Anyone want to take a stab at explaining this chart?
As you can see, that’s Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp. and it’s up some 40% since its November IPO, making it the second best performer out of companies that have gone public since November 1.
Any guesses as to what’s behind that? Here’s a hint:
So that’s the “Shift Card” and as you can see from the description, it’s “the first U.S. bitcoin debit card.” You can connect that thing to Coinbase, and after you’ve done that, you can effectively spend Bitcoin anywhere Visa is accepted. Here’s how Coinbase explains this:
When you use your Shift debit card to make a purchase, the equivalent value of bitcoin will be debited from your Coinbase bitcoin wallet. For certain transactions, like gas purchases and dinner bills, Shift will debit more than the purchase amount, and will refund you the remainder when the final payment amount is settled.
Of course this depends on the current spot price of bitcoin on Coinbase, which suggests that had you tried to use your Shift debit card during last Thursday’s chaotic session, your purchasing power would have fluctuated by 25% or more between 11:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. New York time. That would have made buying lunch a rather interesting experience.
How does that relate to Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp.? Well the answer to that is at the bottom of Shift Card’s website. To wit:
This card is issued by Metropolitan Commercial Bank (Member FDIC) pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. “Metropolitan Commercial Bank” and “Metropolitan” are registered trademarks of Metropolitan Commercial Bank ©2014.
So they’re trying to capitalize on the assumed proliferation of Bitcoin payments without taking on Bitcoin risk. What could go wrong? Well for one thing, this would appear to mean that Coinbase and any other “partner accounts” are effectively counterparties for the bank. And that’s just one thing.
I’ll leave it at that for now.
