
Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted - ntomaino
https://blog.coinbase.com/2015/11/20/introducing-the-shift-card/
======
largehotcoffee
I cannot recommend Coinbase at all. I operate an adult comic book publisher
and they shutdown our account without notice and gave no real reason for their
action. All support tickets took 3 - 5 days to get a reply and it was always
unhelpful.

For a company like ours the whole appeal of Bitcoin is the anonymity, so our
readers don't have to worry about buying lewd comics and having it show up on
their statements. Coinbase tarnishes what Bitcoin stands for and they do not
protect artists/publishers.

Edit: For transparency here is my back and forth with their support
([http://imgur.com/CHeAEPP](http://imgur.com/CHeAEPP)) and the link to one of
our books on Amazon I shared
([http://www.amazon.com/dp/1634420241/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1634420241/)
[NSFW]). Ironically I've been waiting on a reply from them for 22 days and
counting. They have about $5,000 in our disabled account along with all our
customer/order information that we can't access.

Do not use Coinbase.

~~~
barmstrong
Coinbase CEO here, I can sympathize that this was probably frustrating but I
think it stems from a misunderstanding about the service that Coinbase
provides. In a purely bitcoin to bitcoin world, this sort of transaction would
not be an issue and you wouldn't have a risk of an account being closed. But
you're not trying to do a purely bitcoin transaction here - you are trying to
_exchange_ bitcoin into your local currency and put the funds in your bank
account (this is what we offer with our merchant tools).

To offer this service, we (Coinbase) work with those bank rules and that is
why you are seeing our service act much like the traditional financial world.
You might not like this, but we didn't make those rules, and it is the only
way I know of that works if you want to exchange bitcoin in the traditional
financial world. (John's answer from the support thread you linked also
explains this).

Accepting purely bitcoin-to-bitcoin payments would be one solution that might
work for this if that is what you want (there are plenty of other solutions
other than Coinbase for this). I should mention that we are probably at fault
for marketing it more as a bitcoin wallet vs an exchange which has different
implications to people (I think this is part of the reason for the confusion).

Finally, I believe you may be mistaken that you can't access the $5k in funds.
Are you sure? This page describes our policy on that topic:
[https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/190568...](https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/1905680-does-
coinbase-freeze-accounts-)

~~~
largehotcoffee
I appreciate the response, but honestly I’m still disappointed. You have an
opportunity here to create a new breed of payment processor and you are
squandering it. I’m sure Coinbase is successful, but is that all you want? Are
you okay being just _another_ payment processor that happens to accept
Bitcoin?

I am quite familiar with banks having varying levels of comfort with different
industries (ours being adult comics), but that didn’t stop us from finding
banks that were okay with what we publish and working with them. You should
have relationships with multiple banks for situations like this. The fact that
your company is locked into a bank that can arbitrarily deny merchant
accounts, based on how comfortable they are with each business, is concerning.

More concerning is the fact that the first support email we received tried to
pass our account closure off as a FinCEN issue, which only showed how little
research was put into our case before the account was closed. How much effort
is put into defending your merchants in situations like this?

Instead of closing accounts of small publishers or artists you should be
defending them. You’d no doubt have a lot more adamant supporters. If you
really do care, and you’re not just commenting to save face, I encourage you
to reach out to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
([http://cbldf.org/](http://cbldf.org/)). They provide legal support and
counsel for censorship issues like this. They have legally defended countless
adult publishers, artists, and readers over the years.

