Bitwala Cards Canceled With Zero Days Notice, Users Left With Locked Funds
In what seems to be the be the beginning of a "crypto versus plastic war", Bitwala, a major Bitcoin prepaid debit card operator, sent a strange email to their clients, stating that theirVISA debit cards are cancelled immediately.
Yesterday our Bitwala Card issuer WaveCrest Holdings Ltd received direction from Visa Europe to immediately suspend all Bitwala cards effective immediately. Unfortunately, neither Visa nor WaveCrest were able to provide us or you with more time to prepare for this announcement.
There are no other details for now, but I find it strange that the funds recovering email - which Bitwala accepts to be sent - has to be directed to WaveCrest Holdings, on behalf of Bitwala.
A quick search on Twitter revealed that other card providers are in the same situation:
The whole situation seems to be an issue between Visa and WaveCrest Holdings but it's not yer clear what exactly is the issue.
This sudden cancellation will most likely send cold waves through the entire crypto world.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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If you're new to Steemit, you may find these articles relevant (that's also part of my witness activity to support new members of the platform):
STEEM.supply is not loading for me. Are you updating something?
Yes, but can't seem to access any decent content nodes, there must have been some sort of an upgrade.
I hope you can fix it soon ;-) I love and need this site. It feels weird without it.
Check my latest reply to one of your posts. I sent you code display in Browser
I answered to your reply. The code was me debugging the site. It's under vey high load now.
Except of Monaco - luckily I own a big chunk of MCO's myself. Let's see where this takes me.. :)
In the same direction eventually?
This was a first for me that crypto can be used to buy goods via a debit card. I know MCO but thought it is just fiat with a potential earning in crypto. I may have missed the part that MCO can be exchanged for fiat? Thanks.
Ouch, there are many other companies that provide cards, I am looking to get one, but things like this stop me so far
bad news, but seems there was only 1 true campaign who worked with visa, and all others was sucking worms with %, we need more diversify
Wow that’s messed up. I’m thinking it has to do with Visa and other big bank players that are afraid of this emerging technology that removes their control on the global marketplace. I’m just so happy to have found the blockchain in its still infancy state. When wide adoption happens it will upturn every single industry - welcome to Web 3.0!
Welp, this is quite bad. I hope its only a temporary issue. I was really keen on using these prepaid cards when I go to college soon.
So far, the markets haven't been affected by this news but I think not many people are aware of it yet. Also, most people are HODLers and don't actually use their crypto to buy stuff or use it as a currency like its supposed to be used. Sad to see something so revolutionary being used mainly as an investment.
Right when the crypto started to grow again, that's great....
Will steemit suffer through the same if/when they issue a debit card?
Probably yes. Card providers have a huge advantage in negotiation: the ATM / merchant infrastructure. They can let pass through that infrastructure only what they want.
the market doesn't seem to care at the moment.
Btw steemsuply doesn't seem to be working.
Nope, it's not, because content nodes aren't working and I haven't set up my own yet. Blockchain size way over the 200 GB SSD storage I put together, waiting on my 1TB SSD to arrive.
Do you have an ETA?
For the HDD, 5-6 days to arrive, then to setup the whole thing, probably another 2-3. Until then, I'm relying on other nodes.
Thanks for the heads up.