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Coin

• sidcool 13y ago
  The same link has been submitted thrice with different accounts and upvoted to 3 points.
  • minimaxir 13y ago
    It appears the release was embargoed for 12PM EST, so it's not surprising that people submitted simultaneously. It is surprising, however, that all of them received a significant amount of upvotes.
    • corin_ 13y ago
      It's not uncommon in this sort of situation for them all to get upvoted. Firstly, different people will upvote different ones, so if there's a popular story then a large number of upvoters split by 3 is still a decent number on each. Then there are people who will upvote more than one, either because they think it's important enough to deserve multiple links, or because they think the links offer enough difference in content, or because they upvote the first one they see, then see there's a better one (e.g. "oh shit, I upvoted blogspam, better upvote the official one now")
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• deleted 13y ago
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• drakeandrews 13y ago
  iPhone only, no chip and pin, won't work with any cash machine in the UK, no apparent protection against people skimming random cards (I'm suddenly very suspicious of anyone putting my card anywhere near an iPhone) AND it stores all your card details on their servers for no apparent reason? Where can I sign up?
• _random_ 13y ago
  Windows Phone not supported -> fail.
  • ecspike 13y ago
    Win for all the other platforms with millions more users.
• ck2 13y ago
  Swipe something user-programmable through a merchant machine. That might not end well. But I guess that has been an open security hole for a long time now, hopefully has been addressed.
• nobodysfool 13y ago
  Merchants are not going to accept this, it's the same as a CNP transaction.
  • jorgem 13y ago
    It seems to me that the creators would have investigated this before building hardware?
• sejje 13y ago
  This is a very cool gadget, but I think it's a strange name.
• FaceKicker 13y ago
  "Works like a debit card when you swipe it" - I'd probably get this if I wouldn't effectively be paying several hundreds of dollars per year for it in losses of credit card rewards.
  • colinbartlett 13y ago
    You won't lose any rewards. It's cloning your credit card number and info and using it like it was your real card. Their FAQ's address this.
    • FaceKicker 13y ago
      Ah, cool, my mistake. Thanks for the clarification!
• UVB-76 13y ago
  Are the card issuers going to be happy about what amounts to card cloning, or am I missing something here?
  • kintamanimatt 13y ago
    Probably not. I imagine they'll also absolve themselves of liability if your card is ever misused or stolen.
• colinbartlett 13y ago
  Seems crazy that it only holds 8 cards. I'm not about to go through all this effort only to replace some of the cards in my wallet but not all of them.
  • jonlucc 13y ago
    Out of curiosity, how many do you have? I think 8 would cover all of the cards I use at least once every 4 months.
    • colinbartlett 13y ago
      About 15. And sure, most I barely use. But sometimes I want to use them and they're in my bag and not in my wallet. This would be a great solution to that problem for me if it could hold all of them.
      • dismiss21x 13y ago
        I have a money clip, and only carry my most pertinent cards - ID, ATM, and CCs. The remaining cards, like reward cards or library cards, are in a tin can in my car - which I drive to wherever I'm shopping, and just remove the card I need. I can't imagine carrying 15+ cards in my pocket, especially if it is in your back pocket.
        • st0p 13y ago
          I carry around the following: 1 Debit card 1 Credit card 1 Drivers license (usually I travel with public transport, but I'm required to carry an ID by Dutch law) 1 Ov chipknip (card for public transport in the Netherlands) 1 Health insurance card 2 Loyalty cards for competing grocery stores (I attend both of them on a regular basis) Even though Coin doesn't solve this problem, especially since it doesn't have EMV which is required in Europe, I'd love to have all off them one card. I have another boatload of cards at home that are rarely / never used because I never have them on me when I could use them. So basically: very cool idea, needs some more thought for the european market though.
  • 13y ago
• gagege 13y ago
  For some reason, all the cards I keep in my wallet get destroyed. I have a decent leather wallet but they still crack and chip and the paint rubs off. I don't know if I want that to happen to a $100 device. Does this happen to anyone else? It has happened with the last two wallets I've owned.
  • nfoz 13y ago
    This happens for me only with one bank card and not my others. I think it's partly the fault of cheap material used for the card.
  • bluedino 13y ago
    My ATM card always seems to start splitting right around the time my bank sends me a new one. Hopefully this device is more durable.
  • ckdarby 13y ago
    Some of the cards in my wallet are 7 years old and are in the same shape aside from the faded colors. Clearly you need a better wallet >_>
• slig 13y ago
  How will this work when CC companies finally migrate to cards with SIM chips?
• techaddict009 13y ago
  "Q. Will my Coin work outside the U.S.? A. Not in all cases. U.S.-based customers: Coin will work overseas, but we recommend that you bring a backup card when you travel. Customers located outside of the U.S.: Coin does not support EMV yet. If the country you live it requires it we recommend holding off your purchase for now." Found this in FAQ
• TamDenholm 13y ago
  I assume that the Chip-and-pin system isnt standard in the US like it is in the UK. Can a similar technology be applied to chips?
  • bouk 13y ago
    From the FAQ: Q. Does Coin support chip and pin (EMV)? A. Coin is currently designed for the U.S. market and does not support chip and pin (EMV), however, future generations of the device will include EMV.
    • rkangel 13y ago
      How on earth is that going to work? Theoretically at least, you can't clone an EMV card. That's kind of the point.
      • RandallBrown 13y ago
        Maybe they'll work with the banks to get the information needed to create the EMV card?
        • PeterisP 13y ago
          Why would a bank allow that? It creates all kinds of liability issues, hurts the issuing bank's branding, and there's no big source of fees to allow Coin to simply buy cooperation from them. Heck, they're running a kickstarter for funding, while even dreaming about being a card issuer would require to start with posting multimillion security deposits.
      • Nursie 13y ago
        Theoretically, you can put a large number of payment applications on a single EMV chip already, and a transaction will either use defaults or present you with a choice. Unfortunately cross-bank and cross-scheme cooperation has never been there to the extent that this has been possible so far.
• robotmay 13y ago
  I'm not sure of the prevalence in the US, but does this support chip + pin transactions? They're the standard in the UK now, and I suspect it's a little harder to mess around with than the magnetic strip.
  • pidg 13y ago
    I understand chip+pin is still a novelty in the US. Back in 2009, I was (apparently) the first person to use the chip+pin machine in one of the biggest bookstores in Toronto - the cashiers got excited and all gathered round to watch. It was a little bit bizarre.
    • fryguy 13y ago
      I was in the UK with my non-chip and pin card and there was a similar response. It took like 5 people at Tesco to figure it out.
      • Osmium 13y ago
        Yeah, I can't remember the last time I saw someone sign for or swipe a credit card in the UK: it's all chip-and-pin now, all the time. This looks like cool technology but it just wouldn't work here.
        • kintamanimatt 13y ago
          Pro tip: if you're in the UK and think Chip+PIN is a really good way for the bank to shift liability to the cardholder and want to make your life miserable, ask the bank for a Chip+Signature card. That'll fuck things up for you on the regular.
          • Dylan16807 13y ago
            Which will fuck things up? I can't tell if you're saying Chip+Signature will avoid the problems or make them worse.
• Kiro 13y ago
  Swipe only? What is this, 1980?
  • walls 13y ago
    NFC support would be pretty slick.
  • gnaffle 13y ago
    I think copying an NFC or smartcard is slightly more complicated :)
    • gambiting 13y ago
      I think he meant that swipe-only cards are a dying breed(at least here in EU) and most places don't even take them anymore. If your card does not have a chip+pin system it won't be accepted anymore, even if it's a Visa or Mastercard card.
• drewblaisdell 13y ago
  80% of this product already exists in Simple (https://www.simple.com/ https://www.simple.com/).
  • abat 13y ago
    Simple looks like a completely different thing to me. It looks like a debit card connected to a fancy budget tool. It looks like a tool for people who have basic finances and need help to avoid overspending. Coin looks like a device that replaces my existing cards, which is a problem I want help with. I don't want to close my business bank account or get rid of my credit cards, I just want a lighter wallet.
  • jmathai 13y ago
    I'm a simple user but I don't see any % of this existing in my Simple account. If I've overlooked a glaringly awesome feature in Simple I'd be happy to find out.
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  • chrisoverzero 13y ago
    How? Simple is a bank. This is a magnetic-stripe card consolidator.
• rexreed 13y ago
  How would you prevent mass credit card theft in this case? Couldn't an unscrupulous person, say a waiter at a restaurant, take your card, use his/her own Coin to make a copy of your card, add it to their own Coin, and then use that card at their leisure at a future date? I know, the same question was asked re: Square and the like, but the difference is that you need a Square account to steal other people's cards, and that's traceable, whereas here, you can use the stolen card easily and surreptiously with little notice. Except for the fact that using a Coin in itself is noticeable.
  • taylorbuley 13y ago
    I see it as possibly the reverse opportunity. I typically hand out a Google Voice # as a sort of DNS for phone calls so that I can change my device number at will. Wouldn't this allow me to swap out credit cards in a pinch without having to carry new plastic? Or, as you suggest, if I lose my Coin do I have to get all new cards?