As the CEO of Coinbase you have the resources to make a difference and fix
situations like this for the future. Don’t be afraid to stand up and defend
merchants, publishers, artists, or whoever else decides to use your service.
If you want to be another payment processor that’s fine, but you could be so
much more.

~~~
barmstrong
Response:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/3u68oo/coinbase_ceo_re...](https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/3u68oo/coinbase_ceo_responds_to_a_merchant/)

------
drcode
Just a reminder to Bitcoin newbies:

This card looks like an OK product (still open questions about how much
coinbase is gaming the ask/bid spread) but just realize that this card does
NOT use Bitcoin, it uses "Coinbase Bitcoin"[1] which is Bitcoin for which the
coinbase company is managing your private key: You only truly own Bitcoins if
you own the private key for the account (users of MtGox learn this the hard
way last year)

I do think Coinbase also offers a safer multisig account where you own an
independent key and no one, including Coinbase, can withdraw money without
your permission (was it called "Coinbase Vault?") If you put the majority of
your funds in that independent system (or just keep them off Coinbase
entirely) and put money in peace-meal to load up your coinbase Visa card you
will greatly reduce your exposure to third-party risks.

[1] Reading the documents, it actually uses "Coinbase USD" which is the same
difference.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Well no you're not really using bitcoin, not even Coinbase bitcoin. At the end
of the day the creditcard simply uses a normal credit card transaction, which
is denominated in dollars and paid for by Coinbase, in dollars, to the
merchant.

All Coinbase does is 1) make sure you enough bitcoin to cover the transaction
2) sell your bitcoin to recoup the dollars they're paying on your behalf to
the merchant

None of this has anything to do with the blockchain or bitcoin as a
technology. It's purely a practical product to make it a bit easier to make
payments when you have a lot of money stored in bitcoin. I doubt it'll be
anything significant, various other players like Xapo did this in a similarly
reasonably professional manner and none of that blew up, either.

The reason it's not all that interesting is 1) again, it has nothing to do
with bitcoin/blockchain 2) you need to store your bitcoin at a centralised
company, essentially creating the equivalent of a traditional bank or
financial service with the same issues and with no real extra benefits 3) it
solves none of the myriad of security and fraud issues that have plagued
creditcards we've had for decades (creditcards are basically plastic sheets of
text, the text being the password to your money vault, and you have to hand it
over all the time to make payments. It's an insane security premise) 4) it's
actually pretty expensive, not only are creditcards expensive (both due to
fraud and because you're putting profit into the pockets of a middleman), but
on top you're essentially doing a forex currency conversion (in this case
bitcoin -> usd) everytime you make a payment.

They're advertising 'no fees' at the moment, of course that's not structural.
In fact I'm a bit surprised that legal gave the OK to charge customers $10 for
a product without communicating usage fees for said product on any specific
timeline whatsoever, normally that's guaranteed trouble & customer complaints
down the line. That's like your ISP charges you $100 to install your internet
connection, then says 'no monthly internet fees for a limited time'. You can
bet your ass it'll turn into a gigantic mess a few months later when you
suddenly start charging usage fees.

Still, I welcome it. Making bitcoin more pragmatic for mainstream users is
something I applaud. I just don't have high expectations for this particular
product.

~~~
Symbiote
> creditcards are basically plastic sheets of text

Looking again at the site, there's no chip on the card. I thought the USA had
finally introduced these — did I misunderstand something?

(All my cards have had chips for over 10 years.)

~~~
amyjess
Slowly, one bank at a time.

When I legally changed my name last year, I got all new credit cards. Only two
of my new cards have chips.

Earlier this year, one card expired, and the new card has a chip. A couple of
months ago, one of my cards was compromised by identity theft, and the
replacement they sent me has a chip. Both of those were still chipless after I
changed my name, so it must've been a recent change.

Also, I applied for yet another card, and this one has a chip.

------
ewillbefull
You can now use Bitcoin anywhere VISA is accepted, so long as coinbase doesn't
close your account, ignore you and close all the tickets you open. Even if you
painstakingly collect and compile sensitive documents for them to review,
which was a gigantic waste of my time, thanks!

I have for months encouraged everyone I know not to use coinbase and will
continue to do so.

~~~
adrianmacneil
This might be a silly question, but did you use your Coinbase account to
conduct any illegal transactions? The team there really cares about customer
experience, so generally if they are ignoring you it's because your account
has some connection to illegal/banned activity, which they can't disclose due
to ridiculous financial laws.

~~~
ewillbefull
They only appear to care about the customer experience when someone complains
on social media, until then they have a history of being jerks to their users.

They closed my account after I made a (relatively small) wire transfer after
not using their service for a while. The year before I made much larger
transfers that didn't seem to concern them. Suddenly I needed to provide them
with lots of financial information.

The law sucks and I don't blame them for this. But I have provided them with
more than enough information to prove all of my income is legitimate,
including years of tax forms regarding the income and other crap they
absolutely did not need to look at.

What bugs me is that they continued to ask me for this information, which took
time for me to compile for them, and they ignored me anyway after I provided
everything.

Another thing that bugs me is that (they claim) their support desk software is
the most secure method of sending them sensitive documents. Ridiculous. The
icing on the cake will be when their system is hacked and I lose a lot of
important documents that I was under the impression they would be removing,
but clearly haven't.

