By
Temitope Olatunji
April 18th, 2024
Binance has partnered with Simplex in a move that is seen to bridge the gap between digital and fiat currencies enabling credit card holders to purchase major cryptos directly.
The prices in the cryptocurrency markets keep plunging. However, buying into this new investment opportunity is getting easier on a daily basis. Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange by volume worldwide, confirmed on January 31 that it now supports credit and debit cards’ purchases. The Malta-based crypto exchange decided to plunge into the fiat market offering an onramp for users around the world.
The chief executive officer of Binance, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, stated that:
“We want to provide Binance traders with fast and easy access to crypto, in the most secure way possible. With most of the world’s money still circulating in fiat, building fiat gateways are what we require now to grow the ecosystem and create more long-term opportunities for crypto.”
How to Buy
Users can now buy Ethereum, Bitcoin, XRP, and Litecoin using the Visa and MasterCard. To do that, users are required to go here, and select the coin. After that, they should enter the number of coins they want to purchase and then enter their credit card details. They are now ready to trade with the 150 tokens and coins supported by Binance.
Simplex is the third-party payments service that processes the payments made to Binance using credit cards. The new service is functional in the United States excluding New York, Connecticut, Hawaii, Georgia, New Mexico, and Washington. The list of the restricted counties is notably small including some banks in China. A full list is compiled here.
The CEO of Binance confirmed in a statement saying:
“Partnering with Simplex allows us to instantly bridge the gap between credit card payments and crypto for traders globally. On Binance.com, you can now buy crypto with credit cards and start trading in minutes.”
Although it is convenient, buying cryptos directly using a debit or credit card is not the cheapest method to do so. Binance’s price is higher including an additional $10 or 3.5% fee, whichever is higher, per transaction.
Purchasing cryptos using credit cards has proved challenging in the past. Coinbase disabled the option to allow its United States customers to use credit cards to buy digital assets. The decision, made in February 2018, came after some credit card companies threatened to prohibit the use of their cards.
Growth and Expansion
Currently, Binance is a strictly crypto-to-crypto exchange. However, they recently launched Binance Uganda that lets you buy crypto with Ugandan shillings and Binance Jersey with pounds and Euros. The partnership with Simplex, an expansion strategy, aims at bringing more users to the Binance platform for its convenience.
Despite the unfavourable exchange rate, the credit card purchase is expected to attract many users. CEO Changpeng told TechCrunch last year that Binance to expand to 10 fiat exchanges in 2019. They plan to launch two of these exchanges per continent. This strategy will help large, institutional investors to introduce money into the crypto ecosystem.
The partnership will boost the general crypto industry. Binance launchpad hosted the recent BitTottent (BTT) token sale. As we said earlier, that token sale sold out within 15 minutes amid astronomical demand. These developments have enabled BTT to rise almost six times while the rest of the altcoin markets are drowning.