Topic: [unofficial] CoinDebit NO-KYC pre-paid cards? (Read 1062 times)

Please note that coindebit.io is service is currently down until further notice.
Website is still available and working, but you can't create new cards at the moment.

Here is official announcement from coindebit Founder and CEO:

https://www.coindebit.io/announcement

I am locking this topic for now.

I have nothing from official sources, but I (sort of) explained how it is possible to use CoinDebit cards from other parts of the world if you applied for latest testing.
Let's wait for this beta testing to finish so we can get more feedback from people if everything is working as expected.
Contact people from CoinDebit website to get official information.

Any idea when will they be available for rest of the world again?

You don't need to add your physical address for CoinDebit  virtual cards, but they opened beta applications only for IP address from US, so they might refuse to issue card for you with different IP address.
I would also use separate temporary email for registration instead of regular email address, to reduce any potential leaks in future.

No they won't, this can be used almost anywhere, it's not  a gift card.

I am sure that even now people applied for CoinDebit cards from countries outside US, so they will check if everything works or not during this beta phase.

So that means you need to register an address for it while using a US IP address, right?

That'll make it like a Walmart card then.

Though I am not sure how hard it will be to expand to non-US merchants, considering that worldwide prepaid cards have become quite hard to find nowadays.

I've been buying from a lot of different websites with prepaid cards for some time, and my success rate has been about 50/50 for US-only cards. So going worldwide will really increase the chance of successful checkout.

Good news coming from CoinDebit!
They just released beta for their new virtual cards but they currently work only for territory of United States or with US IP address.
This phase is done for limited number of people who applied for testing phase and they must be approved by CoinDebit team.
Official release of new cards should happen after this testing is finished, and I hope they will expand card support for rest of the world.

Sounds suspicious to me. A lot of projects go into "standby" mode only to die in their sleep. One can only hope it's the opposite case and they truly are working on maintenance.

Few days ago CoinDebit announced they are temporarily shutting down their service while they transition to a better prepaid card issuing provider.
They had very big interest during beta card program and they are now working on better system for full product roll out.
Everyone with funds on their card will be able to get full refund in Bitcoin or transfer of funds to new upcoming CoinDebit cards.
https://www.coindebit.io/announcement

Virtual cards are cool and all, but I am more interested in physical cards that can be reloaded with more bitcoin money and use in more places.
Even with real cards it happens they don't always work, but I would accept that if I don't have to go with all procedure of standard cards.
One more potential use case of this vitual cards could be anonymous e-sim cards from silent.link or some other provider.

Sounds interesting but I never saw any video about service like that, but I generally reduced time I am spending watching videos.

I have tried the virtual one once and I was able to pay for it using Lightning. There were no fees and the exchange rate USD <> BTC was exactly what my LED Bitcoin dashboard (hitbtc.com API) was displaying (negligible difference).

However, it was not accepted for an online sports channel subscription (1 month). Either they don't accept debit cards in general, or you need to load it more generously (not like me).
I do think these kinds of one-time debit cards (existed in the past even without crypto; you bought them through your actual credit card) make most sense if you can load them with just the amount needed for a purchase, so that you don't need to use them twice or have a bunch of them with $2 each on them that you can't spend.

One such example that (in a video I saw) was very well integrated was a service that came with a browser extension, which recognized payment pages. Once you landed on a shop's payment page, the extension would create a one-time card with the exact amount needed, and display a Lightning invoice. Once that was paid, the card details were entered into the website automatically, so from a user perspective, you never really 'touched' a credit card number or anything like that, and basically paid in Bitcoin directly.

As far as I know, at that point it was a video POC and it wasn't production-ready; unfortunately, I can't find it anymore either. Maybe my description sounds familiar to someone who can recall the project name.

---

Again, that only works if the shop or service where you plan to use the card, doesn't require some buffer of extra balance.

AuroraStore is just a frontend of GooglePlay that you can use without real gmail account, but this is not so much connected with CoinDebit cards if you use physical cards.
I always prefer payment in cash with fiat money if possible, and with Bitcoin for payments with crypto, but if you want to have more privacy than try to reduce usage of virtual cards tied to your identity.
Not sure how CoinDebit virtual cards work because I didn't test it myself, but I know they are not connected with your identity, unless you make a mistake and buy them with BTC from kyc exchange.