~~~
mbesto
But....did you use your Coinbase account to conduct any illegal transactions?
You didn't answer a very straight forward question.

~~~
gknoy
> I have provided them with more than enough information to prove all of my
> income is legitimate

That seems like a roundabout way of saying, "No, I did not conduct any illegal
transactions".

~~~
tw04
You can buy drugs with legitimate income. The fact he didn't directly say no
the first or second time says the answer is probably yes.

~~~
ewillbefull
That's a dumb, deliberate misreading of my comment and a ridiculous jump to
conclusions. I have done nothing illegal.

I said clearly that I made _one_ transaction (a wire transfer) and I said
clearly that they questioned me on my income. Their concern is "where did you
get your money" to which I answered them thoroughly.

~~~
mirimir
I had no idea that KYC now has such onerous proof of income requirements. It's
mind boggling.

------
Tortoise
"The default PIN is the last four digits of your registered mobile phone
number. Please call Shift support at 800-897-0717 to reset your Shift Card
pin."

That's a terrible idea. This isn't a library card. You're PIN shouldn't be
known by anyone who knows your phone number.

~~~
TomGullen
That's pretty horrendous. Should be inactive until you activate it, or
randomly generated and displayed to you securely in some way.

~~~
ShiftPayments
The card actually is inactive until you activate it once it arrives

~~~
celticninja
but if someone intercepts your mail, then they know your address and could
possibly know your phone number. How secure is the activation process?

Why dont you send the card and PIN out separately like a bank?

~~~
nacs
> but if someone intercepts your mail, then they know your address and could
> possibly know your phone number. How secure is the activation process

Every "normal" credit and debit card I've received in the mail has used this
same procedure -- call a number on a removable sticker stuck to the card to
activate it where the only verification is the phone number you're calling
from (and caller ID is easily faked).

How is this any worse than how every other card activates?

And how do you propose they get around the mail interception problem? Have a
courier deliver it to you and place it in your hand?

~~~
kuschku
Holy shit, that’s horrible.

Where I am, PIN and Card arrive in different letters, and the Card letter is
only sent once you confirmed via your online banking interface (which uses
2FA) that you received the PIN letter. And you need to confirm online in your
banking interface to have received the card to be able to use it.

~~~
bpicolo
For credit cards in the US you virtually never use a PIN. Debit cards only

~~~
simantel
That's changing as of this month. Most banks have already issued new chip
cards, which require a PIN. If a merchant is still using the old swipe and
sign system, now they'll be liable for any fraudulent transactions if the
customer has a chip card.

~~~
hollerith
All of the new chip cards in the US I've read about are signature only. It was
decided that the US consumer would dislike the added complication of needing
to use PIN.

I'd like a chip card that requires a PIN (and that is accepted widely in the
US) because such a card would make unauthorized charges less likely after the
card is lost or stolen, but was not able to find one.

~~~
doppelganger27
I have a US chip card where I've set a PIN for transaction purposes, so it's
not signature only, but it'll still accept both. That said, all of the chip
card readers that I've used (few and far between still...) seem to have been
configured for signature only, so I haven't been prompted for my PIN yet.

~~~
hollerith
Thanks for clarifying. I agree that my "signature only" was inaccurate.

------
Uptrenda
I've always found it ironic how companies like Coinbase are indirectly
contributing to their own destruction with every passing transaction that's
not purely based around Bitcoin. This is of course: assuming that Bitcoin gets
as big as a lot of people think it will. If it does: their increased focus on
centralization and traditional fintech services (which is completely
incompatible with the philosophy behind Bitcoin) is like shorting the entire
currency on a long position, and will eventually be unsustainable. But I guess
if they're right: all they're doing is profiting from the hype. If we look at
what Bitcoin actually is, companies like Coinbase couldn't be further apart
from what they're actually selling (philosophy, economics, and
technologically) so I consider them nothing more than a bunch of hypocrites.

