In the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in the world, 100 people are testing out a debit card that lets them pay with bitcoin and Ripple, and, in the future, regular money and loyalty points. These users are part of a pilot program run by the Y Combinator-backed startup called Shift Payments, a company working to make it as easy to spend digital currencies, cryptocurrencies and loyalty points as it is to spend regular, fiat money.
Shift was founded by Meg Nakamura, Eugene Otto, and Greg Kidd – a team with backgrounds in payments, telecom and regulation, making them an ideal group for tackling something as complex as bringing digital currencies and loyalty points into the offline world, where they’re attached to a “normal” debit card.
