even less creatively, forking Bitcoin and bringing nothing interesting to the table.
Anyone with enough time on their hands can create a cryptocurrency, run an ICO and turn a quick buck. It takes determination and skill to actually take that idea and make it into something real and for a cryptocurrency debit card it requires a little more than money and luck.
As you will soon discover, Monaco has built a specialised team with experience in fintech and the debit cards space. People don't realise just how experienced the Monaco Card team is. Instead of focusing on the team and dominating the whole entire duration of this article with information you can read yourself.
The team can be seen on the official Monaco site here and I honestly recommend you take some time to read into the team behind Monaco, because we are talking about actual experienced people who have worked in finance, tech and particularly some experience in the debit cards space.
Pay close attention to key players on the Monaco team like Brent Diehl (Senior Vice President, International Expansion) who's previous experience includes; MD of Alliance Payment Solutions, head of Visa's AP-CEMEA prepaid consultancy division, Western Union (international expansion efforts for prepaid cards) and even Home Depot. Then you have Erald Ghoos (COO) who previously was the COO at Payreto and has held leadership roles at various financial institutions.
Then you've got Sean Rach (CMO) who has experienced working with AMEX (the cards aspect) and other financial institutions. You have a rock solid security expert Dr. Ken Baylor (CCO) who founded the Vendor Security Alliance and has previously held senior security and compliance positions at Uber, Pivotal, Wells Fargo, Symantec, and McAfee.
As far as exciting and experienced team hires go, Monaco recently hired Dr. Weiyi Zhang (Platform Architect), previously VP Quant Trading of AP Capital Management where he led the development of an algorithmic trading platform and managed the Asian market arbitrage portfolio as well as former VP of Electronic Market Making at JP Morgan and Quant Trading Strategist of Equity Derivative Trading at Deutsche Bank.
The TL;DR of the team behind Monaco is we are talking about a company that is being driven by people with actual fintech experience, people who have knowledge of building not only debit card offerings but actual financial products with actual real world use and presumably on the back of that, real knowledge of how to extend reach and scale a product.
You can have the most revolutionary idea for a cryptocurrency which might get you funding during the ICO stage, but it's an experienced team that will ultimately make or break your project. The reason most cryptocurrency projects will fail in the long run is the inability to execute on their vision because the team to drive it is not there.
It's undervalued
Perhaps the biggest reason for investing in Monaco Card besides the experienced team, solid lineup of product features coming and focus on being a financial behemoth is the fact it is criminally undervalued right now. Due to an unfortunate slow start where the company faced numerous delays and FUD from various people in the crypto community, particularly around app launch and Visa Program Manager approval.
Back in August there was immense levels of hype around Monaco launching their wallet application and announcing Visa approval. The team announced their card reservation app and the price tanked considerably, at one stage Monaco was trading at $5-6 USD.
Unfortunately the community and various groups took advantage of unsubstantiated rumours, spreading misinformation and it caused a bit of resentment towards the project when what materialised wasn't what people expected. As a result, Monaco Card has been flying under the radar poised to blast off into Satoshi land.
At the time of writing this, MCO was trading on Binance at $16.50 USD which is a steal. There are numerous TA's flying about predicting MCO is going to go skyhigh when they announce their card rollout and other product features, as well as taking into account the token lockup which will reduce the supply of available MCO: supply and demand.
Conclusion
I implore you to take a look into Monaco Card, there is a serious opportunity here to make some money. You might have missed out on buying into Bitcoin back in 2011 or buying into NEO, Ethereum and other numerous cryptocurrencies that have ballooned, but there is a great opportunity to get into Monaco Card and make a nice profit.
In a few months time, this post will serve as a reminder of an opportunity lost if you don't seriously consider even giving Monaco Card a look.
If you found this article useful and you're not a member of Binance just yet, I would gratefully appreciate it if you signed up using my referral link: https://www.binance.com/?ref=10268639 - Binance has a pretty large volume of MCO trading and it has a MCO/BNB pairing as well.
Also, if you decide you would like to reserve a card of your own through the Monaco app, using this referral link: http://get.mona.co/IVWT/S1sS1Il8JG - will get you $10 added into your wallet when the cards start shipping and wallet application goes live.
If you found this article useful or it made you some money, consider making a small donation. I have many more articles planned.
- Monaco: 0xdb2d29117c0244472598c85848d3afaa5a1c019f
- Bitcoin: 1DkJh6cuX46yktphGHni8k44XHBDVsMP2X
- Ethereum: 0xdb2d29117c0244472598c85848d3afaa5a1c019f