
Plastc Card - cktsai
https://www.plastc.com/#
======
natrius
They say this supports chip-and-PIN, but I don't believe them until they
explain how. If I have a chip-and-PIN card from my bank, the chip has an
unreadable secret used to generate one-time cryptograms to verify the
authenticity of the card. There's no way to get that secret onto my Plastc
card. You'd need partnerships with banks to get a new secret the way Apple Pay
does. Without those, this sounds like it'll be useless once the chip-and-PIN
switch happens in a year or so.

~~~
kamkazemoose
On the bottom of their wallet tab [1], they list several participating banks,
so it sounds like they might have those partnerships you mention.

[1] [https://www.plastc.com/wallet](https://www.plastc.com/wallet)

~~~
bravo22
Question is what exactly does "participating" means.

Banks generally hate anything that takes away their branding. Less sleek of
this -- i.e. reprogrammable Visa cards -- have been around for a few years but
banks never supported them, again because of branding.

~~~
yasth
It looks like it displays the logo, so it isn't out of the question for banks
(now starting to be scared at being disintermediated) to maybe throw in some
"support" (aka tepidly allow access). After all, apple pay also reduces
branding ( _and_ Apple takes a cut), and threatens a lot of the industry as
what you pay with becomes a minor manner (and also massively encourages a
single default card).

~~~
Bud
Does Apple Pay actually reduce branding that much? I bet I'm not the only one
who saw the Apple Pay demo and noticed that it displays a nice, large, full-
color image of the card being used. Cards with a certain cachet, then (AmEx
black, other high-end cards) will still be quite prominently displayed.
Indeed, a backlit display might even make more of a brand impression than the
physical card, in some situations.

I also am not certain that Apple Pay "massively encourages" a single default
card. It looked quite easy in the demo to display multiple cards and switch
between them. Looked easier than taking a card out of a crowded wallet and
putting it back in, actually.

~~~
yasth
Eh, as far as default goes, it is another step; the second page of google
results is easy to get too, but people don't. Part of what generates alternate
card usage today is the messy wallet, sometimes the card isn't in the right
place, or doesn't come to hand.

Also there are some practical in RL issues that come up with most NFC payment
readers (namely a lot of the installed readers have short range, and awkward
pad placement) which makes non default much less attractive.

As for the display issue, the issuers concern is that they are pretty limited
as far as making things distinct. I mean hell, every card company is going to
have black cards. There are no sideways cards, no premium materials, no
metallics, etc. They have a relatively small image, which has to still look
good even if cropped to lose the bottom 80%. Basically they get space for bank
logo, card logo, and a non distracting background.

So if they are willing to give up on all that and a fee, it doesn't seem all
that out of the question for them to allow their logos to be used on a
flexible card, and (presumably) not pay a fee.

------
yincrash
The ridiculous number of features on this card makes it really hard to believe
that an unknown startup has the resources to pull it off in the form factor as
thin as a credit card. Coin still hasn't gotten there yet (they claim it works
at 85% of the locations they visited). Adding more features including wireless
charging coils and unknown method for duplicating chip and pin makes me really
skeptical that this will ever make it to market.

~~~
bradfa
The microcontroller, smart card interface, eInk screen, bluetooth capability
(including antenna), NFC (including antenna), and touch screen all seem
reasonable and there isn't anything earth shattering tech wise (but probably a
customized asic using off the shelf bits). Connecting this all together on
some fiberglass or plastic substrate is hard, and expensive to tool for (I'd
expect), but definitely possible.

The interesting bit is how they're fitting the battery and getting anything
remotely like reasonable life. Even down in the single digit micro-Amp
consumption range (typical for low power microcontrollers plus some resistive
touch), a battery small enough to fit inside a credit card will likely only
have a few mAh, at best. This will lead to needing to recharge quite often if
the bluetooth turns on or eInk screen updates more than once in a blue-moon.

~~~
penprog
You really believe you can fit an eink display, a touch screen digitizer, a
microcontroller, bluetooth and nfc on a card that thin and sell it for 155
dollars?

~~~
bradfa
Yes. If the eInk screen uses the card plastic in place of the glass which
usually backs such a screen, it can easily be thin enough for a credit card
form factor.

Touch screen digitizing can be done resistively with overlaid wires over the
screen. Their touch interface doesn't have to be super accurate, you only seem
to touch in a few distinct locations.

A microcontroller is already inside every chip and pin card on the planet.
They usually run Java. Yes, Java :)

Bluetooth is just more silicon to do the radio, not hard to stick it on the
side of the microcontroller silicon or even have a two-die configuration with
wire bonding between the dies. Go look at TI or Freescale 2.4 GHz radio+micro
parts, same thing just there it's in a QFN or other solder-down package, but
the dies themselves are quite small. A 2.4 GHz antenna is easy to fab out of
printed silver or other printable conductive material onto plastic.

NFC is already in many credit cards for the whole "tap to pay" thing. It's
just some extra silicon on the side of the microcontroller in existing
solutions. Harvesting power from NFC is just some diodes and a resonant
circuit along with loop antenna.

