CRYPTO.COM Debit card. Any good?

Mishomeister

Looking at their cashback cards offer it says:

You need to stake CRO tokens for a period of 180 days to apply for a Crypto.com Visa Card.

Has anyone done it?

Also, once the requirements for the card are met, is the card linked to a certain crypto currency or can the money be held in GBP and the  cashback earned in GBP?

Are there any fees to deposit the money in to the card, as if there are there is no point of paying a 2% deposit fee to latr get the 2% cashback on the moneyr spent?

Has anyone rried to link the Crypto.com card with the Curve card?

TheMightySwordfish

You don't need to stake for the free card that gives back 1% in CRO. When you do stake, the first card is free. Otherwise it's £50 to upgrade the card. You can upgrade without changing the card.

It's free to top up from your current accounts debit card. 

I use Curve with mine as it then allows it to work on your phone. It is also good for ”Go back in time”.

maxsteam

It looks like funds are going to be converted backwards and forwards into and out of currencies, which will come with a cost for each conversion.

My main concern is knowing who you are dealing with. If you visit the website of anyone else who issues debit cards, there will be company and FCA registration numbers and there will be a physical address. If such information is on the crypto.com website, it is not in a prominent position. Some information that is on the website is a list of some of the key figures

Kris Marszalek was CEO of Ensogo before Ensogo ceased their e-commerce operations and he resigned in 2016. Many customers lost money. Bobby Bao, Rafael Melo and Gary Or were also involved in Ensogo. If you want to know how crypto.com customers will be treated if problems arise, you should research what happened at Ensogo.

My opinion is that this is a scheme that is best watched from a distance.

TheMightySwordfish

maxsteam said:

It looks like funds are going to be converted backwards and forwards into and out of currencies, which will come with a cost for each conversion.

This doesn't make sense as a user of it.

The rest you said, it's pre paid debit card. What has the FCA got to do with it? You only put on the card what you need to.

I can't comment on peoples past endeavors.

crumpet_man

TheMightySwordfish said:

maxsteam said:

It looks like funds are going to be converted backwards and forwards into and out of currencies, which will come with a cost for each conversion.

This doesn't make sense as a user of it.

The rest you said, it's pre paid debit card. What has the FCA got to do with it? You only put on the card what you need to.

I can't comment on peoples past endeavors.

What happens if you top up the pre paid card but then cannot spend the funds on it and cannot transfer the funds to another account?  Who can you complain to?  Who will ensure the customer does not lose their money if crypto.com choose not to be helpful?

TheMightySwordfish

There is a helpful in app CS and they actually do what they say they will (speaking from experience)

They also do KYC/AML and refuse people.

prowla

Given that the other credit cards reward schemes are pretty rubbish (piffling Nectar points, nothing to spend Tesco reward point on), the idea of grabbing some free crypto instead is quite attractive.

My $300 initial plus introductory $25 plus purchase earnings are currently sitting at £1100, so that ain't bad (it did go up to £1800 at one point).

However, it could also go down (of course).

There is a referral scheme where both get $25 credit, so if you know someone who has one, get them to invite you with their referral code.

Mine did have a hiccup where I couldn't load funds from my bank debit card, but it was resolved, but otherwise I've been using it for most of my shopping for a while now.

Note that it is a debit card which you have to load funds onto, not a credit card.

maxsteam

TheMightySwordfish said:

 What has the FCA got to do with it? You only put on the card what you need to..

Yup. And who are you trusting to look after the money? The "about us" page mentions lots of talk about "One vision. One global team" and similar hype, but it fails to even mention the name of the company who you are dealing with. I could not even find an address on the website. If you send them money and something went wrong, tough. You don't even know who you sent the money to.

I suppose, if you did lose money, you could still get a little satisfaction from knowing that you dealt with the "in crowd". If that's what you are looking for, that's what you will get.

jbrassy

I would approach these Crypto.com cards with caution. The free card pays 1% cashback as the native CRO token. The value of this CRO cashback could fluctuate quite substantially in GBP terms. On that basis you may prefer the certainty of getting the Chase debit card which also pays 1% cashback, but in GBP.

You can get higher levels of cashback by staking CRO tokens over a period of time. The problem again is the value of these CRO tokens could fluctuate substantially. Yes, they could go up, but they could also decline in value to the point that the losses outweigh the additional cashback you gain. 

Personally I consider investing in crypto as nothing more than gambling as it's very difficult to understand or predict  what drives the price of cryptocurrencies.