    • rexreed 13y ago
      If you lose your coin, and someone else picks it up, then you've compromised not just one card, but multiple. Unless I'm missing some sort of authentication when using Coin? And if that authentication exists, how would the non-Coin holder use that card? Is there a timeout that requires the user to authenticate, select a card for presentment, and holds that card in the stripe until a timeout? if not, then there's problems here.
  • bouk 13y ago
    Credit card theft like you describe is already possible and already happens
    • sequoia 13y ago
      This sure makes it easy tho, no?
      • bouk 13y ago
• res0nat0r 13y ago
  So I have to turn this over to a bartender to keep behind the bar when I go out and drink? If I forget to grab it before I take a cab, now I'm out $100 and ALL of my credit cards. No thanks.
  • Honzo 13y ago
    In theory, your phone will alert you that you forgot it. Also, you'll still have the original cards at home.
  • yllus 13y ago
    Is that system still popular? I've started lots of tabs in the last few years, and it's always been purely an oral conversation - they only get my card at the end when I'm settling up.
    • thoughtpalette 13y ago
      Still happens quite a bit here in Chicago, they'll take your card and sometimes your ID when starting a tab.
    • selectodude 13y ago
      I find the lower quality the bar, the more stuff they want to keep you from skipping out on a tab.
    • res0nat0r 13y ago
      Sure. If you are a regular they probably and some small bar they won't need anything, but if you head to a large nightclub with hundreds of people they'll want a card to keep behind the bar while you have your tab open.
• Void_ 13y ago
  So no holography technology like that in the video? I'm disappointed.
  • kkamalov 13y ago
    agh. i have preordered coin because of that feature...
• Eleutheria 13y ago
  How about an altcoin card with all my cryptos in it? Pick a coin, swipe and deduct from my account? There is a huge window of opportunity in the altcoins market right now.
• taude 13y ago
  I'd really like the ability to add all my shopping cards, membership cards, and whatever else that constitutes 98% of my wallet. Replacing two credit cards/bank cards isn't that compelling. And then really, while I'm dreaming....I just want my phone or an app on my phone to deal with paying because carrying around a card just feels so 2000s. This is a slick implementation, though. I'm also more worried about actual merchants refusing to take something like this.
• linux_devil 13y ago
  This is innovative, really like this concept. Wish them Good Luck !
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    • linux_devil 13y ago
      Dear downvoter , please tell me something innovative you did in life , other than throwing downvotes . What is happening to HN ? I work in a small start-up and I know what efforts it takes to build something instead of downvoting or discouraging.
• sequoia 13y ago
  What happens when the waiter accidentally clicks the button & charges your business card when it should have charged your personal card? I guess they can just peruse your cards, see what you've got, and pick which one to charge. :p
  • joshdance 13y ago
    I thought the same thing. Must have some sort of double click or click pattern that only you know.
  • timdorr 13y ago
    Presumably when the card is away from your phone (and BT connectivity), it would disable the button on the card. Or you could lock it into selecting that card via the phone.
    • kintamanimatt 13y ago
      Imagine you've dropped your phone somewhere (or had it picked out of your pocket) and tada, now your credit cards no longer work! As a result you're temporarily part of the nouveau poor and can't call anybody for help if you're out and about on your own.
      • jrs99 13y ago
        maybe the card still works but you just can't select another card.
    • ars 13y ago
      > Presumably when the card is away from your phone (and BT connectivity), it would disable the button See the FAQ, It doesn't. It's designed to be standalone with only periodic checkins (once a day probably) with the phone to make sure you still have the card.
      • diggum 13y ago
        From the FAQ: Q. What if I lose my Coin or someone steals it? A. In the event that your Coin loses contact with your phone for a period of time that you configure in the Coin mobile app, it will automatically deactivate itself.
• nfoz 13y ago
  Obnoxious website
• pit 13y ago
  No kidding about the soufflés. Even walking by the oven at the wrong time can spell disaster.
• usaphp 13y ago
  I wish it allowed a card selection process to be made with iPhone instead of clicking on the actual card itself, so that the person who charges it does not toggle between your cards. With a fingerprint sensor that would be really cool!
  • cloudwalking 13y ago
    I agree. Maybe you can only change the selected card when it's near your phone?
• zavulon 13y ago
  I'm slapping my head and thinking "this is such a great idea, why didn't I think of that?". I'm sure lots of other people are doing the same, and it's a sign of a truly great idea. Congrats on launching!
  • TallboyOne 13y ago
    Yes. This happens all the time to me. I'll sit and burn out my brain trying to think of problems to solve... and I can never think of any then I see this and I want to just bang my head on the keyboard because it's just.. so.. simple.
  • shuzchen 13y ago
    In my case, I actually did think of this idea! Just never had the hardware knowledge to even know where to get started (and I was worried about the trouble it'd cause as card skimmers used it to easily clone cards - hopefully we'll learn more about how coin solves that problem). I'm mostly glad they're trying to make this a reality, because I'd really like to get rid of all these membership/point cards that stuff up my wallet.
• kintamanimatt 13y ago
  I wonder how this would fare in an ATM. What happens if the ATM accidentally presses the card selection button? If the ATM gobbles the card, now you've effectively lost your entire wallet. What happens if the cashier presses the card selection button while running your card too? Oops, now your boss wants to know why you've just paid for your groceries on the business credit card and why you've cloned your business credit card!! The first can be an innocent mistake, but the second can be grounds for disciplinary action. I can't see the banks being happy about customers cloning their own cards. In fact, it will probably be a convenient excuse for them to absolve themselves of all liability in the case of loss, theft, or misuse. Some, if they found out, might pitch a fit and close the account. This also is going to pose a lot of problems when used with non-domestic cards, as they point out in their FAQ. It's possible to use an EMV-based card with just the magstripe, but it's a pain in the butt and the bank may well be aware that all your meatspace transactions are not using the EMV-chip. They may assume that your card is broken or (quite correctly) cloned and block it. A call from the fraud department may well lead to a fit being pitched. From wikipedia: "Magnetic stripe cloning can be detected by the implementation of magnetic card reader heads and firmware that can read a signature of magnetic noise permanently embedded in all magnetic stripes during the card production process." [0] Oops, now your card is blocked. Retailers might also get skittish if they figure out this isn't actual bank-issued plastic. They may well refuse it because of the risk of fraud. I would. I really wouldn't want to be running someone's cloned card, even if the cardholder was the one that did the cloning. In fact, it might jeopardize a retailer's merchant account if the acquiring bank found out the merchant were running cloned cards! The best way to counter a bulky wallet is to not add bulk in the first place. How many credit cards and debit cards does one need to carry on a daily basis? I carry maybe two or three cards, some ID, my Oyster card, and a Costa rewards card that I use daily. I also have a backup wallet that contains a second set of cards in case I lose the first. The bulk of my wallet is receipts that accumulate, but even when I carried way more my life wasn't burdened by a whalelike wallet. It'd also be a pain in the butt to use this with some rewards cards. For example, my Costa rewards card is swiped at the same time as I'm paying. Would I really want to fumble through pressing a button to find the right rewards card, give that to the cashier, have it handed back so I can fumble through pressing buttons again so I can pay? Certainly not, and even less so the impatient people in line behind me. Sorry to promulgate the Hater News stereotype, but it's just too easy to poke holes in this idea. It has superficial appeal but I really wouldn't pay $100 for so many potential problems, especially as it would only make my wallet a few mm thinner. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_stripe_card http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_stripe_card
• earlz 13y ago
  This would be an excellent opportunity to add some encryption to credit card numbers. Imagine taking this, except for it has a pin-pad where you enter in your password/passkey. All credit card numbers stored on the device are encrypted with this key, so it's impossible for a thief to swipe your card. However, it doesn't solve the malicious waiter problem.. but of course, you could still keep it locked down so that the most the waiter could get is one card, rather than all of them. Ideally, it'd be something like: * Entering your key keeps exactly one card decrypted for up to 2 minutes * Changing cards requires a reentry of the key You could even go crazy and do things like allow different cards to have different passkeys. Not sure how useful that would be though
  • ohazi 13y ago
    Or, we could just start using chip+pin in the U.S.
• joshdance 13y ago
  Love the idea. But one of those "I'll believe it when I see it working well".
• insomnie 13y ago
  Feel free to use my referral code. https://onlycoin.com/?referral=eHXIYcMX https://onlycoin.com/?referral=eHXIYcMX
  • untog 13y ago
    You're too kind.
  • kenrikm 13y ago
    Crafty, I see what you tried to do there! UP-voted for the lol factor and the fact that I don't have a down vote button. ;)
• wadetandy 13y ago
  One of my biggest questions/objections is about the battery life issue. They claim that this will run out juice every 2 years or so and that the battery cannot be replaced, so I'll just need to buy a new one. $100 every two years for this device seems like a pretty big expense, as opposed to $100 one time.
  • kwanbis 13y ago
    My exact thoughts. Even at 50 dollars, it seems a little too much. Maybe if they lasted 4 years.
  • beat 13y ago
    Early adopter tax. Once they find other ways to monetize (and they will, considering they have actually planted a physical device in a revenue stream), the device cost can drop precipitously.
