Author Topic: bitUSD for prepaid visa gift cards, interest?  (Read 6321 times)

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Offline donkeypong

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All the people who have tried to do this stuff inevitably get shut down AFAIK.  I suspect bitUSD -> cash purchases is the only way to avoid it.  I've never heard of money going into CC's unless they are specifically refillable.  Green Dot cards etc I think work like this.

Hypothetically speaking, the card vendor might handle that burden (instead of the customer) if it is confident enough in BitUSD to cover the fiat from a separate holding. But eventually, that would depend on the card vendor being able to make fiat conversions for itself at a cheap rate. There is some interest yield there to play with and there is also BTS,  but a certain amount of fiat conversion would be needed. I would suggest using an exchange partner who could provide a wholesale exchange rate.

Man, it would be a lot easier if they could get a large retailer to accept this...
« Last Edit: November 06, 2014, 03:04:58 am by donkeypong »

Offline gamey

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All the people who have tried to do this stuff inevitably get shut down AFAIK.  I suspect bitUSD -> cash purchases is the only way to avoid it.  I've never heard of money going into CC's unless they are specifically refillable.  Green Dot cards etc I think work like this.
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Offline donkeypong

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I'd take Amazon electronic at a reduced fee over a physical card hands down.

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Me too. But cards would be useful also.

zerosum

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Somebody must be selling prepaid refillable Visa/MasterCard  on the net (or in store*).

The purchaser just buys one refillable for the min ($10 ? ?) and the seller ( Gentso1 or other willing off-ramp provider) just deposits the $ amount equivalent to the bitUSD received, less say 0.5%, in the account contained in the memo, of the bitUSD transfer.

Voilà - 'almost' true off ramp.



* I'm pretty certain they sell them in my local grocery store, not sure what kind of fees and for what exactly they charge those fees.

Can you refill them remotely ?

Give me your Cr Card #, let's try it in practice.

I am pretty sure the biggest bank in US let's you send funds to a Credit card acc # and that is pretty much all the info they need (they might ask for the address of the receiving institution or something else additionally but let us try it in practice). None of the info required, as far as I can remember, was such that the card holder cannot give without warring with possible misuse, aka no Nome, PIN, sec code, expiration etc., required.

PS or I can give you my CC  number if you have a Chase account.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2014, 05:00:24 am by tonyk2 »

Offline gamey

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Somebody must be selling prepaid refillable Visa/MasterCard  on the net (or in store*).

The purchaser just buys one refillable for the min ($10 ? ?) and the seller ( Gentso1 or other willing off-ramp provider) just deposits the $ amount equivalent to the bitUSD received, less say 0.5%, in the account contained in the memo, of the bitUSD transfer.

Voilà - 'almost' true off ramp.



* I'm pretty certain they sell them in my local grocery store, not sure what kind of fees and for what exactly they charge those fees.

Can you refill them remotely ?
I speak for myself and only myself.

zerosum

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Somebody must be selling prepaid refillable Visa/MasterCard  on the net (or in store*).

The purchaser just buys one refillable for the min ($10 ? ?) and the seller ( Gentso1 or other willing off-ramp provider) just deposits the $ amount equivalent to the bitUSD received, less say 0.5%, in the account contained in the memo, of the bitUSD transfer.

Voilà - 'almost' true off ramp.



* I'm pretty certain they sell them in my local grocery store, not sure what kind of fees and for what exactly they charge those fees.

Offline Riverhead

I'd take Amazon electronic at a reduced fee over a physical card hands down.

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Offline gamey

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What about Amazon electronic "cards". No shipping required, just a code to email or perhaps as a memo in the bts wallet (if it'd fit).



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That's a possibility I can look into if interest is generated. I would love to be able to do away with shipping to make the process cheaper.

Also a lot less labor intensive.  If you have to go get physical cards, then ship them out, you're not going to have near the profit if you accurately account for your expenses. (Gas, labor, etc)  It will also become a drag to deal with it.  If you can find a purely electronic solution I'd suggest going with it unless the cash card purchases are a necessity.
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Offline Gentso1

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What about Amazon electronic "cards". No shipping required, just a code to email or perhaps as a memo in the bts wallet (if it'd fit).



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That's a possibility I can look into if interest is generated. I would love to be able to do away with shipping to make the process cheaper.

Offline Riverhead

What about Amazon electronic "cards". No shipping required, just a code to email or perhaps as a memo in the bts wallet (if it'd fit).



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Offline Gentso1

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I would buy the gift cards using my own cash to avoid gyft fee and keep the service low cost.
When you say $100 increments do you mean each card can only hold $100 or that the card will be loaded with those increments? For example would I be able to order a $10k card?
Cards would be in 100$ increments.1000$=10 cards

The goal is to buy bitUSD then turn around and offer the same service only, you would then deposit to a credit union and I would send bitUSD. I would keep the rate at 1fiat to 1bitUSD and tack on a small fee.


The biggest reason for trying to do something like this is the lack of on and off ramps. I have preached about the ramps for a time now but I finally decided to do something about it. Max limits would start small at say 500$ per transaction but if no actual on or off ramps appear its better then nothing. The service is generally designed for those who maybe like to buy a little every week or every other week. This lets you avoid the crashing btc all together and exchanges. The weakest point in the link is me but I have done business with various members on the board before with good experiences. I see trust as something that is built over time, so if you are interested in the service pm me and we can do the transaction publicly. That way if it doesn't work out I can be named and shamed :D.

With all the above being said I am hopeful of a real bank backed on and off ramp but for the mean time I think this could be another simple option for new users to get involved.

Offline Riverhead

When you say $100 increments do you mean each card can only hold $100 or that the card will be loaded with those increments? For example would I be able to order a $10k card?

Offline jae208

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you don't have to ship actual cards you can just use Gyft.com to send gift cards. Unless of course it has to be a visa gift card.
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Offline Riverhead

Hell yes!

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