Sunny Ray sits down with Mike, founder of CoinCards, to trace his path from a teenage computer hobbyist and early peer-to-peer tech enthusiast to running one of Canada's longest-running crypto gift card services. Mike explains how frustrations with PayPal freezes and chargebacks led him to Bitcoin in 2013 after attending a coding bootcamp lunch and learn, and how he later launched CoinCards in 2014 after noticing Canadians had no way to spend crypto on everyday purchases the way Americans could through services like Gyft. The conversation covers CoinCards' bootstrapped, guerrilla marketing beginnings on Reddit and Bitcoin forums, its growth to hundreds of merchant partners including Superstore, Esso, Uber Eats and DoorDash, its recent expansion into the United States, and its new prepaid Visa and Mastercard offering. Mike also reflects on Vancouver's quirky crypto culture, including Dogecoin's local popularity and the Dogecon street party, and shares his philosophy of using Bitcoin as both savings and spending money rather than simply holding it.
CoinCards founder Mike on turning Bitcoin into everyday spending money through gift cards, from hacker roots to hundreds of merchants.
Where does your story begin, before Bitcoin?
I grew up on computers, a 13 year old nerd with my first CD burner making copies for friends. I got into IRC hacker channels and then BitTorrent and peer to peer decentralized tech, which is where I first got interested in freedom and privacy online. I later worked full time and got degrees in web development part time, just because I loved learning.
How did you first discover Bitcoin?
In 2013 I was looking at coding bootcamps and one had a lunch and learn with a Bitcoiner. I went in skeptical but walked out saying this blows my mind, while everyone else in the room thought it was crazy. I talked to the speaker afterward, found a local Vancouver meetup, and that's where I really landed with Bitcoin.
What was your relationship with money before Bitcoin, and what was your aha moment?
I had small businesses accepting Bitcoin but was getting BitPay to cash it out immediately, since I just wanted Canadian dollars. Then PayPal and our credit card processor started freezing large amounts of our money for no good reason. I saw Bitcoin as a revolution for internet payments, removing chargebacks and putting due diligence back on the customer.
What is CoinCards and what problem does it solve?
CoinCards.com is a Bitcoin to gift card exchange service. We primarily take Bitcoin but also Litecoin, Monero, Dogecoin and a few others. Back in 2013 and 2014 there weren't many ways to actually spend your crypto, so our goal is to let people live off their cryptocurrency by buying gift cards for merchants like Superstore, Esso, Uber Eats and DoorDash.
What markets does CoinCards operate in?
We were Canada only until last year, when we moved into the United States and have been growing quite fast there. Our philosophy is to service the hell out of one market, make sure we're the best there, and slowly expand rather than go into a hundred countries and be mediocre everywhere. We're planning to move into the UK next.
Can people pay bills with CoinCards?
Not yet. Doing that would open us up to being classified as a money service business. Right now we're just an online store, so we're not required to collect a selfie or ID like exchanges have to. Customers can just give us their name and email, no account needed.
How did you get your first customers and grow the business?
I threw up what was basically the world's worst website in a weekend, just some gift card images and a BitPay integration. We went hard on Reddit, Twitter and Bitcoin Talk forums, being everywhere Bitcoiners were asking how to cash out. We started under the radar with merchants, and as we grew we got to talk directly with them and their suppliers.
What has the growth trajectory of CoinCards looked like?
I remember hitting a thousand orders around 2015 and thinking it was amazing, then doubling that a month later. We peaked in 2017 for dollar volume when everyone was getting rich and cashing out, then had a dip, but we've had pretty steady triple digit percentage growth per year since. Even the pandemic only caused a brief dip before spending patterns shifted.
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