How to Spend Ethereum (ETH) Using the BlockCard Visa Debit Card

Ethereum is not only the second-largest cryptocurrency network after Bitcoin, but is also home to the largest array of decentralized applications (DApps) and the booming DeFi market. And all of these applications use ether (ETH) as their transactional currency. As a result, members of the Ethereum community have started the meme “ETH is money.”

In many ways, that is a valid statement. While ETH does not have Bitcoin’s “hard money” attributes, you can spend ETH inside and outside the Ethereum ecosystem, making it a viable digital payment option.

In this article, you will discover a list of retailers and merchants that accept ETH and learn how to spend ethereum anywhere where Visa is accepted.

Where Can You Spend ETH?

While ETH does not have anywhere near the same level of merchant acceptance as its predecessor, bitcoin (BTC), there are hundreds of merchants and online retailers that accept the cryptocurrency.

Let’s look at some of the most prominent vendors that accept ETH.

• CheapAir is an airline and hotel booking platform that was one of the first to accept digital currency back in 2014. In 2019, the California-based travel booking company also started to support Ethereum payments as well as a number of other altcoins.
• Destinia is a market-leading online travel booking platform that enables travelers to get great deals on flights, hotels, car rentals, and more. And fortunately, for Ethereans, Destinia also supports ETH as a payment method. In fact, the crypto-friendly Spanish company accepts six cryptocurrencies on its platform.
• Overstock is an online retail giant that was among the pioneers in digital currency acceptance. The Utah-headquartered company started accepting ETH payments in August 2017, three years after it first launched support for BTC.
• Travala is another popular travel booking platform that has taken the forward-looking step to accept digital currency payments. The “cryptocurrency friendly accommodation booking platform” enables crypto users to book flights, hotels, and more using a wide range of digital currencies.

According to Cryptowerk.com, there are over 1,000 online retailers and merchants that accept ETH as a payment option. However, that list does not suffice to use ETH as money in everyday life.

Fortunately, BlockCard Crypto Visa Card allows Ethereans to spend ETH anywhere where Visa is accepted.

How to Spend Ethereum Anywhere Visa is Accepted

Spending Ethereum is incredibly easy when you are a BlockCard holder. The BlockCard Crypto Visa Card allows you to deposit ETH that you can then spend in US dollars anywhere Visa cards are accepted.

But before you can pay for goods and services using ETH, you first need to sign up for a BlockCard.

https://youtu.be/fCUxb8MIY-s

The registration process is as follows:

• Access www.getblockbard.com.
• Next, click “Register Now” and input your personal information, including your name, phone number, email address, and physical address.
• Then, check your inbox and click on the activation link sent to you by BlockCard.
• Now, you have access to your BlockCard dashboard and wallet.

To receive your BlockCard Visa Debit Card, you also need to pass the mandatory KYC check. Fortunately, BlockCard has made the KYC process exceptionally easy.

• To get your Visa Debit Card, you need to select which card you want (Virtual, Plastic, and Metal), and click “Next” to complete the KYC.
• Once you have passed the KYC, you will receive your physical card in the mail within days. Your virtual card, however, will be available immediately to make crypto-funded card payments.

Finally, to pay using ETH, you need to fund your BlockCard by sending ETH to your account. To do that, click on “Deposit” and choose Ethereum.

Then, a popup will appear with your BlockCard-linked Ethereum address and QR code for you to send your ETH to.

The ETH you send to your BlockCard account will then be turned into the platform’s native digital currency, TERN, which can then be spent in US dollars using your BlockCard Visa Card.

You can now spend ETH seamlessly using your BlockCard at over 46 million merchants in over 200 countries.

“Our mission at BlockCard is to create a bridge between old finance and new finance to enable our customers to benefit from the best of both worlds. Using the BlockCard Visa Debit Card, Ethereum users can go out into the world and use ETH to pay for goods and services by using a globally-accepted Visa card. We believe that crypto debit cards are one of the first steps to merging the legacy financial system with the crypto-powered future of finance.”

– Ian Kane, Co-Founder & COO at Ternio

If you want to start spending Ethereum anywhere Visa cards are accepted, sign up for a BlockCard Bank Account for free today!

WHAT IS ETHEREUM?

To better appreciate how to spend ETH using the blockcard visa debit card, it could be helpful to go back and better understand how Ethereum and Ether work. After all, it is the revolutionary functionality of Ethereum which makes it so viable for use in new hybrid technologies like FinTech and blockchain.

Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency, only behind Bitcoin’s market capitalization size. Ethereum has a market capitalization value of $474 billion and a trading value of almost $4,000 per Ether coin. And even though Bitcoin is more popular and more widely known, Ethereum is the cryptocurrency platform designed to improve upon Bitcoin’s functionality and give businesses and everyday people more reliable control of their finances. 