Realistically, such a piece of silicon plus the antennas plus the plastic card
should only cost you single digit dollars in volume to manufacture. Adding an
eInk screen like that is another couple bucks, at most. The $155 price point
is probably so they can make back their up-front costs as getting customized
silicon isn't cheap, nor is some of the development work they did to get all
the features integrated.

If this concept takes off, I'd expect in 2-3 years that cards like this are
issued by banks for free to customers. The cost of manufacturing really isn't
that high.

EDIT: But getting enough battery packed in to avoid charging every day or two,
that's really the novel part if they have real bluetooth operation.

~~~
TranquilMarmot
The only part that actually has to be as thin as a credit card is the part
with the magnetic strip. Below that (where the screen is), it could be as
thick as they need and still be swipeable. So they could shove the battery,
charging coils, etc. behind the touch screen.

~~~
rohansingh
Not the case. For chip-and-PIN cards, the entire part of the card containing
the chip needs to be inserted into a reader, as in this example:
[https://i.imgur.com/0nn5lpo.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/0nn5lpo.jpg)

------
abalone
Faked video.

I downloaded it and went frame-by-frame and you can see the card display
contents move around with changing margins. It's all CGI.

Not that it's inherently wrong to do simulations, but this is notable because
they don't include a "this is a simulation" disclaimer (AFAICS).

~~~
zo1
It was quite _obviously_ either completely rendered, or rendered on top of an
actual video. It felt like a plain commercial, with "cgi" added ontop of it
for effect. I mean, no one expects little flying transparent windows to pop
out the side of their card, do they? Of course not. So I don't think they were
doing it surreptitiously, but merely to make a pretty "commercial" to sell
their product.

~~~
abalone
I'm talking about the product itself, not the explanatory popups.

~~~
0h139
You can actually see it with the naked eye.

------
jMyles
What need does this address? Are cards taking up too much room in people's
lives?

This solution doesn't reduce the height or width of the encumbrance at all,
and reduces the depth only by n*.76mm, where n is the number of cards that
will be replaced. I don't get it.

Also,
[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheZenOfProgramming](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheZenOfProgramming)

~~~
mattmaroon
I have a lot of cards. Between gift cards, loyalty cards, and credit cards, I
have at least 20-30 that I'd like to carry on me. I end up leaving cards I
don't use every day in my car (and am always paranoid about the valet as a
result). I use a KeyRing app for loyalty cards, but it's a pain and requires
me often typing numbers into things. I often find myself in a Starbucks,
realizing I left the Starbucks gift card in my car. Etc.

This would let me get away with a much slimmer wallet and is therefore quite
convenient. If it works.

~~~
staz
I don't get how you can end up with so many cards, it's seems like a very
american problem. I have 5 cards in my wallet: * Debit card and a Visa credit
card: both with chip&pin and allowing me to do secure transaction on the
internet * A public transport card: RFC, also allow me to rent bikes * An ID
card, also with a chip&pin, allow me to sign documents and fill my taxes * An
insurance card which is not even a magnetic or electronic card, it's just a
piece of plastic with my client number printed on it

And I don't really see why I should need or want more cards

~~~
baddox
I'm an American, and I have no idea how someone ends up with that many cards.
I carry two: my credit card and by debit (ATM) card. I could easily leave the
latter behind, since I very rarely use, but it feels prudent to keep it with
me in case I need cash in an emergency. Beyond that, I could understand having
a single company credit card if it makes sense for your job (it doesn't for
mine).

For gift cards, I suppose it would be nice to have those all aggregated, but I
do very little brick and mortar shopping, and virtually no _impromptu_ brick
and mortar shopping where having a library of loyalty cards with me at all
times would be useful.

The same applies to loyalty cards. I do have a Macy's card, but they can just
look that up for you at the store, so I don't carry it. I've probably lost the
physical card.

~~~
aestra
Well I have no fewer than 4 checking accounts. I have a debit card for all
them. I don't use any of the debit cards except at the ATM once in a while so
I could probably go without three of them on my person.

Then I have 4 credit cards.*

That's 8 cards right there. Then I do my shopping at 3 different grocery
stores, so they all get their cards. 3 because I take advantage of the sales
at each and the selection. One doesn't have some of the stuff I want but the
others do. This is pretty common, I know if I want a particular product I have
to go to a particular store to get it. I go grocery shopping probably 3-4
times a week because I only buy enough stuff for 1-3 meals. This is to reduce
waste. Less often shopping leads to food waste for me.

Sure they can look me up, and I used to not carry the grocery store cards, but
I find flashing the card about 1000 times more convenient.

We are up to 12 cards.

I have to carry two IDs, driver's license and US GOVT ID. Card count 14.

Then I have a drugstore card that I use to get "points" for filling my
prescriptions. These points are really worth it - you cash them in for
merchandise and they are very generous with them. While they have ALL MY INFO
(after all, they need it to fill the prescription) but about 70% of the time
they want my card, I don't know why. It is just a billion times easier to have
it on me.

Card count 15.

Library card - card count 16.

The rest are just random rarely used loyalty cards I __don 't __need to carry
but at this point why not carry them?

I don't get gift cards.

People ask why I have so many checking accounts, and it is to better manage my
money (for example, I get just enough of my paycheck auto deposited to cover
automatic withdraws and put that in a separate account so I know that's my "no
touch" money) and take maximum advantages of all the rewards and benefits of
each card or bank account.

I don't find any of this that daunting. When you already have to carry a few
adding a few more isn't that big of a deal. I don't really have a problem with
carrying these around and I prefer separate cards to some "smart card" that is
some electronic thing to charge and break.

*I want to mention even with 4 CCs I don't have any CC debt.

