Argentinian crypto giant Lemon is looking to introduce crypto-backed payment cards into the Latin American (LATAM) nation. U.S.-based cards giant Visa has agreed to assist Lemon’s vision — grabbing the opportunity to establish itself as an early crypto card service provider in the country amid the intensifying competition.
Announcing the development, Lemon claimed that this Visa card makes for Argentina’s first Bitcoin-backed credit card. Whether or not the card will support crypto in the future remains unclear for now.
Users interested in using the card will first have to deposit a collateral of at least 0.01 BTC to receive the card. With BTC presently trading at $96,670 — 0.01 BTC would cost $966.7.
The monthly limit of this card has been capped at ARS 1 million ($687). If users use the card to purchase crypto worth $150 or more, their maintenance fee of ARS 7,500 (approximately $5) would be waived off, Lemon explained to its community on X.
“You pay at the end of the month. Meanwhile, your pesos can continue to grow and you don’t spend your Bitcoin,” it said.
Hoping to rope-in adoption, the exchange has declared the first three month of the card free of maintenance.
For Visa, this partnership aligns with its ongoing efforts to push into the international crypto card ecosystem. The company issues crypto cards for an array of crypto firms including Coinbase, Binance, and Crypto.com among others. Despite the push, interestingly, Visa has not launched its own crypto card as yet.
Earlier this month, it did claim that spending via its crypto cards rose by over 525 percent in the last year. Visa said, these stats testify that crypto does have utility value.