Banks have to allow their cards to be used with Apple / Google / Samsung / etc. pay. Beyond that they can also dig into specific devices and model lines.

If you poke around you will see at times that people are complaining when they switch devices that the card that worked with their Samsung phone and watch no longer works with their Apple phone and watch.Or it's still the same phone but they got a new fitibt and it worked with the old one but not the new. Most of the time it's not a big deal, just take another card out of your wallet and use that one. Other times, like this when you want to use a specific card for a reason you are just out of luck.....

-Dave

Hi, thx for the corrections.

I was thinking maybe we'd have more privacy using FOSS than Google or Apple pay, no?

Hello,

Instead of using Google or Apple Pay, did someone test with a virtual card service from Aurora Appstore?

No to the reload and no to the fees. Outside of the original cost of getting them there have been no issues.

I was using them to get some motorcycle parts from websites that were using a processor that I have had issues with before. But I bought $50 cards for purchases with shipping that came to a bit less. I just wanted the rest of the funds off the cards. Wound up adding them to my 7-11 app and got some overpriced snacks.

-Dave

Nope, I am still waiting and I didn't receive mine for testing yet :/

Is there a way to reload cards with more money somehow?
I heard they are planning to increase limits from $250 to $1000, so that is not bad news at all if it happens.
btw did you pay any fees for transactions and payments?

Has anyone been able to add these cards to Google / Apple / Samsung / other pay?

I have gotten a few and now have a dollar or 2 left on them with no easy way to spend it. But since it's trivial to use one of the tap to pay services to partly cover physical payments in a store I figured that would be a good way to burn off the last of the money.

It did not work on my setup (One Plus Nord & fitbit) but just about no cards work with that combo for some reason. Keep giving security errors except for Amex.
But that's a rant for the XDA developers board......

-Dave

I am certain that government and tracking analytics companies are running lightning nodes already, and they are trying to improve LN tracking.
Maybe you heard about Arcane OS that was advertised as Anom phone but secretly operated by government agencies.
You can even find some of those devices today, usually as Google Pixel, but they obviously don't work anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA1KS-xh0n0

Even if this was possible, it would probably be custodial wallet so you wouldn't have full control, and they would have to charge extra fees for that.
It's not impossible, but I don't think this will happen for CoinDebit cards.

---

Interesting news for CoinDebit VIRTUAL card is that it can be now used anywhere in the world that accepts Visa cards, but we need to wait for physical cards to be available.

Why shouldn't it be possible? I had a prepaid card in the past that you could charge through bank transfer in the EU and it was possible to send balance from the card back to the bank account if needed. It is really helpful; imagine your payment for e.g. some flights is declined and you're stuck with hundreds of $ on said card. Then you need to spend the same amount a second time to charge another card to try again; and spend the balance of the first card on something else. Especially when living in the EU where you basically never pay with credit card, I see this as a big issue of prepaid cards.

if they only have 1% fee when loading, that makes it on par Binance card when it comes to fees. Even if they have let's say additional 1-2% transaction fee, that would still be acceptable, at least for me. 


From my experience with other crypto debit card, in case of rejected transaction you just have to try it again and it usually goes through so its not a big problem. Regarding your question about withdrawing your funds from card back to the Bitcoin wallet, I really doubt that is possible as from what I understand, CoinDebit is a prepaid card.

Regarding this aspect, it would be great to know if it's possible to send back funds from the card to your Bitcoin wallet. For example, if the merchant didn't recognize the card.
This has always been my issue with debit cards; if the payment doesn't go through, you're stuck with a ton of money on that card and no way to instantly move it to another card, back to your bank account or Bitcoin wallet.

Sure, Lightning is younger and could statistically have more bugs than Bitcoin Core. I was talking about the perception of taint from the 'large population' which in big parts has been brainwashed into believing some arbitrary company's subjective opinion on a certain UTXO as absolute truth. So far, Lightning is being perceived as untraceable and thus also untaintable.