I wonder what it's like working for a company that's so obviously full of
shit? How would you reconcile the obvious contradictions in what you're doing
every day? I guess it would be kind of like working at the ministry of truth
and then getting paid directly in lies.

~~~
adrianmacneil
As someone who used to work at Coinbase, hopefully I can shed some light on
this.

First of all, Bitcoin should not be seen primarily as a currency, but as a
protocol. Therefore, bitcoin does not need to increase in value for it to be
successful, and in the long term the price is irrelevant. Bitcoin can be used
as a medium of exchange without regard to the price, and many people at
Coinbase believe in this future (rather than bitcoin becoming a widely used
currency held directly by end users, at least in the near future).

Secondly, many people at Coinbase believe deeply in the decentralized (and
potentially anonymous/privacy-focused) aspects of using bitcoin as a currency
(myself included). However, bitcoin cannot be successful as a currency unless
it is easy to exchange between bitcoin and your local currency, and bitcoin
won't gain worldwide acceptance until it is easy to (a) exchange bitcoin and
(b) spend bitcoin. Therefore, Coinbase's primary goal is to make buying and
selling bitcoin as easy as possible, so that we can enable a future where
financial privacy is optional (versus today, where it is basically
inescapable).

~~~
woah
As a protocol, it's not great. There's a lot more flexibility in a lot of the
new consensus protocols coming out that can run Turing-complete contracts etc.
Look at all the hoops that need to be jumped through to do stuff like colored
coins, payment channels, etc. in Bitcoin vs protocols with smart contracts.

Anyway, that's irrelevant. If Bitcoin is for some reason the best protocol to
be used, why would someone want to enrich the current holders of Bitcoin (of
which I am one, by the way). Transferring value to Bitcoin necessitates buying
Bitcoins from existing Bitcoin holders, enriching them for no reason. Why
wouldn't a bank or other financial institution just start from a clean slate?

~~~
egd
Can you point me to some of the consensus protocol work? That's always seemed
to be the more interesting aspect of BTC to me, but the other requirements of
the currency have made that harder than just the smart contracts alone.

~~~
adrianmacneil
[https://www.ethereum.org/](https://www.ethereum.org/) and
[https://www.stellar.org/](https://www.stellar.org/) are two interesting ones
to check out.

~~~
Adlai
Stellar has a consensus protocol?

Last I checked, there's a single blessed node dishing out verifiable data.
It's nicer than having a remote API that just hands you a trusted number, but
it's a far cry from Nakamoto Consensus.

------
gregmac
So

* you lose the psuedo-anonymity of Bitcoin (the card has your name on it). * It's a "debit" card, so it also has none of the protection of a normal credit card (eg: if someone steals my card or over-charges or whatever, my actual money is not touched). * It's not even real Bitcoin, it requires a Coinbase account (where, from what I understand, they manage your private key, so really own your bitcoins)

What exactly is the target market for this? The people who have no credit
cards, the bulk of their cash in bitcoin, and also don't care about privacy?

I'm not into bitcoin, but even so, I am just not seeing the appeal.

~~~
soared
How else do you think this could possibly work?

>you lose the psuedo-anonymity of Bitcoin (the card has your name on it)
Nobody would ever allow anonymous card transactions. The security risks with
that alone are ridiculous.

> It's a "debit" card, so it also has none of the protection of a normal
> credit card (eg: if someone steals my card or over-charges or whatever, my
> actual money is not touched). Nope. Debit cards have protection, as does a
> coinbase account.

>It's not even real Bitcoin, it requires a Coinbase account My credit card
isn't even real money either!

>where, from what I understand, they manage your private key, so really own
your bitcoins Thats not how that works.