  • elmofromok 13y ago
    I think this is the deal breaker for me. I cannot imagine paying 50 a year to manage a few cc cards.
• dc_ploy 13y ago
  They need to fix their closed captioning.
• gojomo 13y ago
  Super cool, but my guess is that there's a very small time window for it to succeed before the phone completely subsumes all card functionality. After all, the phone already scans the old card and sends the details to the 'CoinCard' (and monitors card-custody) via Bluetooth-LE. It won't be long before most swipe terminals are themselves augmented with wireless transceivers, making the "CoinCard" a redundant middleman-device. That is, your phone could just send archived magstripe details, after your onscreen-app confirmation of payment-intent, to the retailer's terminal. Coin's real strategy may be for that world - the hardware will fall away like a first-stage-rocket at some point... even faster, say, than Netflix moved from DVDs-through-mail to pure-network-delivery.
  • apayan 13y ago
    You can already do this with Google Wallet on Android. Enter your card into the Wallet app, then swipe your phone over any PayPass terminal and it will process the transaction. At least half the retailers I visit already have PayPass terminals (in Los Angeles).
• raybeorn 13y ago
  Seems like a cool idea. But also seems like a credit card thief's dream.
  • beat 13y ago
    Throw enough money and brains at the problems, and it becomes a thief's nightmare. They've already got a good start, it seems. The credit card industry already eats significant small-scale fraud, so if you can create a system that makes it harder, rather than easier, to defraud cards, the big companies will be all over it. And THEN there will be big, big money.
• ohazi 13y ago
  With any luck, this will piss off the banks/CC companies enough to finally roll out chip+pin in the US.
  • avree 13y ago
    Uh, why would we want chip+pin in the US?
    • tedunangst 13y ago
      Because they have it in Europe.
    • ErikHuisman 13y ago
      It prevents skimming and other types of fraud (less cost == lower fees).
      • reustle 13y ago
        > less cost == lower fees In a perfect world...
        • ErikHuisman 13y ago
          We've used pin (and now pin+chip) as long as we use cards.. I pay exactly 0% transaction fees and only a few euro per quarter. Merchants pay exactly 0% transactions fees and a small monthly subscription. It just works.
          • pbhjpbhj 13y ago
            >Merchants pey exactly 0% transactions fees and a small monthly subscription. // Where's that?
            • ErikHuisman 13y ago
              The Netherlands. I looked up pricing. It is actually not 0% but €0.06 per transaction above the first thousand transactions (which are included in the bundle). The rent for the box and connectivity (mobile or dsl) is also included.
• joezydeco 13y ago
  Can anyone elaborate how the magstripe trick works? That's the only thing that I can't find, and it's kind of the crucial point of the whole project.
  • kintamanimatt 13y ago
    Also, it might trigger fraud warnings: > Magnetic stripe cloning can be detected by the implementation of magnetic card reader heads and firmware that can read a signature of magnetic noise permanently embedded in all magnetic stripes during the card production process. This signature can be used in conjunction with common two factor authentication schemes utilized in ATM, debit/retail point-of-sale and prepaid card applications. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_stripe_card http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_stripe_card It might work like a bunch of tiny electromagnets appropriately arranged on the back of the card, like pixels on your screen. These electromagnets can probably be polarized in a particular way to match the original card.
  • pbreit 13y ago
    Think about cassette tapes and this devices that enable you to play your iPhone through a cassette player in your car.
  • superuser2 13y ago
    A magstripe is literally just a flat strip of magnetic tape, like an audio cassette. Devices like Square Reader just encode the magstripe as audio into an iPhone's mic input. You could save that to a Voice Memo, stick the playhead from a RadioShack 3.5mm/cassette adapter in a reader, and press play. Can't find it, but I've seen a demonstration on YouTube of someone doing this to enter their apartment building. The TV show White Collar's pilot has a cool depiction of Neil Caffrey copying a guard's magnetic stripe badge using a tape deck by recording it to tape, then playing it back through the record (write) head on the other side of the tape player while he slid a new card through. It would be hard to get the timing right, but there's no reason this shouldn't work. It's incredibly primitive technology, as is simple RFID - the cloning process isn't much more difficult. Fortunately my university uses HID iCLASS contactless smart cards - there is actually a cryptographic handshake between the reader and my student ID which is resistant to replay attacks. If implemented correctly, it's impossible to copy the electronic access control portion of a student ID without the university's private keys. (The same access control infrastructure that's on my dorm's main entrance also guards healthcare information, nuclear and virology labs, etc. so that makes sense.)
• a_emme 13y ago
  There's a reason HUGE banks with customers who have significant existing relationships (Citi Bank - Mastercard, Visa Debit, Heloc, etc) has not done this, don't you think? Not cause the love printing and mailing plastic....
• jebus989 13y ago
  Well-implemented idea, as others have said. It's ridiculous that in 2013 I'm still carrying around a wallet full of junk (and keys but that's another story). However this feels like an awkward stop-gap between the current card-payment system and online payments. I don't want to give a waiter a piece of plastic and get a little paper receipt back, give me some kind of abstracted account ID and I'll transfer you the money from my phone/laptop/smartwatch/glass (/whatever we'll all have by the time a new payment method is sufficiently penetrant to be useful).
• Dirlewanger 13y ago
  Personally, I'm not into a single point of failure device. Same reason why I eschew paying with a cell phone. More convenient? Sure. But lose your cell phone and you have a lot of things to account for, doubly so if you have no form of remote wiping it.
  • jonstjohn 13y ago
    A wallet is a single point of failure device. It's a lot more of a hassle to remotely wipe my wallet (remember all the cards, cancel them all individually).
    • Dirlewanger 13y ago
      A wallet contains many different things that can be added and subtracted at will. If this Coin thing is to be used as I think it is, it is all your cards, all the time. I can't just bring one card, it's all of them. Not to mention the fact that now one service has all of my cards and their information? Coin better know what they're getting into. I'd prefer the hassle of many sites than one with everything, just not worth it to me.
• unfletch 13y ago
  I'm guessing the Coin pre-order is why Protean sent me an email yesterday reminding me they exist: http://getprotean.com http://getprotean.com Their Echo card is exactly the same idea, with some minor variation in implementation. It has not yet launched. As far as the concerns voiced here (accidental button presses, etc.), Chris Bartenstein, a Protean co-founder, has addressed some of that in the comments on this TechCrunch story: http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/02/the-protean-echo-reduces-all-of-your-credit-cards-to-one-ubercard/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/02/the-protean-echo-reduces-al...
  • rmason 13y ago
    Doing hardware is hard. Protean's CTO, Henry Balanon, spoke at the Code Michigan civic hackathon on that very subject: http://www.slideshare.net/balanon1/code-michigan-without-comments http://www.slideshare.net/balanon1/code-michigan-without-com... Its not always the first product to ship that wins, its the best product that ships. I've seen the product evolve and the echo card is worth the wait.
    • unfletch 13y ago
      I didn't mean "it hasn't launched" as a knock. Just pointing out that, like Coin, it's announced but not yet available.
• dcc1 13y ago
  Wow, i wonder if bitcoin can be integrated into this somehow
  • felipelalli 13y ago
    me too.
• joshfraser 13y ago
  Finally! It's about time credit card skimming technology was brought to the masses.
  • RankingMember 13y ago
    "Please insert your stolen credit card now."
• stevenj 13y ago
  According to the article linked below, Coin is a YC company. http://allthingsd.com/20131114/finally-a-new-way-to-pay-in-stores-that-people-might-actually-use/ http://allthingsd.com/20131114/finally-a-new-way-to-pay-in-s...
• PeterWhittaker 13y ago
  Cool idea. Needs chip support for Canada and perhaps the rest of the world.
  • saadshamim 13y ago
    Actually we have nfc in a lot of stores now, majority of the time I use that, using coin would actually take more time.
• firstplanthendo 13y ago
  There are some theft and risk concentration concerns, along with potential feature problems (accidental card selection change), but this would be great for credit cards rewards hacking- a lot of cards have different bonus areas.. 3x-5x points/cash back on different categories, like dining, gas, groceries, travel expenses, specific department stores, etc. This would easily allow you to maximize your rewards without having to carry around all the different cards. 2x-4x extra back means this will pay for itself pretty easily.
• reustle 13y ago
  It's fantastic to see Android support right off the bat!
• ynniv 13y ago
  Swipe, click-to-switch, swipe, click-to-switch, swipe... Why steal one card's data when you can copy the whole wallet? :-) Or, run one card but take down the information for another. It also appears that the Coin is programmed over Bluetooth. Why bother swiping to steal when you can run a smartphone app and take all of the cards on all of the coins in range? If this takes off and fraud goes up, credit card companies will drop the discount vendors currently get by swiping. Maybe vendors that currently swipe will start entering CVVs? Will Coin then start storing CVVs per card? Vendors might refuse to accept Coin in the first place (there's already a comment here from one who won't). Or credit card companies will have Coin outlawed as a counterfeiting tool. I can see how this seems like a good idea, but I don't think it will work out.
  • ye 13y ago
    > Why bother swiping to steal when you can run a smartphone app and take all of the cards on all of the coins in range? Because it doesn't broadcast credit card data over Bluetooth.