Architecturally, the only way to get a good idea about the path of a payment is if you run a lot of Lightning nodes such that the full path (or portion of it) from a sender to a receiver is covered by your nodes.

I can't be 100% sure but according to my investigation I don't think they have any hidden fees, and US customers are very happy with this cards so far.
However, they are not perfect, sometimes payment could be rejected for unknown reasons, and this is till beta phase so changes could happen at any time.
I would not use this card for ordering stuff online, but I think it's good option as backup card when you are traveling on the road.

It's possible, but I think it also has more risk if some bug or exploit is found in LN.
Chances of that happening in battle tested Bitcoin main chain is very low, but good thing is that we can use them both together BTC+LN.
Until someone actually shows how LN transactions are tracked we can only speculate.

You know my opinion: 'taint' etc. only exists in people's heads. If they believe it exists, it does. If they don't, it doesn't.
Lightning has the chance to do what on-chain Bitcoin failed to do: convince people to accept that any UTXO / any channel state is like any other.


That would be a cool experiment; but it would need to be repeated with each different 'tainting definition / evaluation service' separately and also repeated over time, since they get more and more sneakier.

That's good to hear! I plan to give it a try regardless; but international usability would be a big bonus.

Great news!

I just checked their website and saw that they finally added some fee info in which they say that "There is a one time load fee of 1%. This fee covers the cost of selling the bitcoin." Do you maybe know if that's the only fee and that there are no hidden ones? That is very competitive fee (if true) and would make this card a very good choice.

Yeah it is a bummer, that is why I am trying to motivate them to expand their cards to Europe and other parts of the world.
I know regulations can be complicated but I think they would certainly have customers even with this lower limit that is currently available during testing beta phase.

Not yet at least, but it doesn't guarantee something similar won't happen in near future.
We know that Chainalysis said they are tracking Lightning Network, and more popularity could mean more risk and being under radar of regulators.
I don't know if anyone tried to send BTC that was blacklisted and convert it to Lightning, but this could way around to make Bitcoin really fungible with LN, and then you can spend it with cards like this if you want.

PS
I just heard that CoinDebit is working on international cards  

Thanks for checking this out, dkbit98. I've had a look around a while back for a no-KYC credit card that can be charged with Bitcoin on-chain and / or Lightning. My search was unsuccessful. I may give this a try; but only being able to use it in the states is a bit of a bummer.

About the conditions: although I'm 100% on board with you on this when it comes to other businesses that accept Bitcoin; it seems to me that with credit cards there's no way around it. Since 'crypto credit cards' are either banks themselves or work directly with banks, they have to comply with whatever the bank wants. And of course, that's usually always where the fun ends. So it doesn't really surprise me; it should be 'good enough' if you only ever charge it up with whatever you need for your next in-store (or online) purchase.

Since a notion of 'taint' and other types of transaction tracing doesn't exist on LN, I guess if such a credit card existed that accepts Lightning deposits, you should be safer from 'account closure due to dubious activities, yada yada yada' nonsense.

Many restaurants authorize for 20% to 25% more then the check. This will cover tips / additional items added after the 'closing' of the check.
Was a waiter back in the day and you would be amazed how many times there was '1 more drink' or 'lets get that desert to go for the kids' after the check had been printed and the card swiped.

-Dave

Have you contacted CoinDebit support after this rejection happened or maybe you wrote them email and ask them for explanation?
One more thing I wanted to ask you, if you are traveling outside US in near future, try bringing CoinDebit card with you and test if it's working in other countries (officially it shouldn't work).
We need something like this working in Europe and other parts of the world.

If I was in your place I won't go crazy topping up lot of money on that card, they started this company and card jus recently, and I know they are still testing it.
It's not impossible to think that card can be block at any time for whatever reason, so you should know the risks.

My experience of using this card:

I bought and paid with Lightning Bitcoin. I paid about $101.5 and received a card with a balance of $100. Then I tried to add it to the Curve application - who doesn't know - this is a "proxy" service for cards that may not work with contactless payments, but it works through Curve (Curve has KYC and issues its virtual card with the possibility of contactless payment, then it is added to Google Pay, for example).