Its a transition between traditional cards and to new forms of money like
crypto-currency.

~~~
CPLX
> Nobody would ever allow anonymous card transactions. The security risks with
> that alone are ridiculous.

Sure they would. The gift card and reloadable/prepaid debit card market is
huge. In theory they try to avoid anonymous usage but in practice they don't.

------
AYBABTME
I'm curious what the exchange rate looks like when purchasing stuff that's not
in USD. If the conversion is the same as that of Bitcoin<->USD, then it would
make this card super useful for people who travel a lot.

What I mean is, it'd be cool if the card would do:

    
    
        - Bitcoin<->CAD
        - Bitcoin<->EUR
        - Bitcoin<->BHT
        - Bitcoin<->HKD
        - Bitcoin<->AUD

So that we wouldn't need to do:

    
    
        - Bitcoin<->USD<->CAD
        - Bitcoin<->USD<->EUR
        - Bitcoin<->USD<->BHT
        - Bitcoin<->USD<->HKD
        - Bitcoin<->USD<->AUD

~~~
Pfhreak
I'm curious if this could also be used to help with remittances. I have
several friends who emigrated from countries around the world, and they
struggle to find an easy way to remit to their parents. Bitcoin seems so
close, but it's difficult for their folks to get it converted to local
currency. The fees and hurdles they currently deal with are outrageous, and
while it looks like the shift card is US only, it seems like there may be an
opportunity here.

~~~
Symbiote
Since emigrating this summer, I've transferred about £25k ($40k) using
TransferWise and been very pleased with the way the service works. I paid far
less in fees than any other service I could find a quote for. I was concerned
that being in a small European country with its own currency would mean
payments took longer, but this wasn't the case.

They're based in the UK, and properly regulated by both the UK and US.

You get a free transfer using a referral link:
[https://transferwise.com/u/61f8ad](https://transferwise.com/u/61f8ad)

Or use the non-referral link if you prefer:
[https://transferwise.com/](https://transferwise.com/)

~~~
aianus
Seems to cost ~1% which is better than banks but still $400(!) on $40k. I use
Bitcoin to transfer money from USD to THB and get better than spot if I time
it right.

------
baby
Seems like nobody understands how this can work, or why would they do that.

Easy. You swipe your card, Coinbase pays with $, then Coinbase tries to sell
enough of the bitcoins you have there to make it even (there might be a fee).

So you need to have a bitcoin balance in Coinbase when you want to use this
card.

Now why would you do this? If you're asking yourself this question, there are
high chances you are not the target of this product.

There are a lot of people who made a lot of money in bitcoins, and who hold a
LOT of bitcoins. This is going to be an easy way for them to spend it on a
normal day-to-day basis.

~~~
mikkom
> There are a lot of people who made a lot of money in bitcoins, and who hold
> a LOT of bitcoins. This is going to be an easy way for them to spend it on a
> normal day-to-day basis.

It's a wonderful way to laundry your drug money!

~~~
Eleopteryx
As long as their business was conducted ethically, I have no problem with that
means of obtaining bitcoins.

------
cbisnett
According to the Shift Payments FAQ you must reside in one of the following
states to spend bitcoin via Coinbase: AL, AZ, CA, DE, DC, GA, ID, IA, KS, ME,
MS, NE, NV, NJ, NC, ND, OK, PA, PR, SD, TX, VT, WA, WV

[1] [https://www.shiftpayments.com/faq](https://www.shiftpayments.com/faq)

~~~
eric_h
Can't help but notice that NY is not in that list. Oh well.

~~~
tobias2014
Maybe it is because of the BitLicense?

See [http://cointelegraph.com/news/115114/localbitcoins-stops-
ser...](http://cointelegraph.com/news/115114/localbitcoins-stops-service-for-
new-york-residents) for example.

~~~
eric_h
Yeah - New York regulatory rules are rather strict - our company (based in New
York) briefly had and then lost the ability to use bitcoin on our site due to
said regulations. (Or rather, the company we were working with withdrew their
support for us).

------
TomGullen
Don't get the point of this. I'm assuming it's going to be a slightly more
expensive way of buying things with a card? As supposed to me being charged in
$, I'm assuming it exchanges some of my BTC balance for $ which is going to
come at some cost.

~~~
celticninja
I assume it uses up BTC to the value of the $ amount at coinbase exchange
rates. Whether that is the best exchange rate or not is debatable but it
probably the only way for them to be sure they dont take a hit due to
volatility.

Of course there could be some saving to the user as otherwise they may need to
sell coins (paying fees to do so) then withdraw, again paying a further fee.
So this is an immediate way to spend BTC with a merchant that does not accept
BTC.

This would be very useful for people who use bitwage to get paid in BTC.