    • ynniv 13y ago
      Hah, maybe not on purpose.
      • ye 13y ago
        Do you have any evidence that it does?
• 6thSigma 13y ago
  This is very cool technology but I'm skeptical for its practical usage. Lots of people have already brought up the obvious pitfalls (atm use, accidental presses, banks potentially removing card liability) but I'd also probably carry around my important cards in my wallet just in case. So they aren't really solving the problem of carrying too many cards - at least for me. It would be useful for things like gift cards and reward cards - but is it worth it for that?
• stormpat 13y ago
  Thats a sweet idea, i would really like to have something like coin. The problem is that in Finland there is very few places that uses the "swipe" your card and sign method anymore. Back some 2-3 years ago it was a custom, but for security reasons (anyone can swipe a stolen card and sign it, the law does not require an ID unless the amount being paid is over 100 euros) it was abandoned and now you simply enter your PIN and that that. Im not sure about other countries, but atm this is the norm in Finland.
• cfinke 13y ago
  See how this idea has progressed in six years: Here's how it works. Users register their cards on the company Web site and upload the information into the iCache. When they want to use it, they activate the device with a fingerprint on its biometric strip, scroll through a list of cards on its screen and choose one. Out pops a plastic card with a magnetic stripe, temporarily loaded with the chosen card's data. Just swipe the card and pop it back into the iCache. After one use, the information on the card disappears. The device even works with loyalty cards, such as those handed out by supermarkets. http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/23/technology/one_credit_card.biz2/index.htm?section=money_pf http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/23/technology/one_credit_card.b... The hardware technology is certainly more advanced, but I'm of the opinion that the true endgame is going to be a scannable or NFC "card" stored entirely on the user's device (ala Passbook), not using a physical middleman.
  • imroot 13y ago
    The problem with the iCache was that it was very short lived, and once apple moved away from the 30pin connector, the icache folks never updated their case for the smaller form factor or new connector configuration. My iCache is now sitting in a drawer with a bunch of other "good tech gone old," but, I've had issues with servers understanding what my iCache card was, had Enterprise Rent-A-Car flat-out refuse to rent a car unless they could see the raised digits on a card, and a shit-ton of other things. I was lucky -- I didn't have any issues with the actual encoding on the card (apparently, there were some folks from kickstarter who couldn't use it at all), but, I'll deal with the five cards in my wallet and generally be happy about it.
• erock 13y ago
  I'm really unsure how this is any different than the multiaccount product here https://www.dynamicsinc.com/Corporate/Products https://www.dynamicsinc.com/Corporate/Products of course with the exception of it altering you if you left it at home, however that is a bit creepy, and, well let's just say I won't be getting a coin for my wife anytime soon
• callmeed 13y ago
  Don't forget there is also Loop, which reached it's Kickstarter goal already: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/loop/pay-with-loop http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/loop/pay-with-loop Personally, I like the idea of using my phone over the coin thingy. Also, I'm curious about how sturdy this thing is. Maybe it's my wallet or maybe I just shop too much, but I tend to wear out my debit card really quickly (< 1 year).
  • arsenerei 13y ago
    This is incredible. I like Loop a lot more than Coin, but I would not be comfortable handing my phone to waitstaff to take it to the back of the house. If they had an android case I'd buy immediately. I'm just not a fan of presenting my phone with the fob. For what it's worth, my cards last have lasted indefinitely in my wallet.
    • pbreit 13y ago
      You give the merchant your card, not your phone.
  • RankingMember 13y ago
    I think this is cool, but just >90% of merchants? What happens when I finish a meal at a restaurant and left all my credit cards at home and have to pay for it, only to find that loop doesn't work with their POS system? I'd imagine I'd be boned.
• kenrick 13y ago
  This is very cool. However, in Jamaica where I live. An id is required to use a credit card, so they can check your name and your signature. Is there are way to displaying that info on the card.
• pbreit 13y ago
  I worked on a product like this at Amex about 20 years ago and while it was a totally neat concept it was completely stupid in practice. All those plastic cards are marketing vehicles that can also transmit a number. And, really, are they that difficult to manage?
  • sixQuarks 13y ago
    Hey, the cool hipster dude with a beard says it's cool, so it has to be. Seriously though, they did a fantastic job with the overall experience of the landing page/video. The product, however, is not that great.
    • this_user 13y ago
      I don't know about the landing page. Maybe it works better on touch screen devices, but using the wheel on my mouse left many of the different section badly aligned. I had go back and forth several times which I found to be quite annoying and I still have no idea what the site is about.
    • justinsteele 13y ago
      Is "cool hipster dude" necessary? Not that your second sentence was informative either, really.
    • timmins 13y ago
      Cool hipster dude = Adam Lisagor. Really smart fellow with a history of success.
    • xinkr 13y ago
      Totally agree with experience of the landing page/video. It's amazing.
    • gnvkay 13y ago
      That's Adam Lisagor from Sandwich Video! We used his awesome company for our video/TV commercial for Fracture. (http://fracture.me http://fracture.me)
  • 13y ago
• theuri 13y ago
  Curious to hear what the team at Wallaby thinks about this, and whether they're planning on competing directly or focusing squarely on rewards cards.
• nlh 13y ago
  SUPER clever idea -- kudos for that. In theory, this is awesome. As a consumer, I love it. As a merchant, however (which I am), there is no chance I would accept this. None. Unless the issuers (that is, Visa, MC, Amex) drastically change their policies, which I don't see happening anytime soon. Why? Because the issuers are very clear about a few things: When push comes to shove and it REALLY gets down to it, unless the merchant takes a physical swipe of the actual card AND has backup to prove it (i.e. an imprint of the physical plastic), the issuers will side with a consumer in the event of a fraud dispute. So why, do you ask, do most merchants not bother taking imprints of the actual cards? Because a visual verification and physical swipe is usually enough (for 99% of cases). Instances of fraud via card duplication are rare, so it's usually not worth the hassle. But in some cases, it is. My business runs large-ticket purchases though CCs (average is $2000), and we take super extra precautions when our customers buy from us. We take magnetic swipes, visually verify, AND take physical imprints. We've lost several chargebacks because of lack of doing this. You'd be surprised how these little-known rules crop up when you least expect them. "Sorry, customer claims charge not authorized. Merchant doesn't have physical imprint. Chargeback approved." It's happened and we've been defrauded out of $thousands because of it. The ONLY way we've been able to successful combat chargeback fraud is through the multi-layered approach. Anyway, I know this is a fairly esoteric perspective and my business may be different from lots of others where this isn't an issue, but I have a feeling V/MC/Amex aren't going to get behind this.
  • cbsmith 13y ago
    You must do a lot of online business. ;-)
  • jhandl 13y ago
    I love the idea behind Coin but what I need is a fat wallet. I carry 19 cards, of which 16 are essential. Some of them are not for swiping so they wouldn't benefit from Coin. The solution for me is a wallet that can hold 20 to 30 cards, but as far as I can tell there's no such thing.
    • kevincrane 13y ago
• benbrown 13y ago
  How is this different from Wallaby Card? Is this a live product? My understanding is that the networks were not allowing such products. For example, Google and PayPal both planned to issue dynamic "wallet cards" but were blocked by V/MC.
• cik 13y ago
  I think we're all missing a key point here. From reading the FAQ it appears that the application needs access to their servers. That blows my mind. Why should my mobile phone application, responsible for programming a local card via Bluetooth ever need access to the internet? Simply put - it shouldn't. To me, this sounds like a big data play, except in this case the company is getting the user to cover the cost of acquisition. I imagine the actual cost of production on a card like this being well < $20 shipped (disclosure: I've been involved in shipping and starting up several physical products). So now, I have something that collects and unifies data across multiple purchase vectors, sending that back to a single source. In other words, I've paid for the privilege of helping another company get the same sort of insight that mint.com was building, except that I'm also including loyalty data. Colour me out.
  • isomorphic 13y ago
    Right. Also, unless I missed something, I didn't see anything in their FAQ that states categorically that they're not storing your card information on their servers. No, Coin, I'm not going to store all of my credit and debit cards in a single spot on the Internet. Your app has to work without Internet, or it's a security risk.
  • dakrisht 13y ago
    Absolutely. Not only this but they're entire FAQ is vague and doesn't offer any concrete answers whatsoever. It's a half ass job. Surprised (sort of) that this is a YC company with all the vetting, mentoring, perfecting and whatever else happens there. They have a lot of problems and a lot of holes. Payments are HARD but this doesn't make them any easier. Quite the contrary.
  • lk145 13y ago
    I was trying to figure that out too, whether they're making money off the hardware or my data. I found their privacy policy but I am still unsure what they're going for https://onlycoin.com/privacy/ https://onlycoin.com/privacy/ I really think hard about whether these services are really worth forking over that much of my personal data, and as cool as this product is I don't think it's worth it. If vast amounts of my personal data weren't at stake I'd pre-order for sure :(
• ChuckMcM 13y ago
  I ordered the dev kit early on, got charged for it, now waiting anxiously to have it show up. Nice to hear they are moving along. I really think that something like this is a solid answer to some of the vulnerabilities in the current card system and for a subset of identity problems. My interest is in solving one such subset which is this: At the time of account creation, create means by which both the web site and the user can prove unequivocally at a transaction later, that they are the same person who was there when the account was created. Nothing about "who" they are, or "what" or "where", but just that the person or entity doing this transaction right now, is exactly the same as the person who created the account.
