Visa Bitcoin Powered Debit Cards in Europe Stop Working Suddenly

6 Jan
2018

The first days of the New Year came with an unpleasant surprise for many if not all users of Visa debit cards powered by Bitcoin and/or other crypto currencies as services such as Wirex and Xapo among others just stopped working. The reason was not known at first apart from the fact that the issuer of the actual Visa prepaid cards, a company called WaveCrest, has deactivated them after getting instructed to do so directly from Visa. WaveCrest is the Visa debit card partner for many services offering Bitcoin or other crypto currency wallets that can be accessed and funds in them used through the prepaid debit cards. Below is a quote of the email message sent from WaveCrest to all its customers regarding the issue, not many details revealed as of the reason for cards getting deactivated.

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

Services such as Wirex and Xapo are still working and offering their customers access to their funds, though the plastic or virtual cards issued by them are no longer operating while they find another solution with another issues of debit cards. If you are using any other service that is offering a prepaid Visa debit card powered by crypto currencies and it has stopped working suddenly, then the reason is most likely the same – they have used WaveCrest as the card issuer as well. If you are using a service that still has functioning Visa prepaid debit card powered by BTC or another crypto please feel free to share the name of the service as most likely they are using an alternative card issuer. The chances are however that other Visa card issuers like WaveCrest might have also received the same order from Visa to shut down the cards of their crypto partners.

On a side note, we are hearing that in some European countries more and more banks are starting to refuse to accept banks transfers coming from crypto exchanges after being advised to do so from their central banks. Apparently there is something cooking in the EU regarding crypto and this year we might actually see some sort of regulation coming up on a European Union level and we are yet to see if it will be for good or for bad.

Brave Giving Away 30 BAT Tokens Free to New Browser Users

7 Dec
2017

We have already talked about the new Brave browser and their Basic Attention Token (BAT) as a means to offer users an alternative to browse the web faster, safer and also to be able to support their favorite websites or Youtube video with regular crypto currency donations (coins or tokens). Well, if you still have not tried the Brave browser now you have a good reason to give it a try as you can get 30 BAT tokens for free if you do (a little over $6 USD value) to use to support your favorite online publications. Do note that this is a limited promotion as Brave will grant 300,000 promotional tokens to browser users, so make sure you get yours before they run out.

The promotion rules state that Brave browser users will receive promotional Basic Attention Tokens (BAT), which must be used within 90 days, via their Brave wallets after they opt into the offering or they will be lost. You need to download and use or update to use the latest desktop browser release (0.19.105) to receive the promotional BAT offer right after you activate the Brave Payments feature of the browser. The tokens will be released from the User Growth Pool (UGP), which was created during the sale of the utility tokens in May 2017. The UGP consists of 300 million tokens set aside to incentivize users to join the Brave platform. This initial promotion has a cap of 300,000 tokens and it will be distributed to current and new Brave users over the next 30 days or until the cap is reached.

This promotion is a one-time grant of BAT available for:
– Users who have not installed Brave, but download it during the promotion;
– Users who browse with Brave, but have not yet enabled Brave Payments;
– Users who have enabled Brave Payments, but have not added funds to their wallet; and
– Users who have enabled Brave Payments and who already have funds in their wallet.

This blog is a verified publisher supporting Brave Payments, so if you like what you read here feel free to show your support by using the Brave browser.

– For more details about the Brave browser and to give it a try yourself…

HiceHash Has Been Down for a While, Now Officially Confirmed it Has Been Hacked

6 Dec
2017

Earlier today the NiceHash service went into maintenance mode and it has continued for hours, something that does not normally happen with the service, sparking rumors about a hack. A bit later the official confirmation has been posted that the rumored hack has indeed happened, below is a quote of the official statement released by NiceHash with more details to follow soon hopefully…

Official press release regarding the NiceHash security breach

Unfortunately, there has been a security breach involving NiceHash website. We are currently investigating the nature of the incident and, as a result, we are stopping all operations for the next 24 hours.

Importantly, our payment system was compromised and the contents of the NiceHash Bitcoin wallet have been stolen. We are working to verify the precise number of BTC taken.

Clearly, this is a matter of deep concern and we are working hard to rectify the matter in the coming days. In addition to undertaking our own investigation, the incident has been reported to the relevant authorities and law enforcement and we are co-operating with them as a matter of urgency.

We are fully committed to restoring the NiceHash service with the highest security measures at the earliest opportunity.

We would not exist without our devoted buyers and miners all around the globe. We understand that you will have a lot of questions, and we ask for patience and understanding while we investigate the causes and find the appropriate solutions for the future of the service. We will endeavour to update you at regular intervals.

While the full scope of what happened is not yet known, we recommend, as a precaution, that you change your online passwords.

We are truly sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused and are committing every resource towards solving this issue as soon as possible.

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