In April, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase launched its Visa Coinbase debit card in the UK. Coinbase has announced that, as of Wednesday, it will be launching the Visa debit card in France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Ireland.

Coinbase Debit Card Showing Strong Adoption

The debit card allows Coinbase account holders to use digital currencies such as Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Litecoin to pay for purchases in retail outlets and online for traders that accept Visa. Zeeshan Feroz, the Coinbase UK CEO, stated that the aim of the card is to make paying with cryptocurrency as easy as using cash.

The CEO said that since the launch of the card in mid-April in the UK, its take up has been strong. He didn’t provide specific figures but did indicate that they had blown past the company’s initial 1,000 cards that it was offering for free.

As indicated previously, the Coinbase debit card is linked to a mobile app in iOS and Android and directly syncs with the Coinbase accounts. It gives users the option of selecting the type of cryptocurrency they would prefer to use in their spending. Equally, the card is also accessible as a physical contactless card that one can use to make a withdrawal of cash from ATMs.

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Instead of paying merchants directly with cryptocurrency, the exchange charges users a conversion fee to change fiat money such as the euro into crypto. Coinbase has partnered with PaySafe to offer the debit cards.

Growing Acceptance of Crypto Payments

Cryptocurrency is gaining traction, and a number of start-ups, tech companies, and banks are increasingly accepting the use of crypto payments as a way of making trading easier.

Earlier this year, Binance, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world that rivals Coinbase, partnered with Simplex to start offering credit and debit card payments. Fintech start-ups such as Square in the US and Revolut in the UK are already offering cryptocurrency trading on their platforms while social media giant Facebook is planning to launch its own digital currency toward the end of this month.

What do you think about this expansion of the Coinbase debit Card?