• x0054 13y ago
  Wonderful! This is a great tool for restaurant service people to clone your card. I had my card cloned in a restaurant 2 times. Both times they were able to trace it to an employee who was cloning mag strips and selling them online. With this tool it's even easier! Awesome idea, if we lived in a more honest world.
• mangoman 13y ago
  I like the FAQ: Q. My soufflés keep collapsing! What can I do? A. In order for the meringue to peak properly we suggest adding a little lemon juice to the béchamel. This strengthens the mixture and prevents tragedy.
• cbsmith 13y ago
  Just people are aware: https://www.dynamicsinc.com/Developer/ https://www.dynamicsinc.com/Developer/ http://www.cardlab.com/Mobile-Payment.html http://www.cardlab.com/Mobile-Payment.html http://www.getprotean.com/ http://www.getprotean.com/
• Houshalter 13y ago
  This is amazing. Mildly annoyed at the name though.
• joshdance 13y ago
  Can Mastercard or Visa prevent or try to prevent this? Also what about cards that are shown example Costco? I just wish my phone did all stuff related to money.
  • pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    Mastercard and Visa might be able to embrace the technology - adopt it as a part of their cards and allow people to add on store cards and such. They might then be able to capture processing info from all the other cards present too. The big card issuers then are warranting the card as a token and allowing others access to verify the token holder. Seems like the way forward to me.
• synaesthesisx 13y ago
  Neat concept, but doesn't Google Wallet already integrate this kind of functionality (via NFC)? I'd much rather have my financial data stored on my phone as I keep the device encrypted and can erase it remotely.
• thejerz 13y ago
  Unless I'm missing something: if I lose my Coin card, ALL of my credit and debit cards are compromised. That's a showstopper. A thief could drain not just one account, but every account I have.
  • pat2man 13y ago
    BTLE tether, card gets deactivated if its not near your phone.
    • marcamillion 13y ago
      Does deactivated mean erased? From what I understand...there is some sort of memory chip on the card that stores the credit card numbers and info for every card, right? So what is to stop some chip from bypassing the OS that manages the multiple cards and just reads the raw data? Sure, it may be 128-bit encrypted, but if they have the raw dump - then it's just a matter of brute forcing it to eventually crack it...no? What am I missing here?
      • WesleyJohnson 13y ago
        Well if the coin can be deactivated when it's out of range, that would mean the coin has to be "smart" because it wouldn't be the phone app doing the deactivation but the coin itself. In that case, why couldn't the coin take extreme measures and just wipe its memory? Inconvenient for legitimate situations where the card is out of range and not accidental ones, but I imagine it's quick process to reload the coin with your card(s) data.
        • marcamillion 13y ago
          I agree that it COULD be a possibility, but is it?
        • Dylan16807 13y ago
          Deleting the data to later copy back from the phone doesn't sound extreme or inconvenient to me.
• panzi 13y ago
  It's this easy to clone a credit card? Why is anyone using credit cards? I feel confirmed in not having one.
• tonydiv 13y ago
  IF ONLY he had said, "One coin... to rule them all" at the very end! What a product, I love it, and I love this guy's quirkiness. Love. Love. Love.
• alternize 13y ago
  at least in the non-us market, this awesome idea comes a bit late: not only are chip + pin pretty much standard nowadays, and new means like contactless payment creditcards / nfc-payments are being rolled out now. i really would love to see a one-card-for-all tho that supports chip + nfc, but my understanding is that card issuers are eager to ensure that this will not happen.
• zshprompt 13y ago
  What stops the person taking the payment from pushing the switch button accidentally or intentionally. Also I can totally see how people can steal your card, use the app to put it into their coin then place the card back so you don't know you've been robbed.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• obedeugene 13y ago
  Very cool product. Im curious to see how the big guys (VISA, Mastercard) would respond to this.
• krutal 13y ago
  http://getprotean.com http://getprotean.com was similarly hyped up last year, hopefully this one delivers.
  • pbhjpbhj 13y ago
    It looks identical in scope and execution ... someone mentioned they did something at Amex like this 20 years ago, wonder if the patents have expired now.
• mephi5t0 13y ago
  A lot of cards also moving towards a smart chip implementations on cards. Also I carry 3 cards with me, 2 CC and a debit. Perhaps I am not the intended customer for this thing, I do like gadgets but my wallet is fine for now. Still a very nice idea. I would def follow up to see what happens after Summer 2014
• 3327 13y ago
  So are Coins waterproof? Because my credit card is weather proof. Just curious.
• WayneS 13y ago
  Here is a part that I don't get. Do they actually change the magnetic strip on the 'coin'? Or does it have a fixed VISA number that is tied to your ID and owned by the 'coin' company. Then they just use the coin app and the timestamp of the transaction to know which card to charge in the backend. That would mean the company gets a log of all transactions.
• dakrisht 13y ago
  It's a neat concept, but I just don't think this gets anywhere. Dead in the water - as much as I would personally like to see them succeed. The biggest problems here are security. () Merchants will hate it since there is no physical imprint / swipe of the bank-issued card. This will lead to chargebacks in favor of the customer. So this alone kills this company/product. () Banks might change their terms forbidding customers to create digital copies / clones of their card. As per card holder agreements, if you (or Coin) has ever read one, you don't own your card. You're fully bound by the terms of the agreement. () There is the issue of PCI-DSS compliance. They mention they're "in the process of earning" it but this is a lengthy, difficult and _costly_ process ($100 k). They're using a loophole to ensure consumer peace of mind but this won't last at all. () Adding a card seems flawed. You're asked to take a picture of the physical card after swiping to "prevent fraud" ok but unless Coin uses some advanced image processing/OCR to validate the card with the swiped data, you can take a picture of any card. So big fail here. () Coin seems to access a cloud service. Another major reason that this simply isn't going to work. If you've paid any attention to the NSA situation within the past 6-months, ordinary/average consumers (not the HN crowd) are becoming weary of cloud/hosted service. Not to mention, Coin will never ever work outside of the US (or San Francisco for that matter). Practical usability problems: () Most users are totally fine with credit cards and big wallets. It's actually empowering to them. I spoke to a guy who loves the fact that he has every color Amex card! So in essence, this is geared towards a micro-niche of tech savvy SF/NY/LA crowd. () Selecting a card by tapping the button - great. What if the waiter taps the same button? Or someone you're paying does? So many issues with this button here. "We’ve designed the button to toggle cards in a way that makes it difficult to trigger a "press" unintentionally" -- yeah, well most of the time, credit card fraud is an intentional act. What a stupid response. And quite frankly, offensive to anyone with half a brain. () The obvious issue of losing Coin and losing everything. People like backups. It's a mindset. () Battery issues with digitizing a non-battery product (credit card). Be in no doubt that more than half of users will forget to charge their credit card (as if we don't have enough things to charge). So you'll see people having lunches and presenting a dead Coin. And since you don't have any plastic, well, now you're screwed. Products are supposed to make life better, easier, more intuitive. Conceptually, it sort of makes sense. But the execution is flawed in so many ways. You're being sold a product that now requires more steps than you did before. And that is the killer fellow HN'ers. I don't want to have to sync, take photos, select a card by pushing a button, make sure it's within range to my device, update the app when needed for it to work, deal with merchants who won't take it, CHARGE my credit card (!), deal with issues because I tapped/selected the wrong card - vs - take out and swipe. Done. Fuck that. The product is inherently flawed
• DEinspanjer 13y ago
  ::Sigh:: It sounds exciting.. but so did/do all the others trying to do the same or similar things. Unfortunately, banking regulations and reluctance to push technological boundaries at the risk of being liable or losing money are the big hurdles to clear here. Another slightly smaller hurdle is being able to design a product that is high enough quality and durable enough to survive without costing way too much. The first one I ever heard about was back in 1999, PocketVault from Chameleon Networks. They lingered with a website that was updated every couple of years promising a release soon. Next came the iCache. That one did a Kickstarter and actually made it out to market... sorta. I have one, but the company ran into huge manufacturing issues and folded under very odd circumstances. A few others I've kept an eye on are: Dynamics, Inc. Card 2.0 -- Was supposed to come out with exactly this product.. ended up doing a very reduced feature set that lets you just select A or B rewards. Protean Echo -- Same concept. Originally promised 2013 but recently updated saying they weren't ready yet. There was another that was a similar concept company/site, but I can't find a link to it or remember the name at the moment. :/ There is also a recent company that had a successful Kickstarter: Loop. Rather than a programmable credit card, they are hacking the magnetic readers themselves by making a mobile phone case or dongle that emits a magnetic field that tricks the reader into registering a card swipe. Pretty neat stuff to compete with the struggling NFC solution, but unfortunately, it isn't 100% compatible with all swipe readers, and totally incompatible with dip readers.
