Friday, September 13, 2019

Gold Purchases Switching to Cryptocurrency

Starting Monday September 23, 2019, We Are Switching Cribbage Pro Gold Purchases for Contest Play From PayPal to a Cryptocurrency Based System


Much Lower Costs!

If you have used PayPal in the past to purchase Cribbage Pro Gold, then you will know that we had to include some of the PayPal fees in the purchase price. That cost was not small, but now it is gone! For example, you had to previously pay $5.95 to purchase 5 Gold with PayPal. This change eliminates that purchase price difference entirely!! If you want 5 Gold, you pay $5 USD in cryptocurrency (USDC). The only fee is a small transaction recording fee imposed by the cryptocurrency itself (around $0.06 to $0.10 currently).

Why Cryptocurrency

The world of cryptocurrency has grown and matured significantly over the last few years, and it is now ready to form a stable means of exchange on the internet. Cryptocurrencies can nearly eliminate all the fees and many have significant improvements in privacy for all parties involved while also providing quick transaction times. The new system we are using for payment processing is also not an intermediary, so they don't participate in the transaction in any way and have no control over it. This means that your purchases can now be directly with us, and it eliminates the excessive fees.

How to Get Started

You will need a few things to get started before you can purchase any Cribbage Pro Gold, but essentially it is just these steps (using Coinbase as an example):
  1. Create or sign in to your Coinbase account
  2. Convert USDC at a ratio of US$1.00 for 1 USDC with no fees
  3. Purchase Cribbage Pro Gold, send elsewhere, or convert back into dollars on Coinbase

Breaking it All Down

If that list above all makes sense, you can stop reading here. For those that want more detail before jumping in, continue on.

For this initial release, we will be accepting only the USDC Cryptocurrency. This is what is known as a "stable coin" that is tied directly to the United States Dollar. This is an important distinction from some other cryptocurrency, in that every amount you deposit will hold its value and not fluctuate. In the future, we may add other stable coins or cryptocurrencies as they become supported.

First, you need a Cryptocurrency Wallet that can hold USDC. It is important to know that not all wallet services can hold USDC, so you need to choose one that does. The wallet linked above is provided by Coinbase, which is one of the most reputable and easy to use services for cryptocurrency available. We strongly recommend you consider their services, particularly if you are new to cryptocurrency.

Once you have a wallet ready, you will need to purchase some USDC Cryptocurrency to place in that wallet so you can use it wherever it is accepted for payment. You will want to be sure to purchase enough to have the balance you expect after any fees are paid as well. At Coinbase you can buy USDC with no fees using a bank account transfer, but there may be a fee from your credit card company if you select that purchase option. If you are looking for a recommendation, then go with a Debit Card for the fastest processing and relatively low fees, or use a bank transfer method for no fees (at Coinbase) if you can wait a week or two for processing. Most services will also require that you verify your identity prior to purchasing. This is because these are regulated financial services, and they are required to do so, but the process is usually pretty quick (an hour or two for them to process it usually) and selecting a reputable company will also make sure it is properly secured. If you have used PayPal for purchases in the past, then you probably went through a verification process with PayPal at one point or another as well, and this is pretty much the same thing.

Once you have your wallet and some USDC in it available to use, you can use the regular purchase option provided to you in the game to purchase Cribbage Pro Gold. You will see that all purchases are now listed with an exchange rate of exactly one to one - meaning 5 Cribbage Pro Gold will now cost exactly $5. That said, there will be  a small processing fee imposed by the cryptocurrency itself when you actually make the purchase. This is usually just a few cents (around $0.06 to $0.10 currently for 5 USDC), so you will need just slightly more than 5 USDC in your wallet if you want to purchase 5 Cribbage Pro Gold. These fees collected by the cryptocurrency are what keeps the cryptocurrency alive and viable/working (it is the cost of recording the transaction).

Once you have started the purchase process, you will be shown a wallet address to send the cryptocurrency to. Every wallet may handle this step slightly differently, but essentially you copy that address into a "Send to" in your wallet app/service and enter the amount that you wish to send (if you are using a mobile app for your wallet, you may be able to scan a QR code instead of copying it). The amount you send must be as much as the amount shown. Many wallets will handle the fee calculation and show it in the total, but be sure that the total amount sent out of your account can cover both the fee and the purchase amount. The service will wait for all that to complete before the transaction is finalized. The process to finalize the payment and finish the