E-Coin Bitcoin Debit Card and Multi-Sig Wallet

Getting and using a Bitcoin Debit Card to spend Bitcoins at places where BTC is not normally accepted as a form of payment is a convenient way to spend your crypto coins, so services that offer such capabilities such as E-Coin are getting more and more user attention. We actually have and are using a physical Bitcoin debit card from for quite a while already, but there are always more new options available such as getting a virtual Bitcoin debit card or a physical one from the E-Coin Bitcoin debit card and multi-sig wallet service. The biggest advantage of this service is that you can get a virtual VISA debit card that is powered by Bitcoin in just a few minutes after you register for the service. Then you just send in Bitcoins to your wallet and transfer them to the card and you can spend them for online purchases from around the world where VISA is accepted. When sending BTC to your E-Coin online wallet you just need to wait for 3 confirmations before you can actually use the coins you have sent, so it takes less time than the usual 6 confirmations. At a later time you can either upgrade your virtual card to a physical one, or get another physical card should you need so and it will be shipped to you with either regular or express service.
You can request to get a Bitcoin debit card is either EUR, USD or GBP as a currency. Getting a virtual debit card you normally need to pay $3 USD, and for a physical card $17 USD if you wan the card shipped to you via Royal Mail with standard shipping or $50 USD for express shipping with DHL. The virtual Bitcoin debit card issues to you will be available in a couple of minutes and you can start using it for online payments, while a physical card will take some time to be delivered to you and then you need to activate it before it can be used. There are multiple of ways available for you to pay the fee required to get your Bitcoin debit card such as with Bitcoin from your account, through PayPal, with an existing bank card etc. Once you get your card you would have some limits on the amount you can spend through the card and if you want to increase the limits you will need to go through a verification process to extend the limits. For an EUR Bitcoin debit card you start with a maximum total ATM withdraw limit of 1000 EUR and you can remove this limit once you pass the verification process, there are no limits on POS or Online payments, though the total maximum Bitcoin you can load in the card is the equivalent of 2500 EUR, again removing this limit once you verify. The standard limits are more than enough for you to try out the card and decide for yourself if it is something you want to keep using, so that you will provide identity verification to increase your card’s limits. Do note that one thing specific to the E-Coin Bitcoin debit card is that normally the balance you have in the online wallet is not directly available in the card to be used, you need to “load” the card with the desired amount that you need spending. This way you can get an extra level of security if you loose the card or it gets stolen.
Here are the Bank/VISA fees associated with the Bitcoin debit card regardless if it is virtual or a physical one, the fees are pretty reasonable and the only thing that you need to be more careful with is the “Foreign Transaction Fee” of 3% that you will be charged if the transaction is not in the card’s currency. This means that if you have an EUR card and you purchase something in Euro there will be no extra fees for you, but if you withdraw 100 USD from that EUR card from an ATM you will have to pay 2.25 EUR fee for the ATM transaction as well as 3% extra fee to convert your EUR balance to USD. This foreign transaction fee is something that is available with other similar products like the Bitcoin debit card from E-Coin, you just need to be aware of it when using the card.
Here are the default limits you get for the Bitcoin debit cards either virtual or physical that you can get. The limits for the Unverified do not require any personal documents from the user meaning that you cans tart using your Bitcoin debit card immediately after you register and request the card (for virtual) or as soon as you get the physical card and you activate it. In order to increase the limits of the Bitcoin debit card you need to provide identity documents that must be verified according to AML and KYC regulations – scanned ID and proof of address is required. Once you get verified the limits of the card are pretty high and you should not have any more trouble using the card daily even for more significant amounts.
We have already got a virtual VISA Bitcoin debit card in EURO currency from the service and were pretty pleasantly surprised how fast the card was available for us to use, of course limited to doing only online payments. We have since then requested the virtual Bitcoin debit card to be upgraded to a plastic one and are currently waiting for the physical card to arrive. Meanwhile we can use our virtual card just fine and once we get the plastic card we need to activate it, making the virtual card unavailable anymore as the physical card should be with a different number than the virtual one. We are going to share some more feedback from the service once we ge the physical Bitcoin debit card from E-Coin, but so far we are pretty happy with the service. So if you are in need of a way to spend Bitcoins in a more traditional way with a bank card in places where BTC is nor directly accepted, then you might want to give the service a try.