• newman314 13y ago
  Love the concept but the security worries me. Looking on the site, there is (as expected) not much information about security. RED FLAGS: * Coin is in the process of earning a PCI certification. This should have been done before launch. Also, what level? * Coin uses 128/256bit for security but HOW and WHERE? * Coin essentially skims cards (through the reader) to playback for terminals. I don't see how they can say with a straight face that it is less susceptible to the same techniques. * Adding what are supposed to be funny Q&As to a FAQ trivializes what are supposed to be important questions for people thinking about using this. * I understand the love of "the cloud" but I wish people would also consider scenarios for a disconnected model. These are solutions that do not necessarily require a full time connection. I could see using this for pre-paid gift cards but not for my actual credit cards.
  • alternize 13y ago
    they are "only" doing a preorder, the launch seem to be in summer 2014
• rebel 13y ago
  Seems really cool technologically, but I just don't get it as a consumer. $100 so I can carry less credit cards that take up virtually no space in my wallet? What am I missing?
• Tomdarkness 13y ago
  I think this highlights how insecure cards are that just rely on magnetic strip information rather than something like EMV (chip & pin). It should not be possible, or at least extremely difficult, to clone a card. I'm from the UK and EMV (Called Chip & PIN) has been around for years now. No-one issues non-EMV cards anymore, except perhaps for cards designed exclusively for use in ATMs. Something like Coin would not be possible and, frankly, I'm happy this is the case. While having to carry multiple cards around is not an optimal solution I'd much prefer this over the ability for my cards to be trivially cloned. Aside from the security issues how would this work in relation to fraud with your card issuer? I'm not sure if it is different in the US but if you are the victim of fraud and you were not seriously negligent (i.e stored your PIN in the same wallet as your card) then the issuing bank will refund any money fraudulently taken/spent. Assuming something similar operates in the US, would using this service give the issuing banks a excuse to hold you responsible for fraud? I'd also wonder if you were breaking any agreements you have with your bank in relation to your use of the cards they issue you with.
• djhworld 13y ago
  This wouldn't work in the UK, we use chip and pin here. It's extremely rare these days to find a place that will swipe your card and loosely verify your signature.
• driverdan 13y ago
  As a former credit card thief I would have loved this. You mean I don't have to buy $10,000 of card printing and embossing equipment to create a fake clone of a card? Yes please! As a consumer I'd love to have something like this but it will never fly. Stores will lose liability protection since there is no security. Unless they partner with card issues to provide some kind of secure card verification it will end up being banned by merchant agreements. No store in their right mind would accept it.
• taigeair 13y ago
  no chip...
• joshstevens 13y ago
  This needs to be brought to Europe.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• justncase80 13y ago
  I wish your phone had some kind of a unique ID it could broadcast. Then you could take it to the bank and they would associate it with your account, then you could just use the phone as your card. You just hold it over the receipt thing and push a button on an app and boom done. Now if you could get my phone to be as slim as that Coin that would be pretty sweet too.
• typicalrunt 13y ago
  It's a neat idea, but what I'd really like to see is a way to use randomly-generated numbers as my credit card for one-time payments instead of handing over my full credit card details to an online store. I hear this is done by a few credit card companies now but I have yet to see it in Canada. Coin could even take this idea one step further and allow you to store your credit card, but when you swipe their card it provides the merchant with a randomized credit card number useful only for a one-time purchase. Now that'd be cool.
  • dakrisht 13y ago
    I like this randomized credit card numbers idea but I don't understand how it would work? How would the terminal know it's debiting your account? Where would the authentication take place? Where would the randomization take place? And what would this be based on? Credit cards are actually very simple in nature (and why there are billions of dollars of fraud occurring every year). It's simply an account number printed on a piece of plastic. But this account numbers is solely responsible for the transaction behind the scenes. Who does this random number now? I've been studying payments for years and have never heard of this.
    • untog 13y ago
      Presumably the idea is that the account number (i.e. credit card number) is randomised for each transaction - but still valid. So authentication etc. would happen exactly as it does right now. But that number would become invalid immediately after it is debited. That way even if someone intercepted the number they would not be able to use it in the future. Obviously this only really works for online transactions that don't require a physical card - and even then introduces a ton of complexity to things like refunds. But the idea is interesting.
      • dakrisht 13y ago
        I understand what randomizing a number means. But this doesn't answer the question of how the terminal/processing system knows it's your account being debited? The whole concept of randomization with payments (or anything for that matter with respect to authentication) is impossible. There will ALWAYS have to be some sort of static identifier in order for this to work. Common sense I think. The idea is interesting but I'm not sure exactly what the idea is!! :) If you have an AMEX and you randomize the account number on each transaction, AMEX still has to IDENTIFY your account with something? A name? A PIN? A unique ID? AKA an account number.
• ryanckulp 13y ago
  Wrote a quickie on how this is a stopgap, but purchased one nonetheless.. http://kulp.me/1gOpV7I http://kulp.me/1gOpV7I
• pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  Isn't this back to front ... surely you need a trusted player and then you need Amex/Visa/Mastercard to be able to use that token (the credit card) to aid identification of a person. So the card would be like Coin's but would have fixed credentials. Then when you open an account you'd provide your ID for the bank to register (or sign the registration with your public key); that account would be added to your card as an option.
• ivanbrussik 13y ago
  for me this would be worth it just to have as a bluetooth security device when i lose/forget my wallet.
• floetic 13y ago
  Shameless referral: https://onlycoin.com/?referral=HcQJJEjl https://onlycoin.com/?referral=HcQJJEjl
• porter 13y ago
  This looks like one of those game changers that everyone says will never work. But then somehow they figure it out and change the world. VCs should be all over this.
• skue 13y ago
  If there are any Coin founders hanging out here, this seems like a great idea and cool technology. However, like a number of other commenters, I have a few questions not covered by the FAQ... The product/fit questions have already been asked, but there's still this: Why is Coin taking pre-orders several months in advance just to raise $50k? I can't help but wonder why a YC company wouldn't just raise the needed $50k from investors? If this is an attempt to test the market, are you sure that a crowdfunding approach is the best image for a financial company? I want any company dealing with my financial data to be rock solid and reliable, and crowdfunding is the exact opposite of that. Also, why aren't you collecting shipping addresses? I read your answer in the FAQ, but that makes me twice as concerned. You say, "A lot can happen between now and Summer 2014. For example, you could move. To reduce confusion, we’ll get those details from you once we get a little closer to getting you your Coin." This is a problem for two reasons: (1) you are emphasizing that the ship date is far in the future, and (2) it comes across as though Coin is run by young founders who move around a lot and don't see value in long term planning. That's the wrong mindset for a company handling financial data.
• lucb1e 13y ago
  Ooooh such a bummer. We just phased out swiping cards altogether about a year ago because of the huge security issues. Sounds cool, then you think about it, then it turns out pretty useless if they don't partner with everyone. The demo is very, very good though. Nicely done.
• fekberg 13y ago
  This is very neat and a super cool idea. However, there's no chip? I try to avoid non-chip cards as much as I can for security reasons. One more thing that crossed my mind is, what happens if you give this to the waiter, the waiter goes away to handle your payment and it happens to be outside of reach of your bluetooth ping; then you will most likely become worried that the waiter ran away with your card, or you will start ignoring it when it notifies you that it is outside of reach. While talking about the waiter, what happens when the waiter accidentally clicks the "change card" button and takes the personal lunch on your business card? You might not notice until it's too late and people start asking questions..
  • Cthulhu_ 13y ago
    Well, don't give the card to the waiter? I was honestly spooked when my colleagues handed over their credit card to a waiter when I was in the US a while ago, leaving it out of their sight and hands for a while. We're warned in TV adverts here to never hand over your card - it could get skimmed by the attendant behind the counter. Less of a risk now that the magnetic strip is hardly used anymore, but still. Give someone a few minutes with a chip card and they can do plenty of things with it. Paying by card here happens either by using a mobile card reader, or by just getting up and walking to the cash register before leaving. Much safer.
    • itsravi 13y ago
      Handing over your card to the waiters is standard in the US. You are basically trusting the waiter to not skim/copy the card. In the case that it is skimmed, the fraud policies I've experienced are very favorable to the consumer. I was surprised to see in Quebec City that all the stores/restaurants had portable card machines they brought to you. That does make a lot more sense to me.
    • fekberg 13y ago
      It's "the way that they do it" in most places at least where I have been, that is giving the waiter the card and wait for them to come back. In Sweden restaurants have started to come out with portable devices and you even have to put in the amount you want to pay (because they want tip which is already included in the price..). I find this really good but at the same time less convenient because I don't want to fiddle with their device. I would feel much better if I had my cards stored "securely" in my phone and could do "Tap to Pay" over NFC instead and have the waiter bring over an NFC device to tap against my phone.
• ececconi 13y ago
  Some merchants make you have to give over the card so the person at the register can type in the last 4 numbers. This won't work with that use case will it?
• felipelalli 13y ago
  Can I use Bitcoin with this?