I had USD currency in Curve App for the card, but I paid in local currency. Curve, as a rule, has an exchange rate "on the fly" equal to the exchange rate. I have successfully conducted several transactions for the full amount of about $46 (NFC-contactless payments through Google Pay application). Due to 1:1 exchange rates (equal to the exchange rate) it took me exactly as many dollars as I spent in the local currency. My balance after that was exactly as much as was spent on the Curve side. That is, the rate was even more profitable than on many cards of ordinary banks!

A little later that day, I dropped $190, I had $244 and I was trying to pay for dinner at the restaurant for about $230. But two attempts were unsuccessful. There is no information on the CoinDebit website except that you can top up to $250. I can assume that the card can always be replenished up to $250 (and maybe more - I haven't tried it), but you can spend a maximum of $250 in the last 24 hours. But that's my guess. I'll continue checking tomorrow.

P.S. When you add a CoinDebit card to Curve, you need to specify the name of owner without ", LLC" suffix, as they write in the card data. I also want to add that I tried to add a card to Google Pay - the check was successful, but the last stage after checking the card gave me a message that the card could not be used in stores and I was asked to add another card.

P.P.S. The card balance can be topped up higher than $250 - I just did it. Apparently you can spend up to $250 within 24 hours. I didn't find any other explanation why I was able to top up above $250.

CoinDebit is getting some serious competition with Edge releasing their first confidential Mastercard without any kyc verification!
Edge app is needed for this card to work and for now it's only available for US merchants (same like CoinDebit) and they are supporting Bitcoin with few other altcoins (LTC, BCH, DOGE, DASH).
One more great thing is that Edge is charging zero fees when you top up your balance, and card works with Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay with NFC.
Physical Edge Mastercard can be ordered for one-time charge of $20, and they have plans to expand to other countries in future.


https://edge.app/card/

If you are living in Orange County and So-Cal area, or you are there on June 9th, you can visit OC Bitcoiners Meetup (Costa Mesa) sponsored by CoinDebit.io.
Food and beer are pad by CoinDebit and you will get priority access to the physical card beta program.
This is obviously only available for United States citizens, but I would love that someone make a suggestion there and add support for Europe and rest of the world.
What I like about this event is their last sentence on their meetup page


https://meetu.ps/e/L6lX8/PZ73c/i

I can see that despite the first positive post about CoinDebit service, there is quite a bit of controversy around this card. Anyway, from what I can see, they don't provide services in Europe.

Does anyone know the Bitcoin Debit Card that works in Europe, has a fairly low fee, has high limits and is on the market for a long enough to confirm its credibility?

I am more interested in physical cards, and I am also wondering what name are they writing on cards, legal or anything you want to write, like John Rambo, Ivan Drago and similar.
Having a card issued by a bank from foreign country is maybe not such a bad thing, if you don't want ''someone'' tracking every single purchase you make, excluding cash payments.

Virtual card.
At the moment I'm out of addresses I would want to use for unknown services.

Depending on the rules of the bank I can see them needing someghing in whatever country / region they want to issue cards in. So although in theory they could probably issue cards anywhere the rules of the bank don't allow them to. Just a guess but I have seen it before with other non crypto related banking things.

-Dave

Nice little review.
So you actually ordered physical card or this was only CoinDebit virtual card?
I honestly expected to see that cards are coming from some exotic countries, and I wouldn't sent them any big money for sure.
It would be good if they allow shipping to PO boxes or some other way of sending that wouldn't reveal your real identity.

Biggest issue for me is the fact they are not offering their service and cards to Europe other parts of the world.
If bank is really from Columbia, than I see no real reason why they wouldn't offer it to people who want to use it worldwide, unless they have some restrictions for that.

The biggest issue I see is that even though it's a US address it's a foreign bank. Some merchants Dell don't process any cards on their US site that are not US based. I am sure there are others. For the low dollar value cards they offer it probably does not matter, but it is something to think about.

If they all go back to the same address that could also lead to an issue with some merchants. Why are 1000s of people with different names and shipping addresses all have the CC billing address at this location?

Probably still going to use it, just things to think about.

-Dave

I am always interested in projects offering card packages (as long as they are legit of course) in my never-ending quest for privacy and unbanked freedom.


