Monaco updates: rebrand to Crypto.Com, $10M+ domain name, cards showcased with edited videos

By Staff Last updated Jul 14, 2018

Earlier in July it became known that Matt Blaze has sold the iconic domain crypto.com that he has held since 1993. Being a cryptography scholar he’s always been skeptical to the manipulative nature of some of the cryptocurrency projects. He even hints in his blog post that he’s sold it for fiat:

The details will have to stay confidential, but I will say that I’m satisfied with the outcome and that it involved neither tulips nor international postal reply coupons.

Possible price of the domain is said to be about $12 million, though neither of the parties has disclosed the amount.

The buyer is the company formerly known as Monaco – it’s a startup that has released a crypto app (wallet/purchases/transfers etc.) and has long since promised to present a working Bitcoin debit card. However, despite what the armies of their loyal supporters have said, the cards have never been operational (1, 2, 3). As of July 2018 they’ve rebranded to the generic name “crypto dot com” instead of Monaco, and their card prototypes now have “MCO” letters in their design.

Right now their website is advertising working crypto debit cards, some of them sporting impressive features, like a 2% cryptoback (so far only Wirexhas that feature working in real life). However, to supposedly order a high-limit card you’d have to buy a large amount of MCO and hold it for 6 months:

Conditions like that obviously influence the MCO coin price which means the company’s interests expand way beyond just offering a working prepaid card but also benefit from highly priced tokens.

In any case, the more working cards the better for the consumer. Monaco/Crypto.Com have released a video showing how their new cards are being used in Singapore on July 5th:

(timestrapped links to the payment scenes):

Ironically, in all three payment scenes the video cuts right after the people are using the card at POS – and resumes after an edit showing the completed transaction. Someone really into conspiracy theories would claim they’ve been using some other card to actually make the payment.

Hopefully Crypto.Com / MCO will start shipping the working cards to clear all doubts.

Meanwhile, there are working Bitcoin debit cards, and if you want to skip the comparison table these are the top picks:

Wirex – EEA resindents (UK and EU)

Shift by Coinbase – US residents

Paycent – a $140 Unionpay card that is NOT accepted everywhere but is shipped worldwide. Read more details.