Ledger, a cryptocurrency wallet and infrastructure provider, has unveiled a new debit card that allows purchases using digital assets including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Litecoin (LTC) and USD Coin.
On Thursday, the Crypto Life card, better known as “CL,” was unveiled at Ledger’s biannual Op3n conference. Ledger Live, a desktop and mobile application that allows Ledger users to purchase, swap, and stake bitcoins, and is linked to the debit card. Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and stablecoins USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT) are all supported on the CL card (USDT).
Cardholders can use their crypto assets as collateral to receive a line of credit or convert their crypto into money for spending.
The latter option allows customers to use their debit cards without selling their cryptocurrency. Users can also deposit their paychecks and choose what percentage of their earnings to convert to BTC and ETH.
The CL card will be available to customers in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany in the first quarter of 2022, with the United States following in the second quarter.
Following a strategic move into the decentralized finance (DeFi) business, Ledger has entered the debit card market. In June of this year, the business, which is best known for its Ledger Nano S and Nano X hardware wallets, closed a $380 million private fundraising round, boosting its total valuation to $1.5 billion.
Payments are a hot topic in the crypto world, but they’re underutilized. However, now that large corporations like Mastercard have entered the crypto payments space, this appears to be steadily changing.
Meanwhile, BitPay, a cryptocurrency payment processor, recently announced a partnership with MetaMask, a browser and wallet plugin, to provide a payment gateway to tens of millions of additional users.
