Xapo Goes Mobile After Bitcoin Card Fail

Xapo, a bitcoin startup, has launched a wallet app for iOS, making its mobile wallet easy for consumers to use, Payments Source reported.

This move follow’s Xapo’s bitcoin debit card debacle when it had to pull the product from customer’s hands because U.S. customers received cards that the company didn’t know it wasn’t allowed to ship into the U.S. until it was too late. The company has since recovered and is focusing its attention on the mobile wallet, which was released to Android users in mid-October.  The wallet app also doubles as an interface for Xapo’s vault service, giving it an extra layer of security.

“The app allows consumers to send bitcoins to Xapo’s cold storage (offline) vaults with a single click. To retrieve bitcoins out of the vaults is considerably more difficult. Retrieving bitcoins takes between 24 and 48 hours with multiple points of contact between the company and the consumer,” Xapo Chief Strategy Officer Ted Rogers said in the Payments Source article. “Multiple emails and text messages are sent and for especially large amounts of bitcoin, the company may even ask for a phoned confirmation.”

“From day one, Xapo has been about the vault, about security,” Rogers said. The company has been building out multiple vault locations where bitcoins are stored on cold servers underground guarded with intense physical security, he added.

While the vault product was created for institutions wanting to keep large amounts of bitcoin safe, the consumer wallet gives consumers a way to send, receive and pay with bitcoin. Consumers can also buy bitcoins through the app. Although the focus right now is on the mobile wallet, Xapo isn’t giving up its plans for its debit card in the U.S.

“We’re speaking with banks that have a lot of experience with card programs; we’re not looking to educate or learn with the financial institutions we partner with,” Rogers said.