Coinsis and Blackcoin May Be Partnering Up For BTC/BC Debit/Credit Card

Bitcoin debit and credit cards are all the rage. There are several either on the market or in the pipeline right now. One of those is Coinsis.

Technically, Coinsis is not a Bitcoin debit card at all. Instead, it will quickly exchange Bitcoin for USD and then load it on the card. The process takes about 15 minutes, after that, the money can be spent instantly. It isn't quite the instant conversion to fiat some people were hoping for, it works similar to Cryptex's card rather than Xapo's. The Xapo card pays the credit processor with their own funds and then reimburses themselves using the customer's wallet. The Coinsis still beast the vast majority of current methods of changing cryptocurrencies into fiat.

One advantage of Coinsis' system over Xapo's is that Coinsis never has control of your coins, and all BTC transactions take place on the blockchain.

Their demo video (you can check it out on their official site) shows the card being used to buy gas, cigarettes and Starbucks. Its very impressive, despite its rather amateurish production values.

The system is also planned to allow users to send bitcoin through email and conventional methods (addresses, QR code).

Coinsis has been around officially since June, but didn't receive much press after releasing their demo video. The connection with Blackcoin comes way of an announcement by Steven Mckie, one of Blackcoin's lead developers. Blackcoin also mentioned the report on Twitter, which got a quasi-confirmation by Coinsis, who said an announcement would be forthcoming. According to Blackcoin, Coinsis' other features will also work with Blackcoin.

We reached out to Coinsis for confirmation. James Ross, one of two co-founders of Coinsis, got back to us and confirmed that they have verbally agreed to enter into a partnership with Blackcoin.

“Yes, Coinsis and BlackCoin have reached a verbal [agreestevenment] toward a partnership integrating BlackCoin, with the Coinsis Bitcoin credit card platform. 

We're in talks with these really smart guys at BlackCoin to finalize the details and develop a long and rewarding relationship for both our companies and, more importantly, the digital currency community as a whole.

We firmly believe the upcoming release of the Coinsis Bitcoin/ Alt Coin credit card will serve as a global bridge connecting early adopters "Coined users" to the mass consumers "UnCoined users" and enable people to transact more, on their own terms, with total control over their buying/spending experience.”

Blackcoin's price has continued to drop, a long running trend since June. Save for a brief period after Bittrex and Blackcoin announced that the exchange was considering adding Blackcoin markets (I was told by Bittrex last night that those plans are still being considered). This downward trend is happening despite of a very active development community that is continually adding features to the coin. It will be interesting to see if the release of this card, or the news of its arrival, has any effect on the price of the currency.

Blackcoin developer Steven McKie also pointed out that loading Blackcoin onto the debit card should be much quicker than Bitcoin, because of the digital currency's quicker confirmation times.

Coinsis is new on the scene and has not yet revealed much about the card outside of its demonstration video. Currently, we are unaware of how high the fees will be or what kind of regulatory hoops they have jumped through. The card runs on the VISA network, which has allowed prepaid Bitcoin debit cards on its market in the past (although, that decision often rests with a bank and not VISA).

Another interesting note from their comment was the reference to the card as a “Bitcoin / Alt coin credit card” which seems to imply other altcoins are planned at some point. We have reached out to Coinsis for clarification (as well as a few other questions) and will update this story appropriately.

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