------
esaym
I can't really find details on how this works. I assume the merchant still
receives USD in the transaction along with the typical Visa card transaction
fees. Which in that case, what is the point?

~~~
redblacktree
To be able to spend your bitcoin balance without a manual conversion and bank
transfer?

~~~
loceng
Likely a considerably higher exchange rate + fee ... but hey, who cares when
the people spending the Bitcoin are only spending it when it's likely only
much higher than they acquired it for..

~~~
ISL
That only works if someone else is buying the bitcoin at the current exchange
rate. Coinbase gets its dollars from someone to give to the merchant.

~~~
loceng
Right, however I'm sure they can float a fair amount, holding onto Bitcoin
until it's at a certain value again. So long as the scheme keeps growing..

------
k2enemy
I couldn't find any mention on the website -- does it support one time numbers
for online transactions? If not, I'd be very reluctant to use it. One breach
and your bitcoin account is gone.

~~~
antaviana
Nerver used bitcoin, but cannot you simply create another bitcoin account for
petty cash VISA transactions and transfer funds when need be?

~~~
cookiecaper
You can, but ironically, transfers are not painless in Bitcoin. It can take
over 60 minutes for a transaction to be "confirmed", meaning the network has
verified that the coins you spent were rightfully yours to spend, and there
needs to be a transaction fee attached so that miners are incentivized to
check your transaction.

Many bitcoin users prefer to generate a new incoming address for each
transaction to improve privacy (Bitcoin is "anonymous" only insofar as your
legal name is usually not directly attached to the transaction; in most other
ways, it's more traceable than the alternatives).

~~~
mynameisvlad
If you have two Coinbase accounts, transfers are immediate (since Coinbase
still owns the bitcoins, they just move them internally):
[https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en/portal/articles/139...](https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1392055-why-
can-t-i-see-my-transaction-in-the-blockchain-?t=531816)

------
DennisP
I hope they'll provide a convenient tax document covering the capital gains
for all these transactions, given the IRS ruling that even small transactions
have to be reported that way.

~~~
immad
They do output an early tax document.

------
wtsui
I used an early prototype of this card and the experience is awesome. Super
simple, it just works. App is a nice companion when you want to see the
transactions you've made. Congrats to the team on the launch!

------
luisrudge
Someone please change the title to Anywhere IN US :)

~~~
cjg
The text says "at over 38 million merchants worldwide" which seems to imply
that it isn't limited to the US in the sense in which you want to change the
title.

~~~
ShiftPayments
The card works both in the US and at merchants that accept Visa abroad!

~~~
celticninja
but is only available to US residents, of whom less than half own a passport,
so the worldwide merchant aspect is applicable to the subset of the US
population that hold bitcoin and a passport.

~~~
eric_h
> but is only available to US residents

Who live in one of 24 states. New Yorkers need not apply.

~~~
celticninja
Even smaller, I commend their ability to offer new services but it should make
it clear that this is a very limited offer.

------
r-marques
If I understand correctly it exchanges some btc to dollars in order to pay the
merchant. But this relies on 0-conf transactions, right?

~~~
jacobr1
It relies on you having a BTC wallet with coinbase - where coinbase controls
the private key.

~~~
r-marques
So with coinbase you have no control over your private key? You can only spend
your btc through coinbase?

~~~
r-marques
If this actually relies on 0-conf transactions and assuming that you have
control over your private key in coinbase, I wonder how replace-by-fee can
impact this.

------
ck2
If you wanted to use a visa card, why would even bother with bitcoin?

Or vise-versa

~~~
bachmeier
Not only that, but there's a $10 issuance fee associated with this, and based
on the announcement, there will be usage charges as well in the future. So
it's Visa + fees. As opposed to the Visa I pull out of my wallet now and use
without paying any fees.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Well, except for the 2% merchant fee of course (that's passed along to all of
us in the price)

~~~
vkou
Which you won't get a discount on if you buy with BTC.

Meanwhile, I get 1-3% cashback...

~~~
manymany
merchant fees are significantly lower given that we're talking of a debit card
_not_ a credit card

------
jcfrei
"The Shift Card is a VISA debit card that currently allows Coinbase users in
twenty-four states and territories (see list below) in the U.S. to spend
bitcoin anywhere VISA is accepted." \- So you have to live in one of the 24
states. And for California they only allow up to 1000 applicants...

