Shift Payments has decided to cease offering its bitcoin debit card services. The Visa debit card service enabled users to spend their virtual currencies directly from Coinbase’s account.
Shift in an email to customers said: “We hope you enjoyed using the Shift Card and truly thank you for your loyalty. We, unfortunately, will be retiring the program in April of this year — All Shift Cards will officially be deactivated on April 11, 2019.”
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The mail did not provide any details on why the programme was discontinued.
However, the company added that it hopes to re-launch the programme and card in the near future, but did not reveal any further details.
The Shift Card was launched in 2015 after Coinbase signed a partnership agreement with Shift Payment.
Issued by the Metropolitan Commercial Bank, the card supported both Visa and Mastercard payment networks.
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By GlobalDataAs no alternative measures were announced, the US users will be left with very few options for cryptocurrency transactions.
Furthermore, it is reported that the US Shift Card customers will only have Bitpay Visa card as an alternate option.
Facilitating bitcoin has come under fire from several different governments and also international firms.
Organisations like BitPay have been extremely successful in facilitating its cards to support customers wanting to use bitcoin to pay. However, in October 2018, the company announced that it would be cancelling its European loadable crypto debit cards.
