Greetings all,
The vision for TokenCard has always been to marry the power of the Ethereum network with the global reach of the payments networks. This coupling unleashes onto the world a product of unparalleled financial access and control: from the (newly?) wealthy to those looking to regain control of their own finances, and by extent lives, the TokenCard is the epitome, the holy grail, of payment platforms.
This vision has always been a global one. To that end we have been on the lookout for an issuer that can provide us with the flexibility we need to complete this vision. In 2015, at the time of us first engaging our original issuing partner, WaveCrest, they had been able to help us fulfil this goal: through passive issuance we would be able to send cards to a near global market.
Over time WaveCrest’s situation evolved causing them to lose their ability to do global passive issuance; cards would only be sent within the EU. This however wouldn’t suffice for us, and we expedited our plans to work with larger and more sophisticated issuers with global reach.
Now, WaveCrest has been forced to indefinitely suspended all card activities, spelling the end of an era for them.
Today, with great excitement, we want to announce that we’ve been working in stealth on a new partnership with a prominent and large issuer. With our new partner we will have the ability to deploy cards globally. YES, that includes the US. China however is out with this one (but worry not 😉).
Alas, we had not intended to reveal our strategic launch plans this soon. We had wanted to announce the global rollout of TokenCard on the day we actually would be able to start shipping en masse.. for effect.
In short, the negatives:
- Before we can launch we will need to complete API integration with the new issuer
- A significant amount of time has been put into WaveCrest
- Potential for panicky community
Positives:
- API integration will be quicker thanks to lessons learnt and back end already being completely in place
- Issuers are somewhat drag-and-droppable, little modification to the entire codebase is needed to get
- The entire early mover advantage any competition had (Xapo, Wirex, Tenx) has been wiped away as their cards stopped working this morning. It has become a complete green field market, the clock has been reset and things are going to get juicy. The market is ours for the taking
- WaveCrest is a large single point of failure since the bulk of crypto projects are with them. Moving away from this concentration decrease our risks accordingly. Additional issuers might be put in place in paralel.
- We will be able to ship cards globally! This includes major markets such as the US and South Korea.
- More sophisticated fulfilment and card material options.
- NFC, contactless! Will be available from day 1! This is a big deal here in the UK, but also in Korea, Canada and Australia.
We are working fast to seize the moment. Stay tuned.
More details on country restrictions will follow.
To the team at WaveCrest I want to thank them for all their work. The team there is filled with stars who have simply found themselves in an unfortunate situation. Our engagement with WaveCrest stretches far back and our card product only just missed public deployment with them. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed working with their excellent team.
We wish you guys all the best. Truly.
Best,
Mel Gelderman and the Token team.
TL;DR The Token team was well prepared and has in stealth been working on a much larger partnership to bring the TokenCard to a global audience.
