Is Spectrocoin legit?
Yes, it is. SpectroCoin is incorporated in Lithuania, the company being UAB “Spectro Finance”, located at Ausros al. 68, LT-76233 Siauliai, Lithuania.
The platform offers the following services:
– Crypto (BTC, XAU, DASH, ETH, XEM, BNK) and fiat (EUR, USD, PLN) wallets
– Deposits, withdrawals and exchanges (credit/debit cards, SEPA bank transfers, Neteller, Payeer, Skrill, Perfect Money, etc.)
– Prepaid debit card to spend cryptocurrencies at POS and withdrwa as fiat at ATMs
– Merchant solutions and a payment gateway
Spectrocoin and Bankera
Spectrocoin seems to be a part of a larger project – Bankera. Bankera is an ambitious project that is still in progress. They have plans to run a cryptocurrency exchange, obtain a banking license, and later provide “investment solutions” and “new type of money”.
Right now SpectroCoin supports operations with the BNK token issued by Bankera during their ICO.
Learn more about Bankera here.
Spectrocoin mobile app
To manage your wallets, deposits and withdrawals you can use a mobile app just as well as the web interface. The Spectrocoin mobile app is available on AppStore, Windows store, and Google Play.
Spectrocoin debit card
Spectrocoin was one of the first companies to release a working Bitcoin debit card in 2018. The card allows spending SpectroCoin balance at POS terminals and withdraw cash at ATMs.
SpectroCoin debit card fees:
| PLASTIC USD | VIRTUAL EUR | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $50.00 | €9.00 |
| Delivery | 2-4 business days | Instant |
| Card activation | FREE | FREE |
| Monthly service charge fee** | $1.00 | €1.00 |
| Card Load via Wallet | 1% | 1% |
| ATM Withdrawal | $2.50 | – |
| POS/Online Transactions | $0.25 | €0.25 |
| Currency exchange | 3% | 3% |
SpectroCoin debit card limits:
| STANDARD USD / EUR | VIP USD / EUR | |
|---|---|---|
| Max number of Top-ups per day | 2 | 2 |
| Max Top-up amount per day | $250 / €250 | $5,000 / €4,000 |
| Minimum Top-up amount | $10 / €10 | $10 / €10 |
| POS / Online transactions | No limit | No limit |
| Max card balance | $2,500 / €2,500 | No limit |
| Load limit | $250 / €250 | $5,000 / €4,000 |
| ATM Withdrawal | $1,500 | $1,500 |
Countries supported by SpectroCoin debit cards
The website has a supported countries locator, which is convenient, though a simple table would’ve done it. SpectroCoin ships cards to EEA (European Economic Area) and several other countries like Armenia and United Arab Emirates. Unfortunately they do not ship cards to residents of ex-USSR countries (like Russia, Ukraine and Belarus), and China or the USA.
Spectrocoin API and merchant solution
Spectrocoin is one of the Bitcoin payment gateways and they offer merchant solutions for anyone willing to accept Bitcoin payments in ecommerce. The merchant platform integrates with WooCommerce, Magento, Prestashop, OpenCart, Drupal commerce, WHMCS, VirtueMart, Zencart.
Spectrocoin fees controversy
This is similar to the BitPay fees complaints – but while BitPay calculate extra fees with each purchase you make with Bitcoin using their platform, SpectroCoin seem to have hardcoded default “minimum network fees” for all transactions:
The demanded 0.002-0.001 BTC “network fees” are nowhere near realistic. E.g. to send $20 worth of Bitcoin in August 2018 you’d have to pay $7 (accoring to BTC/USD price calculator), which is not how the network functions normally.
@spectrocoin demands I send network fee in the range of 0.002-0.001 BTC for a small transaction. This is ridiculous, and extremely shady – they hard-coded such large fees and they probably keep them. Sad! #bitcoin#crypto#fail#btc#network#feespic.twitter.com/ClO1PgwI7X
— D Pike (@coinvigilance) August 29, 2018
Wirex, another wallet/app/debit card provider, manages to allow withdrawals with minimum fees – see this example:
Spectrocoin alternatives
Wirex is the best app tied to a Bitcoin debit card for UK/EEA residents, there are other debit cards servicing different regions, and here’s a list of crypto payment gateways that would work instead of the SpectroCoin merchant solution.