Wirex's Risky Gamble: Are the Rewards Worth It?
Hello, today we talk about the Wirex platform and how it has been evolving. Wirex was launched in 2016 as a BTC debit card where they let users buy/sell and trade cryptos between cryptos and fiats. It is very simple to use, the swap rates between cryptos and fiats is good and the debit card works perfectly online, in-store and at the ATM. I have been a personal user since 2017 and to date. I have never had a problem are lost money. I have infact been very happy with the service they offer and have been using its services for SPI to do real-world transactions such as investing us into the SP500 and buying things for our SPI merch packs we offered last year.
I write this post today as a warning to others that are either already customers or people considering signing up.
As a long-time user of Wirex off near 6 years, I have been watching the platform evolve, add features, remove features, and update UIs. Over the past year, they have been really ramping up what they offer and from my eye, I dont like what im seeing.
For the first 4-5 years, they offered a simple service of being a Crypto Debit card. I used to use it weekly between 2018-2020 to convert fiat into BTC. I have used the debit card maybe 50 times in total but the service has always been simple. I like simplicity.
Around 12 months back, I logged in and was greeted with a popup promoting thier new Multiply accounts, these in black and white are leveraged trading and they offer up to 50x. I thought this is not good, this is not what a bank offers but I thought, ok they are growing and trying stuff out. A few months pass and X accounts arrive and they offer up to 1% interest compounded daily (ding ding ding..code red!), they since added LP staking but offer silly APY's in the hundreds of percent and most recently they have started to offer crypto loans which for me is the nail in the coffin.
When i think of Wirex, i think Crypto debit card with linked UK bank account. Nice and simple. Thats how they do it, your debit card is actually from a UK bank account (in the UK anyway) because well...crypto banks dont exist and this is the best we have at this stage of cryptos evolution to offer a service like this.
When I open the Wirex app, I think BS scam offers. How do they pay 16% APY on stable tokens? How do they pay that 1% compounded each day? Why can people borrow against BTC at 70-80% LTV rates? and how can they offer insane LP staking returns that are 15-30x higher compared to Uniswap, Pancake, etc.
Its the start of a bad thing, I will tell you that for sure. They are starting to use there own WTX tokens for a lot of things and we all know that those tokens have no value and when people use them as collateral, bad times are indeed on the horizon. They used to pay cashback to debit card users as BTC but swapped that over to WTX which is their own token. When you hold a certain amount, you get better rates and perks.
We've all seen this before and we know the result.
I used to be happy to hold funds and even small amounts of BTC and ETH on here but lately, im not feeling it and with the recent surge of growth and new products they are offering, it feels like too much, too soon and it will not end nicely.
It might take 5 years or it might never go busto but i dont trust everything that states 1% compounded per day and offers 70% LTV loans for BTC. Did you know 1% compounded a day for 1 year is like 3716% APY and BTC can drop 30% in a day wiping out loans.
It's been a nice 6-year Wirex but time for me to move on and find another Crypto card service that is a Crypto card service. I would not advice others to use this because its making moves the same as others that wiped themselves out and wrecked their customers.
Overuse of worthless "platform" tokens and silly APYs =
Stay safe out there folks. Even platforms wit a proven history can fall off when they change their model and add tons of risk. Its nice to earn 8% on BTC but if you lose that BTC, not that great a deal. Why risk the biscuit for some crumbs? Stay safe!!
| Token Name | Main Account | Link to hive-engine |
|---|---|---|
| SPI token | @spinvest | SPI |
| LBI token | @lbi-token | LBI |
| Top XV token | @spinvest | XV |
| Eddie Earners | @eddie-earner | EDS |
| EDS mini miners | @eddie-earner | EDSM |
| EDS micro miners | @eddie-earner | EDSMM |
| CUBlife | @lbi-token | CL |
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Thanks for sharing your experience with wirex platform, it seem hard to lose what you work for within a sec for what don’t worth it.
Interesting read. I'd forgotten all about wirex. I remember when I first joined Steemit back in 2017 alot of the UK folks were using it. Mot sure why I never did. Probably because I hodl rather than spend. I've recently started to move all my tokens that are being paid "interest" onto a cold wallet. As you say, it's not worth the risk with all that's going on right now, for a few crumbs. I'm only talking tiny amounts but figured it was better to get used to it now rather than the odds are higher.