That's a shame. Imagine if we could get a world card similar to Advcash, but without the red tape of verification. That would be fabulous provided that it was regularly moderated to stamp out illegal uses, of course.

That kinda makes sense: I wouldn't expect a bank from the US or EU to allow anonymous cards because of AML/KYC-laws. Colombia probably doesn't care

So, I tried it and just didn't get a good "feeling" about it. Just seems sketchy.

Lets begin, go to make the card and you see this:



Click create card and you get this with a lower price for BTC:



Bounce out to preev and BTC is the higher price.



But on a purchase to test, what the heck it's not that bad. For bigger numbers it's going to be worse but it's a test.

Follow through get a BTC address and get a card with a name and a address going to someplace in Sheridan WY.
Looks like a small office building, google it and it looks like the mailing address of a law office that creates 1000s of small companies.
So probably legit. Check the filings with the Wyoming website and it does exist.

Then it gets funky

For those of you that don't know from the 1st 6 digits of a credit card you can identify the bank.
The card I got comes back with 485953 which according to here: https://www.bincodes.com/bin-checker/
comes back to a bank in Colombia.

Make of that what you will. It's a decent size bank with a good reputation.
The card did work when I used it about 10 minutes after getting it. So that part is legitimate.

No advice, just information what you do with it is up to you.

-Dave

If or when you try this cards you can make a post here with updates and feedback, but please don't spend a fortune on risky stuff like this.
I am hoping CoinDebit creators could see some traffic coming from bitcointalk forum, they could join this discussion, and you can later all blame them if something goes wrong 

Since the fees are low and you can get low value cards I can see them being good for the 1 and done kind of thing.
Need a card for $38.45 at a potentially sketchy website. Get one use it and move on. If CoinDebit  disappears 6 seconds after the merchant gets approval, not your problem.

The flip side of that is the bad part, you have no way of getting your money back if they don't ship / do whatever they say they were going to do if CoinDebit goes away your funds are lost.

Will probably try it sooner or later.

Good find.

-Dave

I am not trying to defend CoinDebit in any way here, but I think your scam busting skills are not as good as they use to be, maybe because you are not investigating them so much anymore
I personally tried to talk with both services so I can judge situation from different angles, and I didn't say that is the reason why I think something is legit or not.
As for scammers, I don't know any intelligent scammers that would limit themselves only to United States and refuse people from all other countries in the world.
btw you can see Bitcoin developers like Lorenzo Primiterra The Crypto Nomad and others testing CoinDebit cards...

Well, even CryptoDebit refused some stuff, like selling reloadable debit cards so just because they didn't want to scam you immediately doesn't mean that they are legit. Smarter scammers tend to play the long game anyway.


Well, it would be interesting to see how they offered their service in 2020 without website. And as I mentioned, domain expires in about 2-3 weeks which is another red flag for me.



To be honest, I wouldn't even tag someone (at least not with negative feedback, maybe neutral ) for copying the TOS, if thats the only bad thing I could find. Yeah, its a lazy and shitty thing to do but it doesn't mean that some service is a scam as so many do that. And yeah I agree, due similar name and the fact that CoinDebit is older than Criptodebit chances are that they indeed copied from them.


Same here, but imho its a different thing to copy/paste something as generic as TOS usually is, and to copy the whole idea and concept of some business/project, like classic scams tend to do.

Thanks for the link, I couldn't find it on their website. Since this service is being advertised by people who, I am sure, are unlikely to promote an outright scam, I tend to agree it may be legit. In particular, Lili from the Foundation devices team has mentioned them as a good way to convert your bitcoin into fiat: https://twitter.com/Marketsbylili/status/1523684169905180672

Still, I am strictly unsupportive of projects that steal from others.

My gut feeling is telling me this could be different story from CryptoDebit scammers, but let's wait and see, that is why I asked everyone to investigate it.
Anyway, I contacted them and asked if it's possible to order and ship their cards to Europe (I wanted to do similar thing with CryptoDebit scammers),
but they confirmed this service is only for United States merchants, so it won't work in EU and other parts of the world... scammers would sold me the card asap.
You can start company in 2020 and register domain in 2021, I don't see anything strange about that.

