That is the goal of a startup in Singapore.
TenX is a startup in Singapore that is pitching it's debit card as way of transacting and instantly converting digital currencies into fiat.
As of right now the company can convert from virtual currencies into dollars, yen, and euros.
Currently it is able to convert 8 digital currencies, but there are plans to include many more.
How does it work?
The company has built an app that serves as a digital wallet which is then connected to their Visa debit card. The card can then be swiped at a restaurant or any local merchant. Once swiped, the merchant is paid in the local currency while the users account gets debited.
The company said that it takes a 2% fee from each transaction.
Currently they have received orders for more than 10,000 cards from would be users. The transaction amount per year is capped at only $2000 USD, unless certain verification procedures are met.
Which is a good thing as something like this could be a haven for money laundering.
However, once verification procedures are met, the limit is increased multiples of that.
This is yuge!
This could be exactly the kind of thing that virtual currencies need to spring board them into the next phase of adoption.
Mati Greenspan, an Isreali-based analyst, agrees:
"It's an incredible concept."
"At the end of the day it's going to depend a lot on customer relations. Are they meeting the customers expectations or can somebody else do it better?"
There you have it, if customers want it and start to indicate that there is a demand for it, either TenX or someone else is going to figure out how to best get it done.
TenX currently does about $99,000 USD worth of transactions per month. The goal at the end of 2018 is to do about $99 million USD in monthly transaction and have over 1 million users.
Is this the future?
So far TenX is the first mover, but you can be sure that many more are soon to join the space, especially if any kind of demand is shown for the service.
Major financial institutions with deep pockets and very good connections are sure to be hot on their heels if this thing takes off.
Either way, this can only be good news for Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto space. User adoption is really the missing ingredient to fully take these things main stream.
Stay informed my friends!
Sources:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bitcoin-cryptocurrencies-visa-cards-work-in-real-world-payment-digital-tenx-a7857021.html
Image Sources:
https://www.ethnews.com/card-innovation-to-let-users-spend-ether-as-cash-at-outlets
https://twitter.com/tenxwallet
https://cryptojl.wordpress.com/2017/06/25/tenx-ico-sold-out-in-8-minutes/
