World boxing champion Floyd Mayweather, popular for his uncommon attitude towards money, has taken his relationship with cryptocurrency a step further by partnering with Centra Card to spend his cryptocurrency in mainstream commerce.

With posts under some of his social media handles earlier this year, Mayweather’s interest on cryptocurrencies attracted a lot of attention.

While some members of the crypto community assume that the world champion’s attraction to cryptocurrencies is an organic development, others think that the celebrity’s popularity is being capitalized upon by marketing companies aiming to sell their coins. Whichever opinion takes the day, Mayweather’s involvement and ownership of cryptocurrencies remains an undeniable fact.

Crypto debit cards are becoming popular

A class of product that is currently growing in popularity within the crypto world is debit cards that allow crypto holders to spend their digital currencies in mainstream commercial environments.

Accepted in most countries where regular fiat-based debit cards are effective, crypto debit cards offer users the flexibility of managing multiple cryptocurrencies and fiat money at the same time. Since digital currencies are more or less borderless and not restricted to particular governments, crypto debit cards also serve as a convenient tool for travelers due to their easy conversion to different major currencies.

CEO of Trive, David Mondrus, describes crypto debit cards as “real life savers.” Mondrus explains that such cards allow users the flexibility of using their crypto wallet for retail purposes.

Mondrus says:

“Crypto Debit card adoption can play a significant role in bridging the gap between the crypto and fiat worlds. A crypto debit card allows users to use their crypto wallets in a retail setting easily and with low friction. I've travelled extensively in the US and abroad using my crypto debit card. It's been a real life saver at times.”

Of the available crypto-enabled debit card services, Mayweather’s recent tweet reveals his partnership with Centra Card, a service that supports a wide range of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, ERC20 Tokens, Ripple, Zcash, and Dash.

Crypto cards will encourage adoption

Links between crypto and mainstream commerce have been identified as vital aspects of cryptocurrency development. This is because such links are expected to encourage crypto adoption by wider society. These links come in the form of user interfaces such as apps and debit cards.

Some of the other crypto debit cards are the Bitpay Visa debit card, Xapo debit card, Cryptopay debit card and Coinbase/Shift card.

Chairman of Auxesis Group, Kumar Gaurav, tells Cointelegraph that a cyptocurrency-based debit card works just like any other debit card but instead of being connected to your bank account, it is linked to your digital currency wallet. This makes it easy to spend your coins wherever you go.

According to Gaurav, this gives a very convenient way to use and store cryptocurrency and is a strong driver of mainstream adoption. Especially in countries where people have lower incomes, crypto debit cards serve as one tool for people interested in investing in cryptocurrencies who do not want them to lock and lose their purchasing power.

Gaurav elaborates:

“Considering this Cashaa is launching its cards based solution in India to facilitate the use of cryptocurrencies in a fully regulated way. This will support the initiative of the Prime minister Narendra Modi’s vision. Auxesis group is supporting this initiative which runs the Auxldger with State government of India with 53 Million users on it.”

Gaurav also notes that Cashaa is targeting not only the banked population but also about 167 million people who are unbanked in India as having debit cards linked with the Mastercard, Visa or Rupay network will bring more participants into the crypto economy. This will accelerate the growth of digital currency significantly once the network goes live in India.

A buffer to local currencies

Cryptocurrency holders have employed crypto debit cards as a buffer against deteriorating local currencies in recent times. In Venezuela, for example, the high fluctuation in the exchange rate of local currency has been a factor for confusion in trading. As a result, shop owners are continuously marking up prices and consumers are complaining severely at the increasing prices of commodities.

Crypto debit cards retain the advantage of universal application, frictionless adaptation to other major national currencies and lower charges compared to regular fiat debit cards.