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I bought OJ, milk, eggs, veggies yesterday with BTC via my Shift Card. This hasn't caught on mainstream yet but the infrastructure is there, and it's growing.

I bought OJ, milk, eggs, veggies yesterday with BTC via my Shift Card. This hasn't caught on mainstream yet but the infrastructure is there, and it's growing. https://www.shiftpayments.com/card https://www.shiftpayments.com/card

richardknop 9y ago
The fees are quite high for that card. And you are not paying with BTC. If it's a debit card then you have to have fiat in a bank account. I guess they exchange BTC to USD when you top up your shift card.
- colecut 9y ago
  Can you please elaborate on what fees are high? I paid $10 for the card. $0.00 annual fee $0.00 Domestic transactions BTC is converted to fiat at the time of purchase, also with no fee, no need to "top up" the shift card..
  - ac29 9y ago
    >BTC is converted to fiat at the time of purchase, also with no fee Shift appears to use Coinbase for its BTC->Fiat needs. Coinbase charges exchange fees [0]. Or am I not understanding how the card works? [0]https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/2109597 https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/210959...
  - richardknop 9y ago
    International fees are high. But also conversion from BTC to USD is not for free. Whoever is doing the conversion is charging a fee. Probably as part of exchange rate where they add a markup. So you don't see an explicit fee in your statement but they use little worse exchange rate and that is their cut. Also whoever is their payment processor (whoever they partnered with to print those debit cards as they don't have license to do it themselves) is charging some fees.
    - colecut 9y ago
      I could be wrong, but I haven't seen any evidence of these fees. Coinbase charges a 1.49% fee when transferring to/from my Bank changing between USD and BTC. GDAX, which is owned by Coinbase, does not appear to charge me this fee. I don't see evidence of the Shift card charging it either.
acdha 9y ago
Did the merchant receive payment in BTC? If not, how does that count as infrastructure? If it looks like a debit card using USD over Visa's network for the real transaction, the Bitcoin part could be replaced at any time and none of the blockchain selling points would appear to be relevant.

richardknop 9y ago

The fees are quite high for that card. And you are not paying with BTC. If it's a debit card then you have to have fiat in a bank account. I guess they exchange BTC to USD when you top up your shift card.

colecut 9y ago
Can you please elaborate on what fees are high? I paid $10 for the card. $0.00 annual fee $0.00 Domestic transactions BTC is converted to fiat at the time of purchase, also with no fee, no need to "top up" the shift card..
- ac29 9y ago
  >BTC is converted to fiat at the time of purchase, also with no fee Shift appears to use Coinbase for its BTC->Fiat needs. Coinbase charges exchange fees [0]. Or am I not understanding how the card works? [0]https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/2109597 https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/210959...
- richardknop 9y ago
  International fees are high. But also conversion from BTC to USD is not for free. Whoever is doing the conversion is charging a fee. Probably as part of exchange rate where they add a markup. So you don't see an explicit fee in your statement but they use little worse exchange rate and that is their cut. Also whoever is their payment processor (whoever they partnered with to print those debit cards as they don't have license to do it themselves) is charging some fees.
  - colecut 9y ago
    I could be wrong, but I haven't seen any evidence of these fees. Coinbase charges a 1.49% fee when transferring to/from my Bank changing between USD and BTC. GDAX, which is owned by Coinbase, does not appear to charge me this fee. I don't see evidence of the Shift card charging it either.

acdha 9y ago

Did the merchant receive payment in BTC? If not, how does that count as infrastructure? If it looks like a debit card using USD over Visa's network for the real transaction, the Bitcoin part could be replaced at any time and none of the blockchain selling points would appear to be relevant.