The startup Crypto.com is currently the ultimate up-and-comer in the crypto industry

Modesty is a virtue that the entrepreneur Kris Marszalek does not have. He has spent millions to name his company Crypto.com, calls cryptocurrencies a basic human right, and has even made sure that every time the abbreviation of his cryptocurrency is mentioned with a hashtag on Twitter (#CRO), the Crypto.com logo is displayed. Only Bitcoin has been granted this honor so far.

Crypto.com is currently the ultimate up-and-comer in the crypto industry. From Hong Kong, with additional offices in Malta and Bulgaria, Marszalek wants to build the all-encompassing platform for cryptocurrencies. Buying, selling, investing, trading, taking out loans, shopping – when it comes to digital money, the startup is to be the linchpin. At the heart of this is a credit card, with the help of which the company is trying to attract as many crypto-aficionados as possible.

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From Monaco to Hong Kong

Everything really started for Marszalek in 2017, when his project was still called Monaco and collected cryptocurrencies from an ICO with a value of $26.7 million. Even back then, there was a plan to launch a credit card that would allow people to spend Bitcoin and Co. in real life and not just on stock exchanges and in (often dodgy) online shops on the internet.

Since then, the idea of the crypto credit card has become popular. TenX, Coinbase, Nexo, Bancera, maybe even Bitpanda – there are many credit cards as a bridge between the “real” world and crypto space. However, Crypto.com is about more than that: Users should not only buy Bitcoin and co. on the platform or in the smartphone app, but also create their crypto assets, get a quick credit against Crypto or trade – and on top of that, a separate payment system is being built for online shops so that customers don’t have to pay with Visa, PayPal or Mastercard, but with CRO tokens.

Tempting offers with thick perks

Currently, more than two million users are said to have a Crypto.com account. How many of them have also ordered a Visa card with the company’s logo is currently not revealed. Although they can be ordered free of charge (after you have gone through a pretty good KYC process including passport and face recognition), they only make sense when you deposit certain amounts of MCO tokens into your account. You have MCO either because you bought them from the ICO in 2017, or because you bought them on an exchange in the meantime.

The more MCO you have in your account, the better your perks will be. Currently, Crypto.com even tempts you to pay the monthly subscription fees for Spotify, Netflix and Amazon Prime. The more expensive cards even include 10% cashback on Expedia or Airbnb bookings as well as access to airport lounges – in other words, many tempting offers to get users to buy lots of MCO Tokens and order a card.

In addition, the credit card’s cash back system (up to 5% lure) is based on MCO. This means that if you shop with your card, you get 5% of the purchase amount back – but not in Euro or Dollar, but in MCO. A customer loyalty program, but in crypto.

Token as means of payment

To complicate matters – in addition to MCO there is a second token with the aforementioned CRO. The Crypto.com coin now has a market capitalization of $2 billion and is thus in a league with Tezos, Cardano or EOS. While the MCO token is more intended to pay for services within the Crypto.com platform, CRO is also intended to actually pay the bill in shops, both online and offline.

After all, this is also the big attraction of Crypto.com. The company wants to put cryptocurrencies in every wallet. If you provide the payment network and the means of payment yourself, then you can become an ecosystem operator that is second to none – quite a contradiction to the often conjured decentralization of the blockchain world.

Crypto.com is currently in the growth phase. New users are being lured with expensive marketing campaigns – their own Twitter emoji speaks volumes. Only if the Hong Kong company succeeds in attracting a large number of users to the platform will it be able to generate sales. Crypto.com, for example, does not charge any fees for investment products, but wants to record 9% of profits – and to do so, there must first be profits.

The Wirecard Connection

Crypto.com is threatened with fresh adversity as a customer of the now insolvent German Fintech giant Wirecard. That is because Wirecard is the bank through which Crypto.com issues its Visa card in Europe and Singapore. In the USA it is the Metropolitan Bank. 

In the next few weeks, it will have to be discussed whether it is possible to continue working with Wirecard or whether it is necessary to switch to another provider. According to CEO Marszalek, the deposits of customers in Europe and Singapore are safe in any case.

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(Featured image by sharonang via Pixabay)

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