VISA Just Cancelled All Bitcoin Debit Cards: A Complete Cut-Off

As of today, thousands of Bitcoin-based VISA cards are a complete history – after the company decided to shut down many cryptocurrency cards that allow users to make payments and withdraw from ATMs using their Bitcoin and crypto funds.

The cancellation has covered all VISA cards issued by BitPay, Cryptopay and Bitwala – where all of these giants announced that they had suspended their cards and are working to return the funds to users. Currently, all the cards make payments using the regular currencies such as pounds or Euros but still allow their users to fund the payments through Bitcoin or Ethereum wallets.

Below is the announcement from Bitwala.

https://www.twitter.com/bitwala/status/949213790247243776

A lot of these Bitcoin payment cards are operated using the VISA provider WaveCrest which is a company based in Gibraltar and supposedly one of the largest wallet out there. Even though they claim that people’s funds are safe on their wallets, there doesn’t seem to be a way for that money to be withdrawn whatsoever.

It all began earlier today when a Reddit user informed that his Bitcoin VISA debit card issued by WaveCrest has been cancelled after receiving an email announcement that says:

“Dear Cardholder,

We, WaveCrest, are the issuer of your Visa Prepaid card, which you have enrolled for through one of our program partners. Visa have today instructed us that we must close all WaveCrest issued Visa Prepaid Cards with immediate effect.

How will this affect you?

Your WaveCrest-issued Visa Prepaid Card will no longer function. However, as your funds were stored in your e-wallet they will remain accessible to you via your wallet provider.

We thank you for your cooperation.

Yours sincerely,

WaveCrest Wave Crest Holdings Limited is an electronic money institution licensed by the Financial Services Commission, Gibraltar.”

The Bitcoin card provider BitPay was also affected and was sort of calming down their users on email, telling them that they are already in discussions with potential alternative issuers for the BitPay Card.