~~~
ceejayoz
I wonder how that works if you move into one of the other states.

------
mrb
Oh wow I will sign up for one! I have been a Coinbase user since they started
operating, and am currently in the middle of a year-long trip around the world
so I have been looking for ways to minimize my international ATM withdrawal
fees. My US bank (Wells Fargo) charge me a flat $5.00 fee per transaction, and
my french bank (Crédit Agricole) charge me about $8.50 for the equivalent of a
~$220 withdrawal. I see that Shift has a flat fee of $3.50, so _yay_ for
beating old legacy banks! Though I am kind of sad to see that the Shift debit
card has no chip. Cards with only a magnetic track are becoming increasingly
difficult to use in countries other than the US.

Also, it's worth noting that both Shift and Coinbase are YC companies.

~~~
adrianmacneil
This might be too late since you have already left, but check out Schwab bank
- they offer free international ATM withdrawals, and will also refund any fees
added by the ATM operator. I think it's mostly a loss leader for their
brokerage business, but awesome for travelers.

------
ajarmst
Is it me, or does a requirement to provide your physical address ("Connect
your Coinbase account, Order the card by providing your physical address and
authorizing the $10 issuance fee") kind of miss some of the point about
BitCoin?

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Argentum01
Maybe I'm being naive, but I felt like bitcoin was going to free us from
credit card companies.

Wouldn't it be nice if almost-monopolies weren't able to raise prices on
everything slightly in order to fund their rigged rewards programs?

~~~
adrianmacneil
That's the end game. I think this can be seen as the bitcoin industry
following "Embrace, extend, and extinguish".

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privacy101
The only times I tried to use Coinbase to buy Bitcoins, they stopped
processing orders apparently because the Bitcoin value was fluctuating too
much, so I never got my Bitcoins... and I never used them since then.

------
desireco42
Not super related to Shift Card, but I always thought big banks are terrible
at customer service and how they treat their customers. Looking at complaints
about CoinBase and how ShiftCard is setting pin based on phone number, you get
a sense that this is all a bunch of amateurs and/or kids running the show.

Or maybe handling transactions is really hard?

Not sure what to think honestly.

------
chatmasta
Any idea why only 24 states? Is coinbase following FINCEN regulations by
filing as a money transmitter in each eligible state?

~~~
adrianmacneil
Yes, probably related to money transmission licensing (and various other state
finance laws). See
[https://www.coinbase.com/legal/licenses](https://www.coinbase.com/legal/licenses).
There may also be some restrictions at the Shift end.

~~~
chatmasta
That's an interesting competitive advantage that coinbase has. Last I read on
these laws, each license can cost ~$25k to procure. Many companies choose to
"shoot first, ask questions later" and rollout their programs without
acquiring a license in every state. For example Facebook only recently
acquired money transmitter licenses (and may not even have one in every
state), even though facebook credits / pay via facebook has been a feature for
a long time.

The cost of acquiring these licenses is competitively prohibitive to startups,
and honestly, there's no reason why it should be state by state. Money
transmitter licensing should definitely move to the federal level.

------
idibidiart
I've never used Bitcoin, although was mentioned by its original inventor on a
research list once ;).

I have met the founders at Coinbase, and their vibe was more like that of an
SF startup that will do anything to "win" and "exit big" than a world change
agent. Bitcoin needs the latter, not the former.

------
soared
Where was that thread about making financial bets based on how many negative
comments were in a HN thread?

------
automathematics
Devil's advocate: Ive had little to no problem with Coinbase for a good 80%+
of my bitcoin usage.

The only issue I had is my buy limit decreased suddenly because they added
more security I had to verify for my identity and didn't notify me. Once I
verified my ID it was instantly reinstated.

------
arbitrage314
Whenever I buy or sell bitcoins on Coinbase, I pay a lot both directly (via
coinbase commission) and indirectly (via their super wide spreads).

If I get this card, am I going to still get screwed, or will it suddenly be
cheaper to transact?

------
celticninja
will be interesting to see if they can make this available internationally.

