While many cryptocurrency investors buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, and even Dogecoin as a long-term investment, there’s a less spotlighted group of holders who actually want to use the digital tokens to buy real world goods.
That’s about to become a lot easier as Apple Pay and Google Pay are both adding Coinbase’s new debit card to their accepted payment methods.
The card, for which the company currently has a waitlist, is rolling out this week. Customers will earn 4% in crypto rewards, Coinbase says.
The card, technically, won’t allow people to spend things like Bitcoin directly on goods and services. Instead, it will convert cryptocurrency users wish to spend to U.S. dollars and then transfer those to the debit card for you to use.
There’s no application fee and as this is a debit card, it should not affect users’ credit scores. But Coinbase does take a conversion fee when cryptos are converted to U.S. dollars.
Apple, so far, has sat on the sidelines as cryptocurrencies have soared in the past year. The company has teased for several years that it is “watching cryptocurrency” and said it believe “it has interesting long-term potential,” but has yet to buy in—or, if it has, there hasn’t been any official announcement.
Analysts, though, have speculated that a crypto exchange could be built directly into Apple Wallet, which “could immediately gain market share [for Apple] and disrupt the [crypto exchange] industry.”
Apple Pay is the top mobile payment system in America, with 43.9 million users in 2021.