Terms of service are often times copy-pasted, but I suspect that first one posting this terms was CoinDebit and CryptoDebit later used their idea.
For anyone interested to research deeper, this is their twitter account and they started it in 2021:
https://twitter.com/Coin_debit

This looks like real people demo testing CoinDebit cards:
https://twitter.com/Bitcoinbeach/status/1517329007569608704

Copy/pasting TOS is pretty much the standard practice, even by legit business. It sucks, but unfortunately that's how it is now.


Pretty much this. That's why I said that they don't look any better than CriptoDebit and would most likely end up the same way.

Seems like a standard debit card. Apparently, cards can be classified as US Debit or Visa Debit cards. The difference between them is in the way you verify yourself. If you pay with a US debit card, you need to enter your PIN. With a VISA Debit, no PIN is required, but you have to sign the receipt.   

That's what I understood from these two sources:
https://www.firstfinancial.org/youth-young-adults/it-all-adds-up/it-all-adds-up-article/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-your-debit-card/
https://support.nmi.com/hc/en-gb/articles/115001293352-US-Debit-vs-VISA-Debit-vs-Direct-Debit

Can someone explain what exactly is U.S. debit card? Card which issued by U.S. company? Does that mean local business outside U.S. doesn't accept this kind of card?


I would remain skeptical unless their ToS explicitly state they'll return the money if they decide to block customer.

Good find! It's ironic if even their Terms are stolen. It also explains why the Terms don't make sense for a site that sells debit cards. This one for example:
Agreed. Even though I don't tag for plagiarism, stealing even the TOS makes it very likely they're scammers. Especially since they claim copyright on their TOS:

Now they're just making fun of themselves!

I noticed similarities not only in the names of both projects but also in how they love stealing the content of other, more reputable, companies so that their own business would look more attractive and trustworthy to inexperienced clients.

They clearly have copypasted word for word terms and conditions from oracle.com:



Had they appeared on the forum officially, I would have redtagged them like I did in the case of CriptoDebit.

To be honest, if CoinDebit came to forum providing so little info about their services(and not much can be found on their website) they would probably end up tagged like it happened with Criptodebit. One of the red flags for me is that they claim on the website that they are in business since 2020, while whois says that website is live since 2021 (and expires very soon), and same goes for their Twitter account. So honestly I don't see how this is any better than CryptoDebit. At least not at the first look.


Might be nothing but I just don't like when they lie about stuff like that.

They didn't say they would take away your money, just restrict access to their website, but you should still use their card just fine.
Only time you need to use their website is during card creation or money loading, everything else is visa related.

I wouldn't mind that condition if they'll return your money when they decide to block your access. I don't use any other site that says they can just keep my money if they feel like it (and that wouldn't even be legal).

And I wouldn't argue with that, but this is basically more or less the same thing you are getting with any other website you use.
In this case you are not creating any account, you are not sending them any of your private information, and you can only send them $250 that is fairly low amount of inflationary fiat money.
You can always order and create new card and change your IP address if they ban you for any reason.

I wouldn't use a site with such conditions. They're basically saying they can decide to kick you as a user whenever they feel like it.

Some members probably saw recent shady project in forum that is most likely scam called CriptoDebit, so maybe you notice similarity in the name with CoinDebit project that looks legit.
This two services should not be confused.

CoinDebit is releasing physical and virtual pre-paid Visa cards that can be instantly loaded with bitcoin and spend fully anonymously within ten minutes.
Cards are accepted anywhere that accepts United States debit, only up to $250 can be added on a card, there is a transaction fee when loading card up with money, and monthly maintenance fee.

There is not much information on FAQ page, but it's still early phase and they are fairly active on their twitter page.
Not sure if they are delivering cards worldwide or only within United States, but procedure for creating new cards is very simple and it can be paid with Bitcoin and Lightning.



After reading their terms of service, it's obvious that you shouldn't use this cards for any illegal services, and they may cancel this service at any time.
I am asking other member to check out this new website and investigate any potential red flags.


https://www.coindebit.io/
archive: https://archive.ph/NL0hU

https://www.coindebit.io/terms-of-service
archive: https://archive.ph/SnRcF