Welcome everyone to a new segment which I am looking forward to writing about. As you can tell from the title, the theme and topic would be #crypto #cryptocurrency and #blockchain. But what I really want to touch on is NOT the Trading and Technical stuff but more on how crypto is slowly becoming a part of everyday life. Sort of like a #cryptolife and I would like to share my personal journey on this subject.
So first of, I got introduced to crypto about 6 years ago when I was working at The Perth Mint, a few of my customers jokingly asked if they could buy Bullion with Bitcoin - I mean back then it was really such a new concept that I just laughed it off and thought how ridiculous it must be to put money or even gold into a digital, intangible code which I cannot even touch... How naive and hindsight does indeed provide 100% clarity.
So fast forward to today and I have to say the crypto landscape has matured and evolved to the point where even cards are issued for you to spend your crypto. I personally have many stories on my journey with crypto and one which I would like to share here is my journey with CRO – https://crypto.com/ - here is a bit of background on the cards:
(Credits: https://help.crypto.com/en/articles/2742447-crypto-com-visa-card-rewards-benefits)
Now, you might be wondering, what is Staking?
So, in order to get the cards, you need to purchase some CRO and stake them for 6 months (180 days) and that is your buy-in to get these cards. So, remember you are buying CRO at the spot rate at the time and during the duration of the lockup, your value of the CRO will change and go UP or DOWN according to the markets. This was something that caught me by surprise as well because I did not read too much into it and was mainly happy to get a nice Titanium RED card!
Moving on to the next picture – here you can see the different types of cards and also the different benefits and privileges. At first glance, these are all very attractive and premium offerings and I was very excited at the prospect of using these cards. But there are some things that you might overlook in the midst of all the excitement.
(Credits: https://help.crypto.com/en/articles/2742447-crypto-com-visa-card-rewards-benefits)
One particularly important thing to note is that the Rewards and Cashbacks are paid out to you in CRO. This is both a good thing as it means your holdings of CRO are going up but also it means you are not exactly “net neutral” on the spending – so in order to get, for example, Spotify rebated, you will first need to have $ in your wallet to purchase the Spotify subscription and subsequently after, the equivalent value to the subscription cost of CRO is deposited into your wallet (the amount of CRO deposited is dependant on the value of CRO at the point of transaction). This concept carries over to the cashback when spending your on your card as well.
For me personally, I do enjoy the rewards system in this manner as I have a bullish and long term view on CRO – it is very highly adopted and many people have signed up to use their services. So I think there is some utility to having the tokens. There is also the availability to stake CRO in their Supercharger which is another way to “earn interest” and get new, upcoming coins into your portfolio (at least this is what I do).
Crypto.com also provides a wider suite of services such as a Wallet, as well as an Exchange to trade – this is mainly a CEX (Centralized Exchange) – very different from a DEX (De-centralized Exchange). I hope to get more into these other topics in the future but yes, it is very user friendly and familiar if you do online banking or trade stocks/shares. So to me, that is a plus point.
Now, I’d also like to take a moment to share with you the unboxing of my CRO card when it arrived in the mail – very exciting! You can see it comes in nicely packaged, with the card framed beautifully in the hexagonal logo of CRO – a generic welcome letter accompanies it. But the details of the card, wow, it also has such a nice feel to it. It is metal, has a good weight and the textured finish on the card with the deep RED as it is my favourite colour. I was really very impressed!
So yeah, I look forward to using my card and I will be posting my user experiences maybe in a future post so #watchthisspace and so glad to have a nice looking card to accompany me on my #cryptolife journey.
In closing, CRO and the use of their cards run on a Referral program where both the Referrer and Referred get a bonus of CRO as part of their welcome. If you happen to go on this journey and I have help a bit with my personal story using CRO, please use my link below and drop me a DM, and I would like to buy you a cup of coffee.
Referral: https://crypto.com/app/8bwzucwa2w
Have a great day! And Thank you for reading.
Cheers! Jon
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Disclaimer: These are all just my personal views and individual experiences and is not financial advise. Please do your own research.