by Daniel Taylor
April 2023
Could a crypto debit card help you put your crypto to use?
Only a few years ago, the process of selling and spending cryptocurrency wasn’t just slow… it was glacial. Customers would need to jump laboriously from one app to another, transferring coins from their wallet to their exchange platform and over to their current account. The tedious process could take five working days or more. By the time customers received their money in their bank account, the thing they wanted to buy could have sold out, incurred a late fee or gone wildly out of fashion! Something needed to be done to make spending crypto easier and a lot faster. That’s where crypto debit cards come in. A relatively new addition to most people’s virtual and physical purses and wallets, they give crypto owners the freedom to spend online and in-store without the hassle of yesteryear.
In this article, we’ll uncover what crypto cards are, why people are using them and how you can get your hands on a Zumo card.
What is a crypto debit card?
You probably carry a debit card around with you already, a rectangular plastic card issued by your bank with a long number, expiry date and three-digit security number. A crypto debit card looks no different – except perhaps, a little sleeker. A crypto debit card may be a physical plastic card or – since we’re talking about the age of digital money after all – it may be a purely virtual card you hold in your digital wallet.
Just like any traditional debit card, you can use a crypto debit card to fulfil all your shopping needs. For example, with the Zumo virtual card, you can pay online anywhere that accepts Visa – which, with Visa active in 200+ countries or territories and covering more than 80 million merchant locations, is most places.
What makes a crypto debit card different is that instead of being linked to your bank account, the payment is instantly taken from your crypto platform or wallet. Simple!
As with any debit card, you’ll need to ensure you have enough funds in your account to pay for your shopping.
Why are people using crypto debit cards?
In a word, convenience.
Over the past years, cryptocurrency has exploded in popularity, especially among Millennials and Gen-Zs who now account for a whopping 94% of crypto buyers (Source: stilt.com). But these are also the groups with the highest levels of debt. While they clearly see the benefits of investing in crypto, they also need to have the option of spending some of it from time to time.
This is especially true for under-banked regions. Research from Morning Consult, for example, estimated that a staggering 30% of Latin Americans held crypto assets at the start of 2022. That figure could now be even higher.
As crypto becomes more globally mainstream, it just makes sense to offer people a secure and effortless way to spend it.
How can you get a Zumo Virtual Visa debit card?
If you already have a crypto wallet with us and would like to have a debit card too, the process is straightforward. Simply head to the settings in your app and tap “upgrade”. From there you can decide if you’d like to have a Visa card for just £2 a month or £20 for the year. Once you’ve confirmed, your sparkling new virtual card will be set up and ready to go in your Zumo wallet.
When it comes to making payments, it’s equally hassle-free. Simply exchange as much or as little of your crypto coins into your preferred local currency and pay online using your virtual card details. Easy!
Please note that, at the time of writing, the Zumo virtual card supports pound sterling (GBP) only, and you must be a UK resident to sign up for the card.
What does the future look like for crypto debit cards?
Today, there are two types of crypto-linked cards, debit and credit. Crypto credit cards are usually bank-issued credit cards which offer crypto incentives. Both card types are expected to bloom and flourish over the coming years, with experts predicting a year-on-year growth of 59% up to 2029.
Payments giant – and Zumo’s partner – Visa has been at the forefront of the crypto card movement. In the first months of 2022, the corporation reported that $2.5 billion had already been spent using crypto-backed cards. For context, that’s 70% of the entire crypto volume of 2021. Clearly, the trend is snowballing. By now, as crypto cards dramatically pick up speed, the number of transactions and amount of spending is likely to be far higher. Some copycat products are even starting to emerge among other investment platforms, for example, several gold trading apps are now offering debit cards too. Crypto debit cards are soon likely to become a staple in everyday purses and smartphones. Spending is no longer glacial; on the contrary, it’s zooming and snowballing into the future.
