Bitcoin vs. uPayCard

Across online casinos, you will find plenty of payment methods available, but rarely do others offer the benefits you can get by choosing Bitcoin or UPayCard. These two are excellent payment solutions to be used for online gambling purposes, as they can both provide you with instant deposits and withdrawals. Add to that the fact that they are both secure and safe to use, and you’ve got yourself at a crossroads, not knowing which one of the two would suit you better. That’s where we come in. Stay with us to learn more about these two incredible solutions and make the right decision. Which one to use across online casinos, Bitcoin or UPayCard?

About Bitcoin and UPayCard

Bitcoin is the world’s first cryptocurrency. When it was first introduced to the world, people were sceptical and didn't believe it would make it, especially because the online banking systems evolved so much and were providing users with seamless transactions.

Not only did it make it, but Bitcoin became the pioneer in alternative banking. Presented to the world in 2008, Bitcoin was created by a person or a group of people calling themselves Satoshi Nakamoto. The real identity of its creator, the father of Bitcoin, remained anonymous, but the cryptocurrency received global recognition. Due to its decentralized nature, it enabled users to make private, secure and easy transactions to and from anywhere across the world.

Users transact online with a token, an invented digital coin that has no physical representation, through the peer-to-peer system and the underlying blockchain technology. All transactions with it are secured, impenetrable by third parties and recorded in a digital ledger, but cannot be overseen by the authorities.

As such, it raised many eyebrows throughout the years due to the lack of control and regulation. Add to that the fact that its value continues fluctuating, and you can understand why many don't believe its power. However, despite all of the doubtfulness and scepticism, Bitcoin managed to be embraced by so many industries and used by so many people across the world.

In fact, the online gambling industry was one of the first that embraced it. You will find so many Bitcoin-only or crypto casinos which allow you to use it. The fact that it is accepted for both deposits and withdrawals, and delivers instant processing times, is what makes it such a great solution to use.

UPayCard is also an alternative payment solution, an eWallet as well as a virtual prepaid card, and it functions both with well-established online banking systems and cryptocurrencies. It was launched five years later than Bitcoin, in 2013, and made a real boom as it was processing transactions with both fiat and digital currencies.

When it was first launched, UPayCard came with many hefty fees, but thanks to users’ feedback, it eliminated many of those fees, and reduced and kept the ones that covered the basic transfer costs. Today, registering for the eWallet and getting your first virtual prepaid MasterCard card is free of charge, and no monthly fees apply. Fees do apply when adding and cashing out money, as well as for foreign exchange and the issuance of the first physical card and the second virtual card, among others.

Now, just like Bitcoin, its main aim is to facilitate international money transfer and allow individuals and businesses to exchange funds in a faster and more efficient way, using both fiat and cryptocurrencies. That’s why it offers them two products, the prepaid cards and the eWallet service, through one single account.

It is a solution available all over the globe, with the exception of just a few countries, such as the US, American Samoa, North Korea, Bahrain, Angola, the Republic of Moldova, Afghanistan and Aruba. It accepts over 20 currencies, such as the Swedish krona, the Australian and Canadian dollars, the UK pound, among others, as well as the cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.

And as far as its availability across online casinos goes, this is a solution accepted across many sites, for apparent reasons. People from all across the world can use it, it allows for cost-effective and fast transactions with over 20 fiat and many digital currencies, and it offers two products for the most convenient deposits and withdrawals.

Getting Started with the Two Payment Methods

Even though you may have heard that getting started with Bitcoin would take a lot of your time and money, that’s only a myth. In fact, today, all you need to do to get started with Bitcoin is create your wallet.

There are several types of Bitcoin wallets you can use, such as the hardware, paper, desktop and online wallet, even though the last one has proved the most useful when you’re about to use the crypto for online gambling. If you wish to create an online wallet, you’d need to visit platforms like Bitfinex, Coinbase or Bitstamp. As soon as you do, you’ll be able to store, send and receive coins on it.

Upon registration, you’ll receive public and private keys, which would be your passwords, actual keys to transacting with Bitcoin. When your wallet is ready, you can fill it up with coins. Now, when Bitcoin was first launched, people could only get coins by mining them, and this was quite an exhausting process, both mentally and financially. Luckily, today, you can use fiat currencies to purchase coins at the exchange rate of the day. The platforms where you can create the wallet are also platforms where you can buy your coins. Sure, you can be sent some coins by your friends or family, nevertheless, as you can see, it won’t be a difficult and complicated process to start using the cryptocurrency.

With UPayCard, you would first need to decide whether you’d like to get issued with the virtual prepaid card or use the eWallet, or both. If you want to use it for both deposits and withdrawals across online casinos, though, you’d need to get an eWallet account, so that the casino would have an address to send your winnings to.

