Happy New Years everyone! I just got back visiting the in-laws in South Korea for the holidays, and due to the occasion, I decided to do a bit of a dive into the Chai card. So let me preface this post first with the fact that I am a Korean American, and although I've lived in Korea for several years, I have not since the time that the Chai card has been released.
What is the Chai card?
Chai is a crypto-backed card which takes people KRW (Korean won) and to many cardholders, converts their fiat to KRT. Run on the Terra system, this allows for many benefits for not just consumers, but business owners as well, as they are hit with less surcharges and ultimately spending less money. The Chai card is like the cool card you've never heard of, even if you live in Korea. And I'm serious about that, no one I know over here has really even heard of it. Or if they've heard of it, they know if it as the card that gives you a lot of random discounts at select stores on select days. But for those of you who have been following Terra for awhile, probably know of Chai as the reason why you get random amounts of KRT for staking your Luna.
For the average Chai consumer, they see the immediate benefit for gaining these thunder points, for which they can spend on utilizing different types of discounts on different days. Usually these deals unlock around 11AM, and cardholders can redeem their thunder points for pretty significant discounts at local partners (i.e. Nike, McDonald's).
OK. So you might be thinking..."a lot of credit cards have random bonuses, What's the big deal?"
Well...Korean credit/debit cards in general kinda suck.
In general, Korean credit benefits are horrible, at least they are compared to the States or to Europe. Now don't get me wrong, there are some cards with some really niche bonuses out there which I'm sure people are taking advantage of out there, but there's generally no signup bonuses, and you'll be hard pressed to find a cashback card that will give you a comparable fraction of the points that an average joe credit does in the States, at often times just fractions of a cent, or less than 1% cashback for everyday purchases. No joke, I went into Woori Bank just a week ago, and the signup bonus they were offering for one of their flagship cards was a 5-pack of Shin Ramen.
This is part of the reason why the Chai card has been such a hit--the card has great benefits, and on top of that, it's normally been extremely hard to get. Up until recently, even though you were technically able to send an application to Chai through their app, good luck with that because people have been waiting for several months without a response. One other alternative was for people to get formal invite code from someone who already owns the card, but this was extremely limited as well, as users were only able to give out one. Due to the rarity of invites, it even created a second-hand market and list of scams for people trying to buy and sell them.
So to summarize, the CHAI card is a product that was launched late last year which utilizes the Terra system, converting loaded Korean Won (KRW) into KRT, and therefore processing transactions via KRT instead of fiat currency. My goal (or hope) of opening up the card was to have a vehicle to swap KRW and KRT back and forth easily.
Getting the CHAI card
After accumulating the required 20 thunder boosts, I quickly redeemed and applied for the CHAI debit card, which I received promptly in about couple days. I then activated the card, and then looked to connect my terra wallet to the app. After looking through all the funding options for the CHAI card, there was no Terra option to be found.
No Terra option
Immediately assuming that there must be some type of mistake, I called customer service who promptly informed me that the partnership between Terra and CHAI was discontinued, effective for all new customers after September 17th, 2021. If you were lucky enough to get this card prior to September 17th, you still should have access to Terra. And just to clarify, just because the card doesn't directly connect with the Terra wallet does not mean that it doesn't harness Terra to make payments easier, it's only that the system no longer allows new users to access their KRT as KRT. To make matters worse, the service rep informed me flatly that there was no other available option (that she knew of) to access the card's KRT via any other route, and that there were no future plans as of right now to bring it back.
What struck me as really bizarre throughout this application process was that I couldn't find a single tweet/article/blog/reddit that talked about the Terra being taken off. I saw tweets as recent as September, raving about how they were accessing KRT--yet not a single word or complaint about it not being able to access it. Not only that, I didn't see a single post or notice about the "dissolvement' of the Terra/CHAI partnership. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
So all this "good news" about the Terra card? Consider it lost. If you were one of the lucky ones, please use the hell outta this card. What I don't get, is how or who allowed this to happen. Was it not profitable to have access to the Terra system thus encouraging more users? According to CHAI scan, there's a clear drop-off in membership usage since this change has taken effect.
(Weekly users according to CHAI scan)
Well, I hope they consider bringing this option back. Otherwise, I think my CHAI card will be sittin' in a sock drawer until then.
Anybody experience the same frustrations with the CHAI card? Or more importantly, does anyone know of any other better ways to change Korean won easily back and forth with KRT? I only know of Coinone, but I'm a bit skeptical about the fees...
Resources
https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/09/seoul-based-payment-tech-startup-chai-gets-60-million-from-hanhwa-softbank-ventures-asia/
https://www.chaiscan.com/server/web/ChartUsers_selectPage