Crypterium Review: Global Card for Cryptocurrencies (My Experience)

The post Crypterium Review: Global Card for Cryptocurrencies (My Experience)

• The card is typically a pre-paid card and is not worth the investment for now. The top-up takes a lot of time (weeks) which beats the purpose.
• Get Crypto Prepaid card in any country. Including India, Brazil, Nigeria and other similar countries where no other company offers crypto debit cards at this moment.
• Use Crypterium Card to shop online or withdraw funds via ATM using Unionpay ATM. You can find a list of ATM’s here.
• The app offers a wallet, free transfer to other Crypterium users.
• Hosted Crypto wallet which is beginner-friendly.
• CRPT token which helps in reducing fees and earn cashback. Can be purchased via KuCoin.
• Easy KYC.

Recently, my hunt for a Bitcoin debit card leads me to Crypterium and after exploring the services for a while, I feel it’s high time that CoinSutra readers should know about Crypterium services.   Especially if you are from Asia, Africa or any other country where other popular services like Wirex, Cryptopay don’t offer services, your wait is over. You can now use prepaid card offered by Crypterium to fulfill your desire of using a  sort of crypto debit card.

In this guide, you will learn everything about Crypterium and I will help you with fine points that an end-user should know. So without further delay, let’s get started:

What is Crypterium & everything about Crypterium debit card?

• Mobile crypto wallet (Hosted wallet, that means you don’t control the private key)
• Prepaid card (Use it for online/offline transactions and to take out cash from supported ATM’s)
• Banking services: Transfer funds to users in other countries. Earn interest in your crypto holding and more.
• Buy Vouchers and mobile top-up: You can top-up a mobile phone in 100+ countries and you can also buy Vouchers for Skype, Steam and more using cryptos.

Right now, these are the 4 main verticals where Crypterium is targeting. Currently, the wallet supports the following cryptocurrencies BTC, ETH, LTC, USDC, and CRPT. The team plans to add more crypto in the days to come.

To get started with Crypterium, all you need to do is download the mobile app and sign up using your mobile number and email. Once your account is created, you are assigned a Crypterium ID.

• Crypterium ID: Identification number is given to each user. You can use it to send off-chain transactions in all the supported currencies and it’s free and instant.
• Hosted wallet solution: Private key is not stored within the app.

The coolest feature: Send crypto using the phone number

This is one feature that caught my attention the most. Using Crypterium app, you can send funds to anyone just by using the phone number. The recipient will be receiving an SMS to download and create a Cryptyerium account, as soon as the account is created, the funds will be added to the recipient account.

I sent about 1 USDT to 5 of my friends who were waiting to get started and now they all have a crypto wallet powered by Crypterium. I found this feature one of the viral ways to let others use cryptocurrencies. For all such transactions, there are no transaction fees and is done instantly as the transactions are done off-chain.

Crypterium debit card:

You can order Crypterium debit card from the mobile app. The card is powered by Union pay and in below section, I have shared a detailed review of Cryptterium card.

Other features of Crypterium: (In Pipeline)

As Crypterium mission it to become a one-stop solution to all your crypto-related needs. There are many features which are in pipeline and once it launches, it could rapidly increase the Crypterium ecosystem. Some of these features are:

• Bank transfer: You can make national or international payments from the app using your digital holdings. You can make bank transfers both to personal and business accounts. Once you’ve chosen the option that suits your needs, you should fill in recipient’s/company’s name, IBAN number, and SWIFT/BIC code, then specify the amount you want to transfer and just send it.
• Saving accounts: The banking services feature will help you earn a 5% return on your holdings. I believe this feature is in line with other similar services like Nexo and will be delighted to see this getting launched.
  Mobile top-up: Use Crypterium app to replenish your mobile phone balance in over 100 countries
• Vouchers: From Crypterium app you can buy Skype, Viber, and Steam vouchers. This you can offer it to your friends or use it yourself.

However, there is one more thing you should know at this moment before we dive into the Crypterium debit card.

CRPT token: Prediction and total supply

• Total supply: 99,858,126 CRPT
• Circulating supply: 83,860,575 CRPT
• Every time someone makes a payment, a fee equal to 0.5% of the value of the trade-in CRPT is taken from the user’s account and burned.
• CRPT tokens can be used as a sole or additional mean of paying transaction fees

At the time of writing this, 1 CRPT token is for $0.389983 USD or 0.00003906 BTC. As the adoption of Crypterium increases, with the inflation control (Coin burn) and limited supply, this coin looks interesting.

