BitPay, Coinbase or Others: Can Anybody Replace Visa?

Millions of people in the UK and Europe were unable to pay for goods or services, and Visa payments were also disrupted for US residents.

According to the creators of BitPay, the aim of the platform is to become crypto equivalent of Apple's Apple Pay payment system, which is reflected in the similarity of their names.

In 2017, BitPay processed more than $1 bln in Bitcoin payments.

The next step for the company was developing a BitPay Visa debit card, which allows payment through POS-terminals, as well as deposits and withdrawals at ATMs.Bitcoin holders can buy a card for $9.95.

While BitPay takes a payment fee of up to 1.9 percent, processing speeds are a significant drawback.

The Coinbase Commerce service comes from the Coinbase exchange, and allows merchants to accept payment in digital currencies with the funds directly credited to the wallet of the user, leaving them in full control over the account.

Functionally, the Coinbase Commerce plug-in is very similar to the PayPal payment system, requiring a phone number and an email address only.

The product accepts payments in Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin, and can be integrated into a checkout process or used as a payment service on e-commerce platforms.

"Payment cards will be issued by the world's largest card provider and will be available for ordering users soon. The cards will work with cryptocurrencies available on the service - LTC, BTC, ETH, XRP.".

One of them is the GoByte Network, which is developing its own payment service and offers 0 percent fees for processing services inside the platform and non-cash payments.