~~~
mattmaroon
Everyone should have at least 3. If you aren't fully taking advantage of
credit card rewards you are subsidizing people like me who do.

~~~
aestra
"Everyone" is a far stretch. More like "people who like to (or don't mind)
managing their finances at a finer level and also don't spend above their
means."

Which is maybe 35% of the American population.

Some people are just fine not bothering with credit cards because
convenience/simplicity/ease is more important to them. It's all about
individual preferences and priority.

------
raesene4
Whilst I wouldn't go as far as to say "never going to happen", I am fairly
cynical about this and similar products like coin.

Not for any particular technical reason (although I'd be very interested to
hear how they plan to make this work with Chip & PIN) but from a
risk/liability perspective.

At the moment most banks that I'm aware of provide an online fraud guarantee
and a credit card fraud guarantee, so as long as you keep your credentials
secure, they'll pay back if you get defrauded (I know it's not quite as simple
as that but for the purposes of this comment I think that'll do)

so the problem with this kind of product is that you're adding another company
(plastc) to the trusted list, you're going to have to provide them with all
the card details. So unless the banks agree to this not affecting your fraud
guarantee, you'd be taking a real risk by using this solution.

For the banks to agree that there would need to be something in the deal for
them, to compensate for the loss of branding on their cards and the additional
fraud risk.

~~~
seanflyon
> loss of branding on their cards and the additional fraud risk

Loss of branding is a fair point, but I think this would reduce fraud risk.
Automatically deactivating itself when lost or stolen more than makes up for
the risk of trusting Plastc.

~~~
raesene4
Possibly although the attack surface of this kind of solution is quite a bit
bigger than that of a traditional card. Introducing complications like
smartphone apps and increased complexity of programming on the card itself,
has quite a bit higher potential for exploitable bugs compared to a
traditional Chip & PIN card.

------
abalone
I think most people in the market for something next-generation are going to
be looking for more than just "how do I consolidate onto 1 physical card".
They're going to want to fundamentally improve the payment system with a
completely cardless, PIN-less (save for unlocking it once in the morning),
wrist-based device.

Plastc is $155 and you still have to:

1\. pull something out of your wallet

2\. select a virtual card

3\. enter a PIN to unlock it

4\. share your real card number with the merchant with all the fraud potential
that carries

5\. sign the receipt or enter your card's PIN (another PIN!)

Apple Watch is going to leapfrog all that so hard.

\- it lives on your wrist

\- it stays unlocked as long as it's on your body

\- you just tap, no signing or card PINs

\- it uses tokenization so you never have to worry about stolen card numbers

\- it does craptons more stuff than payments too

One advantage Plastc has is it will work everywhere right away while Apple Pay
needs NFC terminals. But those upgrades are happening thanks to chip-and-PIN.

~~~
spb
Forget a "wrist-based device", I'm waiting for PluseWallet, that completely
device-free payment system that works by scanning the circulatory layout of
your hand: [http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/7/5281692/pulsewallet-pay-
wit...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/7/5281692/pulsewallet-pay-with-your-
veins-fujitsu-palmsecure)

~~~
abalone
Non starter. Requires merchants to install palm scanners. Apple Watch works
with standard NFC terminals.

------
pervycreeper
1) The process of selecting a card and paying appears to have many more steps
compared to merely selecting the appropriate physical card and using that. Is
the sell here something to do with security (not displaying the card number
all the time)? Does this support temporary/ burner numbers?

2) I would like to know what target demographic, if any, that that ad was not
intended to irritate.

~~~
kenferry
The prospect of getting away without a wallet is exciting to me! If I could
get down to just driver's license, this, and billfold, that'd be pretty cool.

~~~
atourgates
I would pay 2x what they're asking if it worked like it's supposed to, and I
could leave everything else behind.

But realistically, I think mobile payment systems are much more likely to
succeed. Plus, I already have my phone with me anyway, and it doesn't seem too
far fetched that it could provide all the info on my driver's license. So with
that and widespread adoption of ApplePay (or whatever ends up succeeding in
that space) I'm down to just leaving the house with my phone and whatever cash
I want to carry.