While Bitcoin was the first and revolutionary cryptocurrency designed to free people from the constraints of fiat currencies, it was anything but convenient for use as an everyday currency. Bitcoin’s limited scalability and per second transaction rate means that it takes longer to verify and finalize transactions. Investors and speculators primarily use Bitcoin on the open market, making it so volatile. Anyone who has ever tried to use Bitcoin to buy a cup of coffee or pizza understands the previous point. Even though Bitcoin was created to give people more control of their money. It is not very optimal for use as an everyday currency.

Ethereum was designed to offer more practicality and revolutionary use as a cryptocurrency than Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Like Bitcoin, Ethereum works on a decentralized blockchain or digital public ledger controlled by any government, financial authority, or third party. You can mine Ether on the blockchain. But that is where the similarities end. Bitcoin is popular with speculators and investors and is optimal as a store of value. Ethereum can also be used to decentralize various other kinds of digital services, applications, complex financial arrangements, and even social media platforms. 

The revolutionary ambition of Ethereum to affect every stratum of finance and business has some people calling it the “world computer” cryptocurrency.

With the Ethereum cryptocurrency blockchain model, centralized computer systems are replaced by tens of thousands of nodes that Ethereum platform volunteers maintain all over the world. Copies of the transactions actuated on the Ethereum platform are saved on these nodes in a safe, reliable, and un-hackable manner. The identities and data of Ethereum users are secure, a feature of the system that is revolutionizing how finance and business will operate in the future. The “world computer” functionality of Ethereum has the potential to decentralize the internet in the future and make digital transactions eminently safer.

Ethereum is famous for introducing the concept of decentralized applications to the world. Decentralized applications are more colloquially known as “dApps.” Digital applications are computer programs that run on blockchain platforms and can be stored in nodes. The advent of decentralized applications allows trustless peer-to-peer transactions between two parties on a secure blockchain like Ethereum without the need for a third-party or centralized authority involved.

The best way to conceptualize how Ethereum works is to consider that the entire Ethereum platform is run by volunteers, organizations, and miners who share and add their computing power to the platform globally. Such entities are continually committed to running Ethereum-centric software on their computers and hardware to keep the network viable. These computer networks are the nodes that were previously mentioned. The Ethereum network pays these node handlers a “gas fee” in Ether for their work. However, Ether can also be earned via mining.

Decentralized applications can be used by users on a peer-to-peer basis to invest money, conduct transactions, play online games, engage in social media, and so on. With the use of decentralized applications, Ether users have more control of their personal data and financial data without trusting a third party. And all decentralized applications and transactions on Ethereum can be secured via smart contracts, which safeguard their privacy.

Smart contracts are permission-less blockchain computer programs that automatically engage in blockchain transactions when predetermined conditions for a contract are met. The transaction parameters, the contract agreements, and all data referencing the parties involved are saved in the smart contract. And all of the information stored in the smart contract is un-hackable and distributed on the Ethereum node network. These smart contract blockchain features make it virtually impossible for the data in the smart contract to be falsified, copied, altered, or deleted.

Ethereum innovated the trend of allowing users to use the platform to create their own signature cryptocurrencies. By utilizing the previously mentioned decentralized applications, you can create your very own signature cryptocurrency to start your own business, initial coin offering, fundraising initiative, or conduct business in various ways via decentralized finance.

NFTS

One way that Ethereum is changing how transactions are traditionally conducted is via the advent of NFTs or non-fungible tokens. An NFT is a non-interchangeable and one-of-a-kind unit of data that is stored on a blockchain platform. When something is made into an NFT, it is incredibly unique, rare, and cannot be duplicated or forged. An NFT can be a digital reproduction of an audio, video, or photograph. You may have recently noticed that collectors are buying NFTs at incredible prices. Keep in mind that most NFTs can only be found on the Ethereum blockchain platform. (However, this is not stopping other cryptocurrency developers from creating their own NFTs.)

Collectors are buying NFTs because they are one of a kind and can never be replicated or duplicated. A collector paid $69 million for an NFT comprised of a digital collage featuring every image created by an artist named Beeple created over 5,000 days. Collectors are now buying NFT versions of memes, YouTube videos, albums, comic book artwork, and various other kinds of mediums. The NFT craze of 2021 was only possible because of the blockchain transaction and smart contract functionality of the Ethereum platform.

The point here is that Ethereum and Ether have come a long way from being the more currency viable and optimal alternative to Bitcoin. Ethereum is now becoming widely accepted for use as an everyday currency at a growing list of retailers and businesses.