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How Do Digital Money Transfers Work?
For those who do not know or have never heard of them, virtual currencies / cryptocurrencies are simply digital money based on cryptographic protocols that are distributed and managed by their developers. In general, cryptocurrencies represent a new way to make money transfers in a virtual environment. Unlike conventional money, Crete Forex are not controlled by banking institutions or the government.
How cryptocurrency transfers work
In order to make a cryptocurrency transfer, first, you need a digital wallet, known as “Wallet”. This wallet can be installed on your computer or in your mobile device so that you can make transfers with crypto money.
These digital portfolios are controlled by software that generates encrypted codes — an address made up of numbers and letters to send and receive crypt-coins in translation. This address allows you to identify the public part of a pair of digital keys since the private part of the key is obvious only to the person receiving the digital currency.
Each transfer takes an average of 10 minutes and ends with the “mining” of crypto money. This can be done by “miners”, people with powerful computing equipment in which the system operates with an algorithm responsible for approving transfers. The result of this procedure is “hash”. “Hash” is a code that must be recognized by a network of cryptocurrency transfers. With each confirmed transfer, the commission was created for the miner, which allows the creation of new digital coins.
How to purchase cryptocurrency
Now, you have different ways to get virtual coins. You can, for example, purchase digital coins by purchasing them on the Internet market.
This purchase can be made directly with local currency on sites selling digital currency. Another way to acquire cryptocurrency is “mining”.
But, given that mining requires special equipment and more significant investments, it may not be the best solution to acquire virtual currencies, especially for those who have just entered the market.
Cryptocurrency as a solution for cross-border money transfer
Despite the fact that most of them are trying to offer a convenient interface, they are mainly focused on traders, not on those who want to exchange fiat currency for crypto, and then forget about it as soon as possible. In any case, when dealing with cryptocurrency transactions, you have to do a lot more manipulations than when transferring money from card to card.
Due to the relative complexity of working with bitcoins, many startups and companies began to develop solutions that could make the whole process easy, even for users with insufficient experience in the field of cryptocurrencies.
Solutions
There are quite a few solutions that attempt to facilitate remittances – both international and domestic. There are quite a few services, such as BitPesa or Bitwala, that offer instant money transfers. Such startups are mainly based on hiding cryptocurrency from users. The fiat currency of the user is anonymously transferred to BTC, transferred to another user, and then also anonymously transferred back to Fiat. For example, BitPesa exchanges bitcoins for local fiat currency with sending an asset to the user’s mobile phone account.
What is KuCoin?
Today, the KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange is based in the jurisdiction of Hong Kong. A large list of promising cryptocurrencies is currently being traded on the site. The CEO and founder of the KuCoin exchange, Michael Gam, is a technical expert of the world’s largest fintech company Ant Financial.
A unique feature of the KuCoin exchange is that the exchange daily shares half of its profits with everyone who keeps an internal token on the wallet – the cryptocurrency KuCoin Shares (KCS). Also, like Binance, KuCoin takes very low commissions on transactions, and discounts are available for owners of KuCoin Shares.
In this article, we will look at how to trade on the KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange, how to replenish the balance and withdraw coins from the exchange. The limits and commissions of the platform will also be described. A review of the KuCoin crypto exchange will start with a research team.
Registration and Verification
Registration on the KuCoin exchange is extremely simple and takes place in three clicks. To register, you need:
- Agree to the service rules
- Specify mail and password
- Confirm mail
- Registration at KuCoin
And it’s all! After registration, you can immediately replenish the balance and proceed to trade on the KuCoin exchange. From November 1, 2018, the exchange imposes restrictions on withdrawal – 2 BTC per day for unverified accounts. If you will not withdraw from the exchange more than two bitcoins (or another cryptocurrency in the corresponding equivalent in BTC), then you do not need to be verified.
Also, verification may be needed if you start or withdraw fiat funds from the exchange. As stated by KuCoin management, such a function is planned in the near future.
How to deposit KuCoin balance
On any page of the Exchange website, you need to click on the “Dollar” button in the upper right corner and a window will open with a choice of cryptocurrencies that are on the site. In this window, you should click on the “Deposit” button opposite the desired coin that you plan to add to the exchange.
Then another window will open in which you are informed that if you make a mistake when sending coins to the stock exchange, for example, send the wrong currency or send coins to the wrong wallet address, it will be impossible to recover the lost funds. After you confirm that you understand the risks, there will be another window where you will see the address of the purse to replenish.
