Top cryptocurrency news: Binance and Mastercard will introduce prepaid cryptocurrency cards in Argentina
Binance, a major cryptocurrency exchange, has partnered with Mastercard to offer a prepaid card to Argentina citizens.
Binance announced on Thursday that the card would allow its clients in Argentina to use Bitcoin (BTC), BNB, and other cryptocurrencies to make purchases and ATM withdrawals in currency anywhere Mastercard is accepted. Cardholders in Argentina can also earn up to 8% cashback in cryptocurrency on specific transactions.
According to Binance, the launch of the card, which is scheduled to be widely available in the coming weeks, is part of the company's attempts to increase worldwide crypto acceptance. The cards will be available to residents of Argentina first, but the crypto exchange announced a similar effort for Binance customers in Ukraine in April and the European Economic Area in 2020.
“Payments are one of the earliest and most obvious use cases for cryptocurrency, but adoption still has a long way to go” according to Maximiliano Hinz, general director of Binance in Latin America. Also stated “by using the Binance Card, retailers continue to receive fiat while customers pay in the cryptocurrency of their choice.”
The card requires Argentines to have a valid national identification card, often known as a documento nacional de identidad. Credit cards provided by local cryptocurrency exchanges already have similar criteria.
In 2021, Lemon Card teamed with Visa to develop a card that offers 2% back in BTC to Argentine customers, while Buenbit and Belo worked with Mastercard to launch a crypto rewards card.
Despite the current market downturn, data indicate that many Argentines are still interested in cryptocurrency. According to an April Americas Market Intelligence analysis, crypto adoption in Argentina had reached 12 percent, about double that of Peru and Mexico.