So, all you need to do is visit its official website, and sign up for your account. Since this solution complies with UK’s FCA (Financial Conduct Authority), upon registration, you would have to provide identification documents, and verify your identity, as part of the anti-money laundering and KYC (Know Your Customer) rules. So be ready to provide copies of documents with your photo on them, your email address, phone number, birth date, full name and home address.

After your identity has been verified, your account would be ready. You would then need to top it up with money. You can do that using wire transfer, the solutions Payeer, QIWI, POLi, Skrill and Neteller, or your virtual prepaid card, if you already have it.

On that note, if you wish to get issued with the virtual card, you’d also need to visit UPayCard’s website and apply for it. The card works just like any other prepaid card, meaning it has an expiry date and is valid for a limited period of time. Using it, you won’t need to share any banking information with your online casino operator; all you need to do is provide the card number and your online casino account would be funded.

Funding your prepaid card can be done with the same methods you can fund the eWallet account. The service advises against funding your prepaid card via your eWallet account, though, out of security reasons. If one of these gets compromised somehow, the other one won’t be affected that way. So, you better use wire transfer or one of the five alternative payment solutions mentioned above.

Using Bitcoin and UPayCard Across Online Casinos

As you could see, getting started with the two solutions won’t take much of your time, so the next step would be finding online casinos that accept them. Regardless of whether you choose to use Bitcoin or UPayCard, you should know that you’ll have more than a decent choice of casinos to explore. They are both largely accepted across online casinos, therefore, just make sure the casino you want to join is safe, licensed and offers a huge variety of games, and join it.

From there, to make a deposit with Bitcoin, you would need to choose it from the list of accepted methods at the casino. You can do that upon registration or:

1. Just visit the casino’s Cashier section and find Bitcoin’s logo.
2. Click or tap on it and log in to your wallet.
3. Specify how much you wish to deposit and enter the operator’s public key.
4. Confirm the transaction and the deposit will arrive on your online casino account in an instant.

Just a little reminder, transactions with Bitcoin are not reversible, therefore, before you confirm the transaction, make sure you double, triple-check the casino’s public key. Once you confirm it, the transaction is immediately processed and irreversible, and you can never get your coins back if you’ve entered the wrong address.

If you wish to make a withdrawal with Bitcoin, you would need to go through this procedure again. This time, however, you would need to enter the amount you wish to withdraw, copy the generated wallet address on the screen and enter it on the designated field on your wallet. Confirm the transaction and wait for the casino to approve it. Once the casino checks and sees that everything is in order, the money will arrive on your Bitcoin wallet in an instant.

To fund your account with UPayCard, you would need to do the following:

1. Find UPayCard’s logo in the Cashier section at the casino and click or tap on it.
2. If depositing with the eWallet, enter your account using your login credentials and enter the amount you wish to deposit.
3. If depositing with the virtual prepaid card, enter the card’s number and specify how much you wish to deposit.
4. Either way, after you do that, confirm your transaction and the funds will arrive on your online casino account instantly.

You cannot make withdrawals with the virtual prepaid card, but you can with your eWallet account. You would need to go through the same procedure, this time, specifying how much you wish to withdraw. Since UPayCard is one of the solutions which allow for the fastest withdrawals, you can rest assured that the moment the casino approves the transaction, the money will arrive on your eWallet account immediately.

Advantages and Disadvantages

As you can see, Bitcoin and UPayCard have some shared values. They both allow for instant deposits and withdrawals, and that’s the crucial factor that has influenced their popularity across online casinos and among players. They are both perfectly safe to use and available across hundreds of online casinos. And, above all, they are both easy and convenient to use.

Bitcoin gives you a separate benefit, and that is the fact that it allows for untraceable transactions, avoiding the need to involve any banks in the transfer process. But it also comes with one major downside, the fact that its value goes through constant fluctuations. You never know how much it would be worth tomorrow or the day after. Plus, transactions with it, even though safe and instant, are irreversible. One wrong letter or number when typing the casino's address and the coins are gone for good.

UPayCard, on the other hand, gives you one unrivalled advantage: to transact using both fiat and digital currencies. Plus, it is a two-in-one solution allowing you to use it both as a virtual prepaid card and an eWallet. You can fund it with popular payment solutions. Transactions with it are not only instant but also cost-effective. Now, the fees may be considered as its only flaw, but as said, they are pretty reasonable and absolutely necessary, to cover the basic transfer costs. Another disadvantage is the fact that it cannot be used by US players, and considering the US market is one of the biggest in the online gambling industry, this could be a real bummer for US players.

Now that you have all the pros and cons of using Bitcoin and UPayCard, it is up to you to choose which one would suit you best. They offer some shared, some separate benefits and downsides, but overall, they are both great solutions for fast and easy deposits and withdrawals across online casinos.