KuCloin limits and commissions
Commission on transactions on the Kukoin exchange is only 0.1%. This is less than most popular cryptocurrency exchanges. In addition, part of the commission can be redeemed by the KCS token.
Also on the stock exchange established fees for the withdrawal of cryptocurrency. For each coin, the commission is different, for example for BTC it is 0.001, and for EOS cryptocurrency the size will be 0.5. A complete list of current commission rates can be found here.
Cryptocurrency KuCoin Shares (KCS)
Like the Binance Exchange, KuCoin created their own cryptocurrency, which is actively developed and promoted among users. Investors who hold KCS on the stock exchange’s balance sheet receive a discount on the percentage of commission on trade transactions. Also, the KuCoin exchange daily shares with all the owners of the KCS token its profit from transactions. 50% of the total daily profit is distributed among the owners of the KCS coin, depending on the amount of investment. The calculator for calculating profitability is here.
Conclusion
The KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange is a modern secure platform for trading and exchanging digital currencies. The management of the exchange is actively developing the platform and is looking for new ways to attract users by offering new points of interaction. The exchange is translated into ten languages and has a good reputation in the cryptocurrency community.
KuCoin Shares internal token (KCS) allows you to receive passive income as a percentage of the exchange profits. This trading platform has its own working mobile applications, which are a priority for management. In general, the KuCoin Exchange is a progressive, reliable trading platform that is continuously evolving and takes into account the opinions of users.
Bitpay Review
When talking about the big fishes in the cryptocurrency space, one can’t miss to include Bitpay Bitcoin debit card onto the list. Being a well-renowned company, Bitpay enjoys a good reputation. It guides its customers at every step of the way to ensure their utmost satisfaction. The card is Visa-powered and works whereas Visa is accepted. Its fee structure is almost like that of XAPO Bitcoin debit card. However, they don’t have the same diverse features than most of the other debit cards in the market. They only cater US clients and holds only Bitcoin exclusively. That being said, there are many debit cards that don’t offer its services in the US. In this regard, Bitpay is a decent choice for US citizens.
In this review, we shall take a look at what the Bitpay Bitcoin debit card has to offer to its customers.
Advantages
- Bitpay is a well-reputed and well-known firm. Since they have a reputation to maintain, they ensure their services are always up to the mark for their customers.
- When a customer signs up with Bitpay, they offer a secure online wallet.
- If located in the US, you can get a prepaid Visa card. This makes management of your spending quite useful.
- The card is accepted worldwide.
- There is no transaction fee when domestically using the debit card.
- It offers solutions to both businesses and private customers.
Disadvantages
- It is exclusively for Bitcoin users only. It is a shame that it doesn’t support other cryptocurrencies like altcoin.
- The debit card is only available for the US market, leaving the rest of the world left out.
- Surprisingly, you will notice that the card doesn’t come with a pin or a chip. Let’s hope Bitpay changes this in the future.
- Signing up can be a stringy process as it asks for requisites such as address, social security number, and government-issued ID. This doesn’t leave any room for privacy. The debit card is stricter with its verification –something not many cards have.
- The maintenance fees are 5x higher than what most cards charge. This makes it a very expensive card to have.
Bitpay Bitcoin Debit Card Charges
- The issuance fee of the Bitpay Bitcoin debit card is $9.95.
- It takes less than a week to ship.
- There are zero transaction fees, making it extremely viable. But, using the card outside of the US costs 3% as for conversion rates.
- The Bitpay’s free packages offer 30 transactions/month. Each transaction, however, costs 1% in the transaction fee.
- The maintenance fee is $5/month.
- There is a $2 withdrawing charge when withdrawing cash from an ATM. International withdrawals cost $3.
Summary
- Physical card: Yes
- Virtual card: Yes
- Card type: Visa
- Mobile app: Yes
- Supported cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC)
- Supported fiat currencies: USD
- Anonymous: No
Final Word
If you are looking to invest in a debit card in the US whose company enjoys a good reputation then this debit card is for you. They rely on their good reputation to ensure their services always exceed their customer’s expectations. The card takes less than a week to arrive and is cheap too. Since it only supports Bitcoin, it does limit the user’s preferences. Some users also complain about preloading the card. The security it offers is exceptional but comes with a bothersome verification process. Its maintenance fee is higher than most of its competitors. While others charge $1/month as a maintenance fee, Bitpay Bitcoin debit card charges $5/month.
