Hi’s Mastercard Debit Card Adds Option to Spend Sandbox’s Token SAND

Users of the hi debit Mastercard can now spend Metaverse platform Sandbox’s SAND token in eligible markets in the European Economic Area, according to a Wednesday announcement posted on X. The card already allows users to spend bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and USDT.

Sandbox is a subsidiary of Metaverse gaming and venture capital giant Animoca Brands, which invested $30 million into hi, a crypto payments application, in July. Hi provides banking services, allowing users to transact in crypto or fiat, as a digital-only application, operating as a neobank.

The debit card, which can also be customized with NFTs, was announced in 2022, but the first batch of NFT customized cards was shipped only recently, said hi co-founder Sean Rach. “It’s been a long journey of product design and development to create the best user experience for our community. We are also exploring offering other tokens in the Animoca ecosystem,” he said.

The NFT cards are arriving just two months after Mastercard and Visa ended their partnerships with Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. At the time, Mastercard did not provide details behind its decision to distance itself from Binance and reiterated the same stance to a CoinDesk request for the latest development. The development was unlikely to hurt Binance, CoinDesk reported at the time.

Mastercard has partnerships with multiple crypto payments firms including Baanx, Credencial Payments, Episode 6, Immersve, Monavate, Moorwand, PayCaddy, Paymentology, Pomelo, Swap and Unlimit.