~~~
pervycreeper
> I think mobile payment systems are much more likely to succeed

It's not either/or. Something like this or Coin are essentially interfaces for
what will be legacy devices. If it were either/or, then mobile payments would
certainly be the better solution.

~~~
atourgates
That's true, though I think once major retailers, gas stations, grocery stores
and ATMs are accepting mobile payments, you'd be able to get by without any
"legacy" forms of payment pretty easily.

------
Animats
The problem is doing this without compromising security. There are at least
the following problems:

\- Remote RF-based attacks on the card.

\- Attacks on the phone app.

\- Leaks at the point credentials are transferred into the card. It turns out
that most chip and pin cards do not use a public key/private key pair, with
the private key inside the card. Visa actually recommends against this.
([http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/bulletin-chip-
recomme...](http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/bulletin-chip-recommended-
practices.pdf)) So getting the credentials off a chip and pin card is
possible.

\- Leaks from the servers at "Plastc".

\- Customer liability beyond US law limits for bank credit and debit cards.
(What if it's Plastc's fault? The bank blames Plastc, and Plastc dumps the
liability on the customer, citing their "it's never our fault" EULA).

\- The device is a great tool for "carders". Previously, "carders" using
stolen credit card info had to make sure nobody saw them putting a white card
in the ATM. Using a stolen credit card required access to convincing-looking
blank cards and an embossing machine. Now, with Plastc, anybody with a list of
stolen card numbers can easily create fake cards. At least if businesses are
willing to accept Plastc cards.

------
mcmancini
The problem I have with this product, as well as Coin, is that seems to be far
less convenient than pulling a card out of my wallet. Maybe George Costanza
would get some use out of one of these, but I'm usually choosing between an
ATM card or one or two credit cards. Plus, I don't need to worry about having
my phone, charging batteries, electrical gremlins, &c.

All I'm seeing is an expensive ($155?!) solution to a non-existent problem.

~~~
Tloewald
Also, credit cards are simple, cheap, and robust. Most of them become pretty
thrashed with a year or two of frequent use -- this thing would theoretically
be used more than any single card; how robust will it be?

(And you'll still want a backup card in case it fritzes.)

------
freehunter
Wow I can't wait for the "scroll to make the picture change" form of user
interaction to go away.

~~~
sleepycal
1000000% agree, I don't know why that's the "in thing" at the moment

------
ChuckMcM
Hmm, I thought this might be what Coin turned into but I see that onlycoin.com
is still taking pre-orders for their all-in-one card. I get the consumer
appeal but find the appeal for the banks less strong. I would love a one time
credit card app where every time you swiped it, it changed numbers. And it
seems making the card 'smart' like this could enable that sort of thing.

~~~
spokenn
Has anyone received their Coin? I ordered in December and still have yet to
receive it.

~~~
teej
They are rolling it out very slowly. You should've received details in your
email about the rollout. I have a friend who has received his already.

------
bradfa
What would actually be slightly lower in cost and leverage existing
infrastructure better would be this Plastc card but remove the bluetooth, the
touch interface, chip-n-pin, and the internal battery. Just have an app on
your NFC phone and have it send the card data over NFC to the card when you
want to use it. In this way you could just have an app on your phone which can
work with the bank over the Net to generate throw-away numbers for every
transaction.

Having any credit card number which you've ever used only usable for one
single purchase would make fraud have to change to adapt. But you could
probably sell such a thing easily today with all the recent loss of credit
card number news. Granted, the vendor of such a card has to partner with a
bank to enable this feature set, and then only a small number of people will
want such a card as it imposes a new workflow for paying for things.

~~~
wahern
Yes. Keep all your financial information on a general purpose consumer
computer accessible over the network, and never worry about the safety of your
financial data ever again ;)

~~~
bradfa
I already do this. Amazon knows my credit card info, so do many other
merchants. If I'm doing any kind of mobile payments thing then my phone has
access to my bank somehow, too.

My concept is basically just "mobile payments" but enabling it for locations
where merchants don't have the infrastructure yet. The added benefit is every
transaction has a different card number, so merchants who store card numbers
and get hacked provides no benefits to the thieves. Granted, any of the mobile
payments things should be doing this kind of security thru obscurity, but I
have no idea if they are.

This is not novel.

------
mjg59
From the fraud perspective:

One of the costs associated with fraudulent card use is turning a set of
number into a physical object. Several retailers will avoid the "Just write
the number onto an existing card" approach by verifying that the last four
digits on the card match the number on the magstripe, which increases the cost
per cloned card by a reasonable margin. Using Plastc instead would break that
assumption. It'll be interesting to see how merchants react.

But, more problematically, this answer:

> What happens if one of the cards stored on my Plastc Card is declined?

> The acceptance of any transaction has nothing to do with your Plastc Card.
> In this event, we recommend you contact your bank.

seems like a problem if the auth failure that comes back is one that requests
that the merchant retain the card…

~~~
andrewguenther
If I were a merchant, I would not accept one of these. Fraud claims always
side with the cardholder, what do you say as a merchant? "Yeah, some guy came
in with this black piece of plastic and a screen on it and I just swiped it."

------
Tomdarkness
It claims to support Chip & PIN (EMV) but I don't see how this works. EMV is
designed so that you can't clone a card and in practice is it impractical to
attempt to clone a card that uses EMV.

