Coinbase’s Crypto Debit Card Kicks Off With A Rocky Launch

One of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world, Coinbase has officially launched its cryptocurrency debit card in Italy and five other nations across Europe. The Coinbase Card has already been a success in the UK when it was launched back in April.

European Crosshairs

The crypto exchange rolled out its credit card in an attempt to help customers make purchases directly with Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies.

The idea behind the Coinbase Card is relatively similar to that of any other card in that, your crypto is being directly converted into cash when you make a purchase which means that merchants don’t actually have to cope with the volatile asset.

Users in Europe will be able to either download the Coinbase Card or order a physical card that will cost them around $4.95 per card.

The Coinbase UK CEO Zeeshan Feroz spoke on the recent effort for expansion during an interview with CNBC where he said:

“You can buy groceries on Bitcoin and then coffee on Litecoin right after."

Whereas the app sounds great on paper, looking at the Google Play Store, we can see that it primarily has negative reviews with a 2.2 overall score.

It will be interesting to see if further updates will give the app a better score but it isn’t uncommon for new ventures to be a bit rocky at launch. In fact, this app was supposed to be a big boom for adoption, especially given that Coinbase is one of the biggest exchanges in the world.

The rise in the price of cryptocurrencies has been often accompanied by an increase of general interest by big institutional investors. At the end of 2017, we saw a lot more people enter the market who probably never had even heard of cryptocurrency and get involved with the crypto space.

Last month, Forbes predicted the launch of the card would have been enough to push Bitcoin up to the $10,000 mark, but it seems that is now mute.

For now though, the leading cryptocurrency is sat around the $7,900 mark following a 0.41 percent over the past 24 hours, almost teasing investors near the $8k resistance level.