Discover Card’s 44 Million Customers Denied Crypto
The credit card company crypto squeeze continued this week with Discover Card announcing it would not allow its customers to use their card on cryptocurrency exchanges. It’s the latest in a string of credit card purveyors to block access. Discover Card Removes Doubt: No Crypto
Discover CEO David Nelms, 56, told Jennifer Surane, “It’s crooks that are trying to get money out of China or wherever. Or if someone steals our credit card numbers they’re going to ask for payments in Bitcoin. Those are the only use cases I’m actually seeing today,” he dismissed, giving a decided thumbs down to cryptocurrency as a phenomenon. It’s “not like our customers are clamoring to use it.”
Discover Card holders were known to stalk online forums asking about other users’ experience with attempting to buy cryptocurrency on exchanges. The answer was clear: not possible. Mr. Nelms has removed all mystery with the above statements. Discover wants no part in the burgeoning market of decentralized money.
The company has been around in one form or another for over three decades. With 44 million customers, Discover ranks in the top five popular US credit cards behind Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
What’s in Your Wallet?
It’s hardly the only credit card to publicly come out against cryptocurrencies. In fact, Capital One recently tweeted “We currently decline credit card purchases of cryptocurrency. We’ll continue evaluating our policy as this market evolves.” In a follow up, Breitbart was able to get a more expansive comment: 
Both of these come after Visa basically shut down huge European markets, leaving many crypto enthusiasts without much recourse.
One theory, beyond fear of eventual competition, is government regulations and liability, with regard to anti-money laundering laws and know your customer onboarding, make it too risky for credit card companies and banks to participate in crypto.
Whatever the case, Discover’s Q4 earnings fell short of analysts’ projections, and its profits dropped by over thirty percent, presumably unrelated to their prohibition on digital assets. Sooner or later, however, in freer economic arrangements, customers make known their preferences, and 44 million users being denied a chance to experiment with bitcoin and other digital assets could quickly demand alternatives.
Do you use credit cards with crypto? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Pixabay, Discover, Capital One.
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It's not that. The problem is a lot of people who are racking up credit to borrow for crypto-currencies, then not paying the money back.
Imagine you have a $500 limit. So you borrow $500 and put it down on cryptos.
So then the credit card company asks for $30 to pay for the interest.
Why pay that $30 if you believe that putting that $30 into crypto would make you even more money? Even with all the costs that would rack up through not paying the bill, you would make more money by not paying the credit bill.
The credit card company has to wait a long time before they get the money back and they lose a customer in the "bargain".
Of course not everyone behaves that way, because the answer is that it's not very honourable to deliberately not pay the credit card bill....however, too many people will kid themselves by saying "Yeah but I'll pay it one day....they can wait.."