• davemel37 13y ago
  I'm more concerned about the price point. Seems cool, but not a problem I spend a lot of time thinking about. I don't see myself spending $100 to solve the problem of carrying multiple cards on me. I would maybe pay $50 for the beta card because I think it's super cool and I love trying new tech, but definitely not a price point I would pay to solve a problem that is hardly a problem at all. (to be fair, this might be one of those problems that you don't realize how bad it is until you solve it.) I can't see myself paying more for this than I would spend on a wallet, which is less than $20.
• kumarski 13y ago
  Hackernews is sometimes a contrarian's paradise.
• gambiting 13y ago
  Swipe card? Completely useless in most places in the UK, few shops take them nowadays.
• nico 13y ago
  I pre-ordered 2 about an hour ago (already got charged), haven't gotten a confirmation email yet...
• mehrdada 13y ago
  Why would you want to carry just one credit card when you can carry zero with Square (or Google Wallet)? If it is because of the "tradition problem", it's not much better than Square Wallet either: In more than one place I've been to the cashier was supposed to manually enter the last four digits of CC# manually for the transaction to get through. You'll have to carry a backup card with either Square or Coin. I like the vision of completely ditching the credit card far better, and the marginal compatibility benefit does not seem good enough for this to get anywhere in its current shape. Of course, things can change. (BTW, wasn't Google doing the same thing with a physical card for Google Wallet and ended up abandoning it?)
  • ars_technician 13y ago
    >(BTW, wasn't Google doing the same thing with a physical card for Google Wallet and ended up abandoning it?) They abandoned it.
    • mehrdada 13y ago
      Mmm... Looks like they haven't quite abandoned it, after all. ;)
• swamp40 13y ago
  I don't know if I can make a suggestion that might be seen with all the activity here - but if it were me designing it, I would have an option to lock-in a single card via the smartphone app. Or, maybe only allow switching within a foot or two of your smartphone. That would eliminate the concern people have about where the waiter accidentally pushes the button and switches the active card.
• bonjourmr 13y ago
  Do they know that their logo very closely resembles Australia's largest investment banks? http://macquarie.com.au/ http://macquarie.com.au/ I know this oversight can happen and it sucks, but the two are in the same industry (Macquraie has a global presence and quite a substantial US one), so it might come under some sort of copyright infringement. Just a heads up!
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• jackmaney 13y ago
  0_0 This is one of the worst ideas I've ever seen. Yes, let's put all of my cards in one card so that if it's stolen, then all of my cards are gone. @#$%^ing brilliant!
  • talon88 13y ago
    Try reading the FAQ before your vomit more words onto the screen.
    • jackmaney 13y ago
      Yes, because your charming wit is sure to draw out a second thought about this abomination of a product...
• ta_euccoin 13y ago
  I remember the US refusing to rely on foreign technology, hence refusing to issue plastic money with chips. But this changed after the CIA got their hands on the technology through in-q-tel acquisition of the french company gemplus then world n°1 company in the business. Then cards with chips were coming the US and it was expected for the rest of the world to get backdoors with their US issued chip cards, years later the french government finally bought back control of the company but way too late. Now that they have the technology, I'm surprised the switch has not happened yet, even more so since cloning and other kind of fraud is quite easy with magstripes (not that it is that much harder with chips, see yescards). The coin introduced here seems anachronistic to my european eyes which have not seen a card being swiped in the last 30 years and a great opportunity for fraud. Better use than reducing the number of card in a wallet is obviously to charge other people for your expenses by cloning their cards.
  • Nursie 13y ago
    >> (not that it is that much harder with chips, see yescards). Never heard of that before, interesting. I used programmable test cards when doing EMV and did wonder what would happen if I made such a card but (as the wikipedia page says) they're of very limited utility as they don't have the right keys to do anything but low-value offline transactions. Cloning chip cards is still pretty hard, IMHO, though that is interesting.
    • ta_euccoin 13y ago
      When Serge Humpich, a french engineer, found the vulnerability the yes card is based on at the end of the 1990's, he got in touch with the GIE in charge of european bank cards to warn them and propose a fix in hope of landing a job. They asked him for proof, as an engineer he gave them proof by buying metro tickets and sending them the tickets, the receipt and the card used to exploit the vulnerability. The GIE CB then went on pressing charges and using those as evidence of the crime and Humpich was sentenced to prison, the flaw was not fixed and the whole story got in the media. Then yes cards started to appear all over France and Europe and people would draw money directly from atms with yes cards, until all ATMs were replaced by fixed version gradually over a few years. The amount of fraud related to yes cards and subsequent iterations was never disclosed, but it was estimated to be in the tens of billions euros per year. In 2001 a network of gas stations got exposed for copying the magstripe of chip cards which were then sent to be cloned in other countries and the same CBCarbon surfaced, a software dedicated to cloning chip cards issued after 1999 (those including the crypto bump from 320bits to 768bits) I suppose this is not the low hanging fruit of getting the money from ATMs as the current method is a physical attack based on making them explode using gas but I sincerely doubt chip cards are really secure nowadays, probably just not as easy as it used to be.
• dohertyjf 13y ago
  SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY
• tomasien 13y ago
  Coin looks great, I want to make that clear. No ifs ands or buts, I think it's a great product. However - if you're looking for the future, I think I've got something interesting - feeless payments bank to bank by oAuthing consumers directly into their online banking. Completely secure - merchants never get the personal information, they just get paid. Better: I've built it, and we have beta customers. I'm posting a couple comments on HN to start the conversation, because anyone who cares about payments or accepts them online - I'm trying to talk. You'll be hearing more from me in the coming weeks and months - and it's going to be exciting. We're going to kill credit card fees, because we don't need them anymore. If you want to talk, email me @ tommy@thecityswig.com and let's just chat. I'm not selling anything - we just need to know what hackers are thinking about payments. It's the most valuable info we can have.
• sfrechtling 13y ago
  Coin's logo seems to be very similar to Macquarie Bank's[1]. I'm not a lawyer - but Coin may be infringing on their United States visual trademark[2] (of concentric circles), especially as they are also a financial service. I may be very wide of the mark here; but my first thought with this was that this was a product of Macquarie. [1]:http://static.macquarie.com/dafiles/Internet/mgl/com/furniture/images/logos/macquarie_logo.gif?v=1 http://static.macquarie.com/dafiles/Internet/mgl/com/furnitu... [2]: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:8dpjzg.2.1 http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:8dpjzg...
• rejected2013 13y ago
  i cant wait for this to come out
• X4 13y ago
  wow, I think this seems to be HOT Topic, took a while for me load this. I know of an alternative that I bookmarked a long time ago. Have just submitted a link to their landing page, they're practically doing the same, but allow more card types to be fused and it's a mini-computer. They were on the market much earlier than Coin and it looks very prestigious & elegant. The alternative card can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6736606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6736606 (A post, because I'm curious how the Echo is worse or better, without interrupting the Marketing of the Coin, on this board) I am not sure how to think about this in general, but @nlh has really good points. I agree with him that he needs the imprints, but to be honest, those imprints don't guarantee security.
• Ryoku 13y ago
  This is one of the worse ideas I've heard of; security wise. Not even at a tech-level. All your data and credentials are a robbery away. Of course, if you get robbed you can probably call in your credit cards from your cellphone... oh... Now, on the tech side... magnetic? Really? We've been through this, it's not secure. It might sound secure in an ideal world where the user doesn't do stupid things like handing over both the card and the phone to someone just to avoid getting the notification or to be shown how it works... or because it's a "store requirement". But we are not in that world, nor we will be.
• Amygaz 13y ago
  It's not bad, but I feel it will be short lived. Like other pointed IC cards are standard in many countries and are coming to the US. Moreoever, I'd rather have my smartphone do it all, and by all I mean all: cc, id, insurances... Most places I care about now accept IC cards and RFID, which means I should be able to pay directly by pointing my phone at something while punching an sending a encripted 4-digit pin. Using Google Wallet, Paypal, Square and others would be even better. It's coming and the pace is just accelerating... Have a good one!
• miralabs 13y ago
  here I am thinking magstripes are obsolete. where I stay (Singapore), most transactions are done via EMV. Its rare to find the use of magstripes.
• vitalus 13y ago
  Love the idea! I'm pretty obsessed with keeping the wallet light & thin - this seems to help out with that. I wonder if this could potentially store other cards in some way as well? Gift cards etc - would be super convenient. Incredible to squeeze that much tech in such a thin form factor - would love to see the internal hardware
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• viame 13y ago
  This is great. I love it. I want to know what did the girl do at 0:11 that he had to look away. :D
• blazingfrog2 13y ago
  Anybody else feeling uneasy about committing to spending serious cash immediately for a scheduled delivery 7-10 months away for something that could have many legal ramifications (with the associated delays)? At $50/card, with anywhere from 5 to 15 cards, it quickly adds up...
  • mseidl 13y ago
    It's 50$ for a coin card, not each credit card you have.
• christiangenco 13y ago
  I just invented something similar. Though it only supports a maximum of 4 cards, at scale it would cost ~500x less. I call it "penny." Here's my prototype: http://imgur.com/49auKC4 http://imgur.com/49auKC4 (reposted from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6733584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6733584)
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• aaronsnoswell 13y ago
  America is so behind with payment systems. The rest of the world has chip cards and now touch-less payments. I am astounded to see that the US is still using magnetic strip cards.