The only way I could imagine it would work is if you have the support of the
bank that issued the card. However, I doubt any bank would agree to a scheme
to allow a 3rd party to generate a clone of an EMV card.

~~~
ahomescu1
> The only way I could imagine it would work is if you have the support of the
> bank that issued the card.

At the end of [https://www.plastc.com/wallet](https://www.plastc.com/wallet)
there's a list of participating banks, so I assume that's exactly how they do
it.

------
nodesocket
I really like the idea, but at $155 this is a luxury item for people who have
disposable income. Also, with the release of Apple Pay, I truly think
eventually all brick and mortar businesses will support paying with your
phone.

~~~
smeyer
>eventually all brick and mortar businesses will support paying with your
phone

There are brick and mortar businesses that don't even support credit cards. It
could be a long time before _all_ brick and mortar businesses support phone
payments.

~~~
Bud
Very few.

If 90-95% support this, and they will, very soon, that's plenty.

------
duckman12
How is this bs even legal?... I'm going to render a spaceship and put it up
for pre-orders.

Do not give these people your money, nor the other tech companies that pull
this kinda shit when so many real innovations are in the market.

------
billyhoffman
The websites for both Plastc Card and Coin do the "animate images and diagrams
as users scroll" pattern.

I want to punch the designer in the face who ever thought this was a good
idea.

~~~
sleepycal
Strongly agree. But I'll lose my commit privileges if I remove it... worth it?
Maybe :P

~~~
angry_dan
Hey, if I had my way, everything would have been star wipe. Scroll -> star
wipe to next page. Scroll -> star wipe! Scroll -> star wipe! It could have
been AMAZING.

~~~
sleepycal
Do it. Lets throw in a <marquee/> too.. I'll even "git filter-branch" your
commit afterwards. No one will ever know. :D

~~~
angry_dan
Don't tempt me.

------
grinich
This is a faster horse, not an automobile.

~~~
mikeash
Automobiles don't get invented every day, or indeed every year. In a world
where the horse is king, a faster horse is a good thing.

~~~
callum85
But this is $155. It needs to be an automobile :)

~~~
mikeash
You make an excellent point.

------
kolev
Am I do only one having a huge (yet still growing) list of preordered and
backed projects and waiting for their delivery? If I sum up the pending ones
up, it's thousands of dollars. If I put all that money in the stock market and
buy the products after they are on the market, and read the reviews, I'm sure
I'll be saving money and not be worried that I'm getting schemed all the time.

~~~
iaw
I'd supplant savings account with stock market. The stock market is a little
frothy as of late and a pull-back has been in the works for a while.

~~~
jrockway
The money in your savings account decreases in value with inflation, so that's
not a risk-free strategy either. Maybe inflation-indexed treasuries are what
you want, but those are also not risk-free!

~~~
iaw
Valid point. How could I forget inflation?

------
untog
A credit card that requires charging?

Haha, no.

~~~
jackmaney
Oh gods, that sounds like a horrible idea (the site is unavailable at the
moment, so I can't see the list of features). Only slightly worse than the
idiotic start-up idea that made the rounds two years ago, whereby all of one's
cards could be combined into one (Oh goodie, if I lose one card, I lose
EVERYTHING!).

~~~
lifeformed
Well, you generally lose everything either way anyways. I would imagine most
people lose their entire wallet, instead of just a single card.

------
GeorgeMac
Check out the privacy policy:
[https://www.plastc.com/legal](https://www.plastc.com/legal) These guys expect
to own every part of your information. Yet they still charge through the nose
for the tech. Have your cake and eat it why don't you.

------
beggi
This is a either a future vaporware from naïve people or a straight up scam.
Either way, I'm betting that before the tech will be good enough for this kind
of product the Apple Pay and similar products will be ubiquitous - this is
simply a faster horse.

------
pbnjay
How in the world would remote wiping a lost card work? It only supports
bluetooth from what I can find, so you'd have to be nearby?

~~~
xur17
I'm guessing it pairs with your phone, and automatically wipes once it
disconnects (maybe after some timeout).

~~~
joshstrange
I would assume the same thing, the problem is if I leave my wallet upstairs
and take my phone downstairs (breaking the BTLE tether) will it also wipe? If
so does it automatically re-load when I get back in range? If it doesn't auto-
reload then it sounds like a PITA and if it does auto-reload it sounds like a
security nightmare (Clone the BTLE MAC and get the victims phones to
unknowingly push all their charge cards to your sniffer).

~~~
pbnjay
My thoughts exactly.