------
Mimu
Pardon my lack of knowledge but wasn't the whole point of bitcoins being
anonymous? How are you anonymous with a card connected to an account?

I'm not trolling I really don't see what I'm missing.

~~~
__tmg
Decentralisation was (and still is) the point of Bitcoin; any additional perks
(e.g. anonymity) are emergent. Here's a quote from the original paper:

>Abstract. A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online
payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a
financial institution.

~~~
simplemath
The irony being of course is that Coinbase is literally a financial instution

but given confirmation time inherent to the network, I don't see a way around
doing something similar to what coinbase have done here (minus the egregious
part where _they hold your private key_ )

------
spilk
You don't have bitcoin if you just have a balance in Coinbase, so this debit
card really has no connection to Bitcoin at all. No transactions will reach
the blockchain when you use this card.

~~~
aianus
That's silly, that's like saying you don't have USD if all you have is a USD-
denominated deposit checking account at a bank.

~~~
spilk
That's absolutely true, though. You are trusting the bank (and the federal
insurance backing it) that when you want to draw your balance that you can.
It's no different when you have bitcoin in Coinbase.

I just can't see a scenario where buying bitcoin with USD on Coinbase and then
using a debit card to spend it in USD is better than spending USD in the first
place. Unless you buy into the pyramid-scheme "it'll be $10000 any day now"
nonsense, in which case you have no incentive to spend bitcoin anyways.

~~~
aianus
99.9% of people would disagree with you that the balance they see in their
Wells Fargo account is 'not actually USD'. In a way Coinbase BTC is closer to
BTC than Wells Fargo USD is to USD because Coinbase doesn't operate a
fractional reserve.

> I just can't see a scenario where buying bitcoin with USD on Coinbase and
> then using a debit card to spend it in USD is better than spending USD in
> the first place.

Sure, that would be silly. But imagine you're a rich Chinese kid in California
whose parents own a sweatshop in Shenzhen. To easily get around capital
controls they buy BTC in China and send it to your Coinbase account. You pay
for your day-to-day USD expenses on this card. Use your imagination.

------
crabasa
Has anyone answered the basic question of why anyone would actually use
Bitcoin as a medium of exchange when the value of Bitcoin, despite
fluctuations, is _designed_ to increase over time?

~~~
brighton36
No KYC/AML.

------
gutigen
[https://xapo.com/](https://xapo.com/) offers prepaid card which works
everywhere too and is not such corporate asshole like Coinbase.

------
RightWingRabble
Am I the only one who misread this as 'Introducing the Shit card'? For a full
two minutes, I thought this was a parody site mocking bitcoin.

------
gesman
I just ordered one.

Will report about usage, quirks and tricks.

------
maxerickson
I love it, use your bitcoin without all the hassle of making a transaction on
the blockchain.

~~~
lucaspiller
What is we could buy things without having to deal with banks? I have an
idea...

------
felon
Though this isn't PERFECT, it's better than nothing. Just my opinion.

------
madhancr
after seeing this thread I login to my coinable account since I have check it
in few months. Shocked to find my BTC balance to 0 although I had a few.
emailed support this morning and so far no response.

------
rbanffy
I guess someone will get some impressive mileage numbers.

------
kang
You still need a bank account. Beats the purpose imo.

------
keynan
Anywhere visa is excepted, by which we mean ~half the U.S. because Americans
have that much awareness of the rest of the world.

------
212d1d
Will this support Apple Pay?

------
DHJSH
I can get the same "privacy" and not be subject to arbitrary Bitcoin/Dollar
price fluctuations by simply buying Visa debit "gift cards" for cash.

~~~
trevelyan
As someone who first bought bitcoin at 8 USD, I'm quite enamored of the price
fluctuations. Considering that it will be heading into the four and five
digits relatively soon, I'm not sure this is a negative.

~~~
eximius
4 and 5 digits? Please

~~~
aianus
It's already hit 4 digits.

~~~
bduerst
So did tulips and beanie babies.

------
DHJSH
" in twenty-four States "

------
seeingfurther
Taylor Shift _chuckles_

------
songzme
if anyone wants to sign up for coinbase here's a referral link to start off
with free $10
[https://www.coinbase.com/join/songz](https://www.coinbase.com/join/songz) :)