What are Bitcoin debit cards?
With the increasing popularity of cryptocurrency, many people have a question – how can Bitcoin be cashed? One of the most popular and already available methods is plastic bitcoin cards.
Thoughts about creating a debit card, linked to cryptocurrency, appeared long ago – back in 2011. The prospects were obvious – the card could significantly simplify the use of bitcoin in real life – to exchange, replenish, buy cryptocurrency using the card would not be difficult for the user. At the end of 2013, the first debit cards with digital currency support appear. And in 2015, rapid growth in the number of services offering users various types of bitcoin cards begins.
Bitcoin card features
Crypto cards work in MasterCard or Visa payment systems and have accounts in Fiat (USD, EUR, GBP) and virtual currencies, so the exchange between them within the service is automatically at the internal rate. Also, the cards are tied to a bitcoin account opened in the service where the card is issued, so the speed of transactions increases.
Why do many people prefer Bitcoin cards to exchangers and exchanges?
- Lack of intermediaries in the exchange of Bitcoin for Fiat
- Many services offer anonymous cards that do not require verification.
- 24-hour access to funds
- Convenience and ease of use, you can pay wherever Visa / MasterCard is accepted
The most popular cryptocurrency cards
Among the many Bitcoin cards, there are several, the most popular:
TRASTRA card
TRASTRA is a cryptocurrency VISA card available for residents of the European Union and UK. It supports Bitcoin as well as multiple Altcoins and new currencies are regularly added. This card has some of the lowest fees on the European crypto market. With a monthly fee of 1.25EUR and initial card cost of 9EUR only users get access to numerous features including crypto wallets, exchange and buy services, and a personal IBAN account. TRASTRA doesn’t have any card top-up fees, commissions for making purchases in euro, and external transfers. All this makes TRASTRA incredibly profitable debit card for daily transactions.
The Shift card
The Shift card has a number of advantages – it is relatively inexpensive ($ 10), free transactions within the country (USA), a convenient mobile application, non-commissioned transfer of Bitcoin to Fiat. But this card has quite low limits for withdrawal/replenishment, it only works with BTC and USD and only in the US (even not in all states).
The BitPay card
The BitPay card (based on the Visa payment system) is perhaps the most popular Bitcoin card in America. BitPay card can be used by residents of all states of America and many other countries (Turkey, Switzerland, Slovenia, Monaco, Poland, etc.). Like Shift, BitPay works with only one fiat currency (USD) and only with BTC, but it has quite high limits that do not require additional confirmation. Users of this card note the high speed of transfers (less than a minute is the transfer of dollars to bitcoins and vice versa), competent technical support service and ease of application. At the moment, this debit card can only be bought for Bitcoins.
The Bitwala card
The Bitwala card is the result of the work of the European cryptocurrency startup Bitwala. This card can be virtual (cost 2 €) or plastic (cost 8 €), verified (in this case, the transfer limit is increased to € 50,000 per month) or not (the limits are significantly reduced). In addition to Bitcoin, the user can replenish the Altcoins card, which has become possible thanks to the Bitwala collaboration with the Shapeshift exchanger. The disadvantage is the presence of a commission of 0.5% of the amount for depositing funds on the card, for reissuing the card, monthly maintenance fee.
The Xapo card
The Xapo card is the “old” crypto map in Europe, produced since 2013. The advantage is the presence of a personal bitcoin wallet and the ability to use cold storage, that is, the service itself is responsible for the safety of your funds. The Xapo card supports BTC, EUR, GBP, USD, does not have a fee for the completion of the card. But there are a number of “minuses” – a commission for service, low limits on withdrawals, the high cost of the card and its reissue, mandatory verification.
EPayments card
EPayments card (MasterCard payment system) – the card was developed by the British Electronic Payments Association. The ePayments card is quite popular among cryptocurrency owners, as the Electronic Payments service is constantly “adjusted” to the needs of card users. Thus, from April 2017, the one-time annual maintenance fee was canceled (now the maintenance fee is charged monthly (2.95 USD), but the first two months are free), the issue price has significantly decreased – 5.95 USD (and from 2.10 to 9.10 of the current year you can order for 2.95 USD), SMS informing became free, PayPass support appeared.