The Offer
Direct link to waitlist [signup requires a Coinbase account]
Coinbase has announced plans to release a crypto earning visa debit card in early 2021.
Card Details
Complete card details are not yet available, the following is a summary of what’s been released:
- Card Network: Visa (issued by Metabank)
- Reward Structure: Up to 4%
- 4% back in stellar (XLM), or
- 1% back in bitcoin (BTC)
- Fees:
- No annual fee
- No signup fee
- Other standard fees may apply, and will be shared during signup
- Planned Release: Early 2021
- Other Requirements: Unknown
- Balance, Categories, Staking, Transactions, … ?
The Fine Print
- Crypto rewards is an optional Coinbase offer [unsure how this applies]
- Coinbase will automatically convert all cryptocurrency to US Dollars for use in purchases and ATM withdrawals
- Will be available in all US States (except Hawaii)
Our Verdict
The earning rate on this debit card might make it interesting, but we won’t really know how interesting until all the card details are released.
We’ve covered a number of Coinbase Earn promotions. Hopefully as competition heats up in the crypto space (PayPal and others are coming) the promotions will follow suit.
There are a few crypto earning debit cards currently on the market (we looked at Crypto.com’s card). We’ve also looked at a number of proposed cards: BlockFi’s Credit Card, Fold’s Debit Card, and Nexo’s Mastercard none of which have quite materialized yet.
All the Best!
Looks like I’m no longer getting rewards for Paypal bill pay credit card payments … anyone else?
My transaction summaries show “1%” under transactions up until 3/2/23. After that, it just says “Completed”.
Between P1 and P2, we both did PPBP on 3/2/23. The small ones (under $20) did give 1% — I was zeroing out the balance on some cards that had a few purchases. Any larger payments on 3/2/23 or later ($300+) didn’t give any rewards.
I’m actually not even able to get transactions to go through at this point. “We are having trouble with your payment method. Try a different one.” or “Something went wrong. Try again.”
Of course, that’s all moot if we’re not getting rewards anyway.
This card stopped working for me on Citi phone payments earlier this year. It worked for me on a small PayPal bill pay on Feb 15 but I haven’t bothered to pursue it with only 1% rewards. I feel like this gravy train is coming to an end if not already.
So many issues with app and website past 2 days. Ominous sign in light of current state of crypto valuations and company bankruptcies?
Rewards will drop to 1% on November 16. It still could be worth using the card to pay taxes or credit card bills. You might get shut down, but that’s no big deal since the card will no longer be useful for anything else.
I just successfully bought out my wife’s 2019 Ford Escape lease via ford financial services.
Took 7 trips to the local dealership to buyout 15.5k (2500 max daily use on Coinbase debit). About 90 minutes of my time total.
Had 4% stellar lumen as award. Would take about 24 hours after purchase to have crypto rewards show in Coinbase account. Would immediately swap into Bitcoin upon receiving the reward.
Ended up $615 worth of Bitcoin after swap fees. Average price has been right around 20k per Bitcoin when I did the swaps. So about 3.9% back in Bitcoin for buying out this car lease
Anybody making car payments: check and see if you can make the payments via debit card. Ford accepts them and I believe some others do also.
and they de-activated the card the day after making the final car payment. I could care less tbh, I may try to get re-instated, but might not tbh things will be just fine without the coinbase card in my life lol
They’ll Reactivate the card 1 time only. I would get it reactivated and hold off until big spend or MS until they kill the card again since you don’t need the card anyway.
Oh They re-activated all right. After a bunch of bs back and forth with their CS, they kept saying everything looked fine on their end even tho the card was de-activated, lol what a joke.
Anyways I’m back to earning these outsized shitcoin rewards. I’ll go back to using it on sushi and other low ticket purchases.
4% XLM rewards are back thru Sept 16, 2022. Also Bitcoin at 1.5% &. ETH at 1%.
I just got my card shut down. I had made $704 in tax payments back in March, and this month paid $1746 directly to Citi credit cards followed by $4292 to other credit cards through Paypal Bill Pay.
I guess it is time to switch to 1% from Enzo for paying credit cards by Paypal.
Got suspended second time for making several $2000+ tax payments. Second suspension is permanent, so I guess the game is over for me.
They have changed rewards recently, so looks like no more 4%. Only 2% option is available, which is still decent for a debit card.
Decent, but unlikely to be worth the trouble over Greendot
They have brought the 4% XLM back and dumped it a few times now.
It’s like a slot machine, right as I am about to move on – they throw out a little win to keep me interested.
How does funding the card and spending it work in terms of timing?
I funded card yesterday with bank ACH and was able to instantly run a few small charges. Today I tried some more charges and they got declined for insufficient funds though it tells me I have USD available. My USD is unavailable to cash out for a few more days but the card page says available. Nonetheless I was able to spend it yesterday but not today.
I tried some Google searching and some people say they need to wait for funds to clear before spending and others say instant.
Is it just a crapshoot or something?
I’m not sure this is the situation, but Coinbase only allows 1k of ACH instant purchases to leave the platform before deposits clear.
You can buy $1200 of any coin and immediately transfer 1k off the platform. The other $200 has to stay until deposits clear. You can trade it, stake it, etc – but it stays with Coinbase until they have that 1k they trusted you with.
Thanks. Yeah I assume it has something to do with ACH clearing. Honestly I was surprised it let me do a couple charges instantly. I only funded about $50 to test things out. I found a note on the Coinbase site that Coinbase Card spending is included in transactions that need cleared/settled funds first (not surprised). The weird thing is I got a couple charges through that first day with unsettled funds.
Also the app says that my USD is available to spend on the card, but it also says the USD is not available for cash out (due to settling time). I assume that’s just an oversight or bad app design. I am not very impressed with the app in general.
I got suspended for paying taxes about 10 months ago, within 2 days of getting the card. I asked to have the suspension lifted in September – they said no. I asked again yesterday and they said yes. So never give up.
As a sidenote. SWIFT ISO 20022 standards will roll out in November 2022. XLM is compliant with standard and IBM has XLM as part of their ‘World Wire’ program. So there is a big deal real world use case coming up through cross border payments with any banks that use SWIFT.
CB shut my card off for doing just under $2500 tax payments. They don’t like that
do any one know tax implication on this card as I am reading many negative remarks with respect to tax o coinbase
Not a tax professional, but…
1. No taxable event when loading USDC to your card.
2. No taxable event when you receive your crypto rewards.
3. Yes taxable event when you SELL your crypto rewards. Taxable amount is the change in value of the crypto AFTER it was received.
Example:
1. You load $2500. No tax.
2. You spend $2500. You get $100 of crypto. No tax.
3. The crypto goes up to $150 in value. You sell it. You owe tax on $50.
Edit: Technically, using/spending USDC might be a “taxable event” but the amount of the taxable event is $0 as long as the USDC value has remained stable, i.e. this doesn’t matter unless USDC stops being $1.