The beauty of cryptocurrency in remittances is the ability to securely and transparently make cross-border transactions without delay and with a low fee. This has been the major struggle as banks for a very long time believe that crypto is illegitimate. Though this is coupled with the fact that anyone can escape tax with crypto. Crypto adoption in many ways has been limited for the inability to use them for day-to-day activities. But the crypto space is not rigid, it is innovative and evolving daily. Blockchain communities are building new ways for the world to interact and use crypto daily. PayPal‘s crypto inclusion is a huge step forward but there is still much ground to cover. 

Coinbase, on 28th October, announced via a blog post that it will soon allow its customers to use Visa debit cards for spending their crypto. They can use the debit card wherever debit cards are accepted in the world to make payments.

They can make withdrawals via Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) or use it to buy groceries in shops. The funds spent will be deducted from an automatic conversion of the cryptos in their accounts to USDT.

“Coinbase Card holders can spend directly from their Coinbase accounts without having to move funds to their bank accounts. Cryptocurrency is converted to US dollars prior to completing purchases and ATM withdrawals”

Even better, users can opt to earn 4% back in Stellar (XLM) or 1% in Bitcoin (BTC). This is a reasonable move considering the scalability and fee charges on both platforms. This update will surely increase the use cases for cryptos in the long run. The world is turning the direction of cryptos, its daily usability is a great added advantage. 

The thin blue lines that will set “usable cryptos” apart from others, in this way, will be their scalability and average fee per transaction. This will be reflected in the average fee charged per transaction or withdrawal on Coinbase.

It will be no surprise if the fees charged on BTC withdrawal via Visa debit card is higher than that on XLM for obvious reasons stated above.For Stellar, it is only a step in the right direction as its developers are working on different implementations to solve the lack of financial inclusion, an example is a recent protocol 15.

Stellar Development Fund (SDF) envisions a world where everyone (including those who are financially excluded from bank services) will be able to use XLM easily and XLM to serve as a bridge to connect banks worldwide seamlessly.