------
forthefuture
How could anyone trust a company to do this after Coin sold their "preorders"
without producing a single working unit?

~~~
jkestner
You've just described the bigger startup/crowdfunding scene, my friend.
Technology is religion these days - most people aren't able to penetrate the
mysteries, and instead have faith in a positive outcome.

------
tluyben2
Unlike the scammers of Coin, these guys might have thought a bit further.
Unfortunately this looks too ambitious. We have been making these kind of
cards for years (for other companies) and know what kind of things you can
cannot do currently; you _can_ actually do this technically, but you'll be in
a lot of pain getting this mass-produced. Let alone the things like patents,
certification and adding 3rd party cards to it (oh the hell...); all politics
& money. Good luck anyway.

------
scald
Seems like most people who will opt for "payments 2.0" will just wait for
Apple Pay and Google Wallet to be more mainstream. Especially with wearables
in the mix.

------
joshstrange
I pre-ordered Coin and have signed up for the beta and while this card seems
to be much cooler (and 3x more expensive) I feel like Coin has a better chance
of making it to market. Their idea and product just seems more "do-able" than
this.

It's easy to throw up a list of tech specs on a website, it's a lot harder to
actually ship those features. I'm highly skeptical of their support for chip-
and-pin. In my (uneducated on this matter) mind it seems like the ability to
do this undermines a large security consideration with chip-and-pin. What's to
stop a crook from swiping my card on his reader? Does this not just make it
all the easier to clone cards?

Also the battery life is an annoyance. Not one that I couldn't live with (I
look at my Pebble and Pulse battery levels every few days to determine if I
need to plug it up at night) but Coin's approach to this problem seems
cleaner. Coin was a reach for me, this is way out of what I would spend to
"fix" this problem. Also as other's have said with Apple Pay entering the fray
Coin is rapidly losing its appeal as neither Coin nor this card offer the
consumer protection that Apple Pay does (like not giving them your real CC
number).

~~~
nathanm412
Coin doesn't handle the chip and pin problem at all for the moment. Even they
say that the next version of the card will work with chip and pin. As far as
the battery is concerned, Coin will just stop working after two years. At
least with this card, it will be rechargeable, even if I have to do it
monthly.

My biggest concern would be pre-ordering anything like this for the time
being. I was left pretty jaded with Coin promising for a year that they were
running on time with shipping. Summer 2014 came and went and they finally
admitted just two weeks after the previous update that they wouldn't be able
to make it for at least another 6 months. Now this product is advertising a
more advanced feature set to be released at around the same time. I wouldn't
bet on it.

~~~
joshstrange
I too am jaded by Coin's delays (though after a year of Soylent delays, each
one promising delivery "next month", I guess I should know better). As for the
battery life I really don't expect to still be using the same Coin in 2 years.
I imagine I will have an upgraded Chip & Pin version or just be using Apple
Pay by then. I fear that all of these card-replacement solutions will be
downed out by things like Apple Pay (I assume other companies will introduce
competing services, and no Google Wallet is not a competing service IMHO). I
might be able to get a Coin refund but I'm not a huge fan of pulling funding
from them (even if it's only $50) and I still think it's a nifty idea. I'm
still very much so looking forward to getting my Coin sometime in December
(supposed to ship by the end of November), that is of course if they stick to
that timetable.

------
skorecky
Wow, this will certainly give Coin
([https://onlycoin.com/](https://onlycoin.com/)) a run for their money.

~~~
brentm
I can't help to think this and Coin are each a solution in search of a
problem. Do you know many people that use more than 3 cards regularly? If the
norm was to have so many cards they barely fit in your wallet this would be
perfect.

~~~
atourgates
Well - I carry 3, and would carry 7 if I wasn't trying to slim down my wallet.

Those 3 are:

* An personal AMEX cashback card, that gives me a very nice 5% back in certain categories, and 1% back on everything else.

* A Visa Airline miles card, for places that don't take AMEX or travel spending where I earn 2x or more miles.

* A business Visa credit card for the business my wife owns.

The other cards I'd carry if I wasn't annoyed by a thick wallet are:

* A Costco AMEX that gives me extra cashback at Costco.

* A couple store-specific Visa cards that give me nice benefits at stores where I shop at least semi-regularly.

* A work credit card for my work.

I'm a bit of a miles/cashback junkie, but I'll bet many people have at least a
few cards they'd like to consolodate. The average American family has 8.

Like I said in another comment, I'd be thrilled if I could replace all those
with one card, and I'd be happy to pay what Plastc is asking if it worked. But
the most likely scenario I see for that happening is mobile payments a'la
ApplePay.

~~~
jrockway
I'm not a junkie, but I still have three cards:

One I use for everything, until their idiotic fraud department is confused as
to how I'm spending money in Chicago after taking a flight to Chicago I bought
with that card.

Another I use as a backup, for this situation.

Debit card, for extracting paper money from ATM machines.

~~~
atourgates
Oh yeah - I totally forgot about my debit card. So I guess I carry 4 and would
carry at least 8 without space constraints.

------
kvgr
Lot of comments here is how Apple pay will rule. But not everybody can or want
to buy iPhone. Or even expensive Android with NFC... That is why I think Coin
and Plastc - if little cheaper may be succesfull. I usually have 2-3 debt
cards, one credit card and I have few bonus cards for different stores - that
I do not take with me, because I like small wallet. This solves my problem.

~~~
npizzolato
> But not everybody can or want to buy iPhone. Or even expensive Android with
> NFC...