• KuCoin
• Binance Dex

The token is initially launched as an ERC20 token and now its also on Binance dex as BEP-2 token.

Crypterium Crypto debit card review & information

The card offered by Crypterium at this moment is a pre-paid card and you need to manually top-up the card from the app.  Crypterium debit card helps you to spend your digital holdings. You pay using your existing wallet balance and the merchant will receive money in fiat. This way, you don’t have to liquidate your existing position to local currency and then make a payment.

According to the company:

The Crypterium Card is a prepaid card. Unlike a credit or debit card, the Crypterium Card isn’t linked to a bank account but to the Crypterium App. With our mobile application, you can load funds to the card which takes a few week, track your expenses, block/unblock, change your PIN code and more.

As any prepaid card, you need to load it with money in order to use it. The Crypterium Card allows you to load digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin or USD Coin.

• The base currency of the Crypterium Card is U.S. dollars (USD)
• The card expires after 2 years of issuance.
• The Crypterium Card is a Prepaid Card.

How to order the Crypterium Crypto debit card?

Note: Read my experience below before ordering the card.

Getting started is easy and all you need to do is download the Crypterium mobile app.

Now, head to Cards option (At the bottom) and complete the KYC. Usually, it takes 1-2 working days to complete the KYC. After this, you can order the card from the mobile app.

Few things you need to know before you order the card:

• You should have some funds in BTC in your Crypterium wallet to order the card. I think I paid about 0.0025 BTC for the basic card + DHL delivery which takes about 2 days.
• You can skip the DHL delivery and order free delivery. This could take 2-3 weeks.
• You can lock 199 CRPT tokens to reduce the card issuance fees. I bought a few CRPT from KuCoin and transferred the same to my Crypterium wallet.

Even though official websites shows 3 categories of cards, but currently only basic card is available.

Here are the proposed cards and plans in the coming days:

Fine points:

• You can block the card by calling at +63459006633 or using the mobile app.
• Crypterium card has an EMV chip
• For support, you can the chat app on the mobile app or telegram channel or email at support@crypterium.com
• There are no minimum balance requirements.
• Once you receive the card, to activate punch the middle 8 digits of the card number in the app.

Is Crypterium safe or is it a scam?

When dealing with any Crypto projects, this is probably the most important question everyone has. In my opinion, a lot of companies and product will die just like what happened after dot com burst. However, companies like Crypterium may stay as they are safe and have a semi-working product. The company is led by a former General Manager of Visa and has shipped more than 3800 cards in 70+ countries.

However, the company has not delivered that it promised yet and in the nutshell, it’s just a wallet which partnered with a pre-paid card company. It’s not a scam, but I would not trust the company a lot until they start delivering.

Conclusion: Crypterium debit card review

After placing the order, It took about 2+ weeks for me to receive the Crypterium debit card. Being a pre-paid card, it works differently than the other services such as Wirex.

The minimum loading amount is USD 30 (You can deposit using BTC, LTC, and ETH at this moment). Once you initiate a request to add funds to your pre-paid card, it could take an hour or a few days as suggested by their representative. For me, it is been more than 2 weeks and the top-up has not happened. I would have preferred if the transaction was happening in real-time using my crypto balance in the wallet.

In summary, I have a mixed feeling about this card and I would have any day preferred other providers like Wirex, Cryptopay that offers direct liquidity from my crypto balance. The process of top-up (which is not even instant) and lack of defined time for top-up makes it useless in many scenarios.

Another thing I kind of disliked about Crypterium service is lack of new features. As outlined above, they have been marketing a ton of features (banking services) and a variety of cards, but there is no defined timeline for any of this.

Since the cost of the card is only one time, it’s still a decent choice for spending cryptocurrencies without hitting the bank account.  If they keep delivering as promised, these services could be a unicorn. For now, I would suggest not to order Crypterium and rather use one of these Bitcoin debit cards.

If you have been waiting to start using a global crypto debit card, now it’s your chance. You can let others know about this service by sharing this article with them. Also, once you start using this service, do come back and share your experience and review with CoinSutra community.

You can follow me on Twitter @coinSutra or on Telegram @CoinSutra to stay updated about the status and my experience with this and other cards.

The post Crypterium Review: Global Card for Cryptocurrencies (My Experience)