[quote name=“solasaurus” post=“21430” timestamp=“1373676838”]
[quote author=wesphily link=topic=2503.msg19653#msg19653 date=1372919145]
Will these cards have crypto currency or national currency loaded on them?
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Hey crazyearner,
Sorry if this is a little OT, but your idea got me thinking…
I just started reading this thread and am with wesphily and others on this. And actually, want to give you the tip that there is HUGE potential for a service where a person can buy one of these cards, load it with fiat currency A, have that converted automatically to a cryptocurrency - let’s say feathercoins - which they can then travel around with paying their bills which involves automatically converting from FTC to the national fiat currency they need at the time. So there’s travellers as a market. They don’t need to know about which cryptocurrency they are using, just that they have a card that can do the work of converting currencies without the hassle, at reasonable rates.
But there’s an even bigger market (in terms of volume of currency moving around) and that’s overseas workers and/or people with family overseas. Part of my initial interest in cryptocurrencies was the ability to shift money internationally at low cost, virtually instantly (and anything under 15min counts as “instant” in my experience). I’m an Aussie married to a Filipina. We support her parents and sometimes help other family members. And I can tell you there is no easy, cheap way of transferring money - and no we don’t use Western Union who are the worst kind of rip-off merchants, and yes we have looked at our options fairly extensively. The first cryptocurrency that offers this kind of service at a reasonable rate of exchange has my custom. And by the way, there are 11 million Filipinos working overseas sending money to family at home (it’s a big part of Phil’s GDP). I don’t know how many Indians, Bangladeshis, Indonesians, Burmese, Latin Americans, etc are doing the same, but I’d confidently say it’s measured in millions. Give these people an easy way to transfer money at a reasonable rate of exchange and you’ll have a massive market for your cryptocurrency. Indeed, I’d say there’s room for several cryptocurrencies to work in this space. The focus needs to be on ease-of-use and competitive exchange rates.
And then there’s this excerpt from a recent article:
[quote]Ripple exists in two parts: the XRP, a mathematically regulated currency unit similar to Bitcoin, and a payment system. Users have “wallets†on the Ripple system that they can add value to in any currency by means of an online exchange backed by a bank, like Bitstamp (Mt. Gox doesn’t deal in XRP). Once the wallet is full, that value can be transferred to any other user on the Ripple network in any currency in seconds. Bitcoin transactions, in comparison, can often take minutes to verify.
When transferring money between currencies in today’s normal international banking system, the value has to move through several entities like banks and exchanges before it gets to the end user, and each middleman takes a cut of the value. Ripple minimizes that process to one step, moving effortlessly between USD, Yen, Bitcoin, XRP, or even Icelandic Krona with just one exchange. The only charge is a tiny fraction of an XRP (currently worth slightly more than a penny), which guards against the kind of large-scale cyber attacks that have disrupted Bitcoin.
Ripple’s potential is to make businesses like Western Union, which charges an average of 10.8 percent in money transfer fees, obsolete, giving a capital influx to countries that depend on worker remittances. It could also subsume Bitcoin itself. On July 2, OpenCoin announced that Ripple holders can send money to Bitcoin users in any currency, and they will receive it in Bitcoins. The move provides access to the Bitcoin economy for the newer currency, and also creates a simple bridge between Bitcoin and other non-digital currencies.[/quote]
If I knew how to do this, I’d do it myself. There are loads of foreign workers in Oz getting paid well sending money home to family, and they’re getting ripped off by the current currency exchange businesses.
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Sorry for the lack of updates and posting I have been away working on all sorts of side projects, trading fixing things and then some.
With regards to the above you said I will be looking at 3 or more card companies who I have explained a few things to regarding crypto currencies and whats what and I might be able to get something set up to actually setup and accept crypto currencies and instantly exchange on the fly and load to card, However that said and done I am awaiting on a company’s response to the ideas and business plan I have sent on to them. Getting a company to do them is simple enough, getting low fees or no fees at all is a problem and am looking at several different options on how fees can be covered by team building or affiliate marketing and using commissions in a way based on it from friends use so say your friend uses their card you get a small % back from them fees returned to your own wallet. Have enough people it soon mounts up and will cover your own fees so it becomes fee free. Once I get my hard drive back from the data recovery center Ill able to work more on this project and see about speaking to people from here who are serious on the subject of getting something put together to make this a reality.