You can't afford an expensive phone, but you can afford to spend $155 for the
convenience of not carrying around 3-4 additional cards?

------
seanmccann
Really cool, but I can't help but think this is too little too late. With
Apple Pay set to launch this month, this feels lackluster.

------
archagon
I hate to be so cynical, but product names nowadays are bordering on parody.
And what's with the poor special effects in the background video? The e-ink
display doesn't even line up with the card when it moves! You'd think they'd
put just a little more work into that, since it's the first thing people see.

------
theuri
Looks interesting. Was thinking of waiting until a v2 just to let them work
through security issues. Seems like the website itself has some front-end
glitches - like the "About" page for example (this code visible: <?php if(
extension_loaded(‘newrelic’) ) { echo newrelic_get_browser_timing_header(); }
?>)

~~~
sleepycal
Sorry yeah my bad, was in the middle of re-writing git history when this got
pushed, took a few minutes to revert :) No security problems on frontend, in
fact it was the parser protections which kicked in, preventing <?php from
parsing etc.

~~~
theuri
Cool thanks - like the website and glad to hear you fixed it so quickly.

------
leni536
I think something like this should replace credit cards used today (or at
least having it as an option seeing the price). Authentication on the card
could be extremely useful and secure. They should ditch the magnetic stripe
tho, it's completely insecure, use only the chip.

Situations: 1) someone steals your pin code (there are overlay devices for
ATMs, could happen), after that they steal your card (they can't clone it
since it does not have a magnetic stripe). They can't use it since it has
locked itself (default state being locked, unlock before transactions).

2) Buy something online, specify that you buy with plastc, it guides you to a
challenge response authentication page. Type the challenge in the card, type
back the response to the page. They hack the site, get every credit card info
and your money on your bank account remains safe.

------
api
Cool at first glance but I do have skeptical questions:

(1) Durability was my biggest question -- how much flex and bend can this
thing survive? How about being chewed on by a toddler, put through the washer
and dryer (high heat), taken into a hot tub by mistake, dropped and stepped on
with hard-sole shoes, etc.

(2) Ditto the other skeptical questions re: chip and pin.

(3) How big is the niche for this? I mean, I only have one debit card I use
routinely and one credit card I use rarely. Carrying two plastic cards is not
that big of a deal. I wouldn't pay $155 just to merge them into one card that
can run out of battery power.

(4) Speaking of recharge... now there's another device I need to plug in or
otherwise mate with some kind of charger? No thanks.

------
lziz
The moment they said "you recharge it" I closed the video

~~~
apetresc
What were you expecting?

------
fataliss
Like a lot of my fellow news hacker I preordered coin and was still waiting
for it until today. Today I asked a refund. Between Apple Pay, Bitcoins and
all the other payments technologies coming up I'm less and less convinced that
my problem is to carry 2 cards in my wallet. I realized that my problem is to
have to carry a wallet. I might end up buying the Coin or this fancy Plastc,
but really I don't need it at all.

------
iamleppert
Does anyone else get the idea this is just a turbo-charged horse and buggy?
Have they actually done market research beyond "oh that's cool" to "I actually
have pain pulling out a separate card?"

It seems like they are making an age-old start-up mistake. Swift death to the
founders so they can move on to something far more interesting than a re-
imagined credit card.

------
johlindenbaum
With chip & pin (and the October 2015 deadline for the US to switch to chip &
pin) this is awesome, and might actually make it up to Canada, where we've
moved onto NFC and chip & pin.

I have a sneaky feeling that Coin's long radio silence and pushed ship dates
are them re-engineering to have chip & pin at launch.

------
Mandatum
How does Chip and Pin work? Do they cut your existing card's out? I very much
doubt they can clone the Chip..

------
shanselman
All this money being spent on magstripes. Let's just move to chip and pin
(coming Oct 2015) and move on.

------
eridius
This looks kind of neat, but the mere idea of needing to charge my credit card
seems kind of ludicrous.

------
bravo22
Reprogrammable stripes have been around for a while, and while this is a more
attractive implementation the new EMV rollout (accelerated likely by the
recent card breaches) will make this impractical. You can't reprogram an EMV.

------
niix
I do agree that the process of selecting a card on the device is a bit more
tedious than just pulling one of my 3 cards out. But the idea of having less
bulk in my wallet - or - not caring one at all is pretty exciting.

------
lennel
As someone who frequently travels all over Africa, I would want a secure
password on this. If this card gets stolen without such a password it would
mean the thieves can empty out several of my cc accounts.

~~~
alexhawdon
If they don't mess up the implementation then it would appear to be _more_
secure than traditional cards. Especially in places like Africa (I assume) and
the US where Chip and Pin has yet to be rolled out.