• habosa 13y ago
  Seems cool to me, obviously a few flaws but not so much that I'm not thinking about getting one. Question: what kind of BLE technology goes in a card that thin? Looking into some applications of BLE myself and I haven't seen anything like that. I'd love to know what's in the card and how I could build a similarly small bluetooth device.
• josephagoss 13y ago
  This will never catch on in Australia unless they can clone paypass/paywave. Now most of our transactions are contact free with chip and pin as an option for large purchases. Just having to enter a pin in Australia is going backwards.
• frmlobbyist 13y ago
  At Whole Foods they often want to see the back of the card to see the signature if the purchase amount is over $100. They most had gotten burned sometime in the past because I go to this Whole Foods in my home town at least 2/3 times a week and the checkout clerks know me and my wife but they still insist because sometimes we use different credit cards.
• dzink 13y ago
  Nice execution. I saw several pitches for unifying cards while working for a VC. As a consumer I have a few suggestions: 1. Make the card switch/activation button detect the fingerprint of the owner. (The merchant or waiter sliding the card could press the button accidentally and switch to a different card) 2. Show me that a tap-scanning tool can't take the data for all of my cards. (from hackers to accidental taps) 3. Can a magnet disable this card? 4. What happens if someone steals my coin? Can I disable it remotely with the app? Can it happen automatically? Good luck!
  • sb23 13y ago
    3 and 4 were answered in their FAQ - a stronger than average electro magnet will break Coin, and Coin is automatically disabled when it's out of range of your phone.
• davemel37 13y ago
  Im curious if Coin will capture my purchase data when I swipe. It's bad enough credit card companies sell my data...I am super paranoid about Coin doing the same thing.
• Mister_Snuggles 13y ago
  It already seems obsolete as it won't work with chip cards. Most POS debit and credit transactions in Canada are now done via chip-cards, so emulating a magstripe isn't helpful. Debit cards: http://www.interac.ca/images/PDFs/interac%20infograph_ENG_FINAL_V3.pdf http://www.interac.ca/images/PDFs/interac%20infograph_ENG_FI...
• acsta 13y ago
  have you seen www.getsolo.com they have some patents on this.
• fww 13y ago
  Isn't that the guy from the Square video? EDIT: http://www.chrisenns.com/2010/02/square-introduction-video/ http://www.chrisenns.com/2010/02/square-introduction-video/ http://lonelysandwich.com/ http://lonelysandwich.com/
• samweinberg 13y ago
  >Q. Is Coin password protected? >A. Your Coin account is password protected and the mobile app requires that you type in your password before you can access sensitive card details. There is no way in hell I would trust a single password to protect all of my debit, credit, loyalty, or gift cards.
• abalone 13y ago
  So what happens if you hand your card to a waiter/cashier and they accidentally tap the button while gripping it? "Card roulette"?
• yeukhon 13y ago
  The idea is cool, but we already have the idea using mobile phone to check out. All we need is the ability to bring that alive.
• homakov 13y ago
  how many cards we have? I have 3 and see no use in coin
• fierycatnet 13y ago
  Coin aka Wallet...
• Diamons 13y ago
  I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this. Q. Which is better; Tiger or Monkey style Kung Fu? A. Depends on the terrain. If you're a photo sharing / blogging app, sure that kind of tongue in cheek humor is okay and acceptable. However if I'm supposed to give you access to my credit cards, that is entirely unacceptable.
  • ponytech 13y ago
    I thought the exact same thing.
• NKCSS 13y ago
  I just don't think an ATM is willing to take the coin in, which makes it unusable for me. Also, here in Europe, the magnetic strip is hardly used anymore, as the (EMV) chip has taken over.
• azernik 13y ago
  Great line from their FAQ: Q. Can a Coin be used to skim cards? A. No. You can only add cards that you own to your Coin. Ummmm... I hate to be pedantic [1], but the question is using the "is it possible" meaning of "can", but the answer seems to be using the "am I allowed to" meaning. There's a line in the previous question about how "As an additional safeguard, the Coin app will only allow you to add cards you own," but no detail on the mechanism of this magical authentication process. [1] Who am I kidding? I love being pedantic.
  • markild 13y ago
    I might have skipped a crucial detail in their process, but as far as I can tell, not only is it possible to skim, this makes it amazingly easy.
• rajacombinator 13y ago
  this is pretty cool. I'm into having a thin wallet but there are a number of cards I need to carry around currently. however, $100 is way too much for what is basically a very minor convenience. $50 is too much. For $20, I'd consider it. from a business perspective, I wonder if they have deals with the banks. I wouldn't be surprised if they get slapped with some cease n desists just because the megabanks want their shiny pieces of plastic on display at all times.
• veganarchocap 13y ago
  What about chip and pin? Or contactless? Is it the same deal?
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• jalfresi 13y ago
  Erm... what problem is this solving? Is having multiple cards in your wallet really a problem that requires such a convoluted solution? Sorry, but I really don't see what this is saving me/doing for me? Whats the problem this solves?
• karka91 13y ago
  oh wow. Just a month ago I and a couple of colleagues were talking about this very idea and that this would be a great startup, though we dismissed it because none of us had any experience in this field and we were afraid of possible legal issues. It's great to see that someone actually brought this to life!
• hugofirth 13y ago
  As a European: Chip and Pin?
• berrypicker 13y ago
  What problem does this solve? After watching the video, their value proposition is: "my wallet is filled with cards, too many" - i.e. using one card instead of a few. Is it gaining popularity because of the technology, or because we're addicted to gadgets like this one?
• somberi 13y ago
  I am asking to learn. If I have to use this card, do I also have to have my cell phone with me all the time? If I go downstairs to get a Bagel in the morning, I need to take my phone, or else no Bagel for me? And it seems from the "Iphone will alert you using Bluetooth" facility, that I need to have Bluetooth on all the time, which I normally do not, to save battery life (adds an hour or so on my Iphone4). To me this is a functional gridlock. Does it also need to be connected to some data network or the other to work? If I lose this Coin card, then is it same as losing all my cards? If my assumption is true that this needs to be paired with a phone always, then will it not be possible to nullify the card, using the app on the phone, in case I lose the Coin card? Thanks
• tjgq 13y ago
  I've always thought that the real solution for the "too many cards" problem is to get all credit card companies to agree on a card-less payment protocol that anyone could implement on any device. (And in the process, make all the transactions a lot more secure by using modern cryptography.) Alas, I'm afraid that kind of disruption cannot be brought forth in a market context...
• atpaino 13y ago
  It seems like this would be much more useful if the front and back of the card were OLED screens, or something similar, so that you could toggle the appearance of the card. I feel like that would solve most of the problems people are suggesting here - i.e., it could replace driver's license, photo id's, wouldn't be a problem at bars that hold on to your CC, etc. Personally, I'm going to hold off on getting this until there's some functionality similar to what I outlined above, because currently this could only replace 2 out of the 5 cards in my wallet.
• GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
  I hate this kind of scroll website, using the mouse wheel to scroll just means everything is really jerky and isn't ever quite lined up, or correctly faded.
• dzhiurgis 13y ago
  Why people in US are so crazy about credit cards? I have 2 cards, only one is actually credit, but that's because I am expat, so I still keep one card from my home country. Someone mentioned owning 16 or 9 cards, which sounds so unbelievable to me.
• Wintamute 13y ago
  Will this work with chip and pin and/or paywave style contactless payments in Europe?
  • bigdubs 13y ago
    If it did that would be a huge selling point for those of us in the US that travel overseas.
• joshaidan 13y ago
  While there are perhaps many issues regarding whether or not merchants will accept this product for payments, one thought occurred to me. What happens when merchants/banks start offering the ability to make purchases using your smartphone? Doesn't that render this product obsolete? (if I'm not mistaken, you need a smartphone to set it up)
• jaxn 13y ago
  A company wants to have access to information about who I am as well as all of my purchasing behavior regardless of which merchant it is? Where do I sign up?!?!
• shr0d1nger 13y ago
  I quite like the idea though I don't know whether people would accept it, guess I can at least use it in ATM! And referral: https://onlycoin.com/?referral=lvCn3taa https://onlycoin.com/?referral=lvCn3taa please use it :)
• arnoldwh 13y ago
  "...attracted the attention of Osama Bedier, the former head of Google Wallet, who’s an investor in Coin. Bedier spent years attempting to make Wallet the NFC payments standard of future phones, but Google abandoned his work to pivot the product into yet another PayPal competitor. "[Bedier] sees scale at Coin … where he didn’t see scale in current solutions," a company spokesperson said on Bedier’s behalf. And for what it’s worth, Parashar says he hopes to develop a way to let users activate Coin (or disable the "lost" feature) even when a phone’s not around." http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/14/5103820/coin-electronic-card-to-hold-all-your-credit-cards http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/14/5103820/coin-electronic-c...
• mandeepj 13y ago
  Sometimes swipe using one of my cards never works. It just does not work. Even if you swipe 10 times, it just does not work. Weird thing is this happens randomly. It may work just perfectly at the next shop. If this happens with Coin then I guess I'm screwed and embarrassed. I agree wholeheartedly - the idea is good
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