I appreciate the point you're making in that stealing this one card is
equivalent to stealing a whole wallet-full. But isn't it usually the case that
you lose the whole wallet in one go?

~~~
porsupah
Actually, according to this worldwide map of card and terminal EMV deployment,
Africa/ME had chip & pin tech, as of Q4 2013, in 38.9% of cards and 86.3% of
terminals.

[http://www.emvco.com/images/EMVCo_WorldMap-9-2014.png](http://www.emvco.com/images/EMVCo_WorldMap-9-2014.png)

The other regions are:

(Region/percentage of cards/percentage of terminals)

Americas (excluding USA): 54.2 84.7 Europe: 81.6 99.9 Australasia: 17.4 71.7
Russia: 24.4 91.2

~~~
alexhawdon
That's fantastic! Thanks for the information and apologies for making
assumptions (dangerous things!).

------
alex_doom
I still prefer American cash. Besides, half the places in SF are cash only.

------
songgao
A little bit off-topic: Would it make sense to use something like this for
GPG? It feels safer than fingerprint to me and it's definitely better than
those smart card readers that with keypads.

------
sneak
If the card presented by the customer can show the picture and signature for
authentication, my hacked plastc will show my picture and signature along with
my fraudulent magstripe.

It's security theater...

------
gknoy
If your bank allows generation of one-time-use temporary CC numbers, you could
load this up with a bunch of them, and have any fraud be limited to the number
you have left unused. Cool!

------
wil421
What is the difference between plastc and Coin? And why would I use this over
Apple pay?

Will retails at the mall accept these cards? Usually the bigger chains are
picky about credit/debt cards.

------
themoonbus
These all-in-one cards are expensive, and in an awkward space between
traditional plastic cards and technologies like Apple Pay and Google Wallet.

I really can't see these things taking off.

------
nchuhoai
Am I the only one who thinks their use of the e-ink display is super friggin'
cool? I'm personally not aware of may other use cases beyond e-readers.

~~~
fudged71
Google "smartphone e-ink case", there seem to be a few of these. Very cool.

------
talltofu
I am leery of pre-ordering unproven but fancy looking items given the history
of many kickstarter projects. I would love to buy one if they actually make
one.

------
mgrpowers
I don't think I want to charge my card every night. That seems to render the
added convenience invalid. Also, not a viable option for traveling.

------
ck2
I had to check if it was april fools.

No way you could make something as thin as a real credit card do all this in
2015 and have a battery, etc.

Maybe by 2020, but not yet.

------
zshprompt
I love it, if they steal this card they stole all my cards, even the ones not
in my wallet. Yey. Now I get to cancel them ALL.

------
mpg33
I feel this product would just be a short stopover until mobile payments start
to gain traction.

------
rsync
Product description describes remotely wiping from your mobile phone ...

How do they propose doing that ?

~~~
adamnemecek
It appears that your data is stored on your phone. So I think that the
sentence "Completely wipe your card data from your phone." doesn't mean that
you will remotely delete data from your lost card using your phone but delete
data from your lost phone using some other device. But yeah, it is very
ambiguous.

~~~
throwaway234
From reading the front page and only blog post, I gathered it is paired with
bluetooth to your phone, and you set a timeout before self-destruct.

So if you set an hour, if your card hasn't been paired with your phone in over
an hour it can erase itself. The phone probably rewrites the data as soon as
it identifies the card again and the pin is entered.

------
dmritard96
so, my main question is where would I source the ble chip that is this thin? I
know its probably just a rendering to test the market but it would be nice to
be able to source some of the supposed parts in this thing.

------
sdegutis
Am I the only person here who still prefers to carry a wallet and pay with
cash?

~~~
chrisseaton
I hate cash and can't wait until it's gone forever. I hate wasting time
getting it out of the bank, I hate having to make sure I have enough at all
times, I hate the crappy little coins I get back in change, I hate not being
able to track where my money went easily.

------
reledi
I find the promotional video incredibly well made. Anyone know who made it?

------
tschellenbach
I really doubt the future of replacing cards is a smarter card :)

------
chadrs
Look, everyone! Cool tech in need of an actual problem to solve.

------
nkg
Put my credit card on charge ? Really ? No, I'm out.

------
vonnik
Plastc is using an open-source checkout: [https://github.com/airbrite/diy-
checkout](https://github.com/airbrite/diy-checkout)

------
gearoidoc
Sweet Jesus that was an annoying promo video.

------
jarlwolfganger
bah you have to charge your this? Who in their right mind wants to add another
device to their charging mix. epic fail.

------
eqdw
So.... this is just Coin, but with e-ink?

~~~
labmixz
Well, I briefly scanned through some of the comments here, one thing I didn't
see mentioned was the fact Coin is not rechargeable, once it's dead, you are
required to buy a new Coin.

Apparently according to plastic, it is rechargeable, therefore once you buy
it, you never have to buy another. Another interesting point was it's wireless
rechargeable from the video, which is interesting.

------
godly
To good to be true.

------
jarlwolfganger
it's craptastic!

------
sagarpatil
Looks pretty rad!

------
n0rm
smells fishy

------
sdegutis
Where's the "i" in plas--- oooh, I get it.

------
kolev
Totally unrelated, but the model from the Facial Authentication video has
beautiful oceans for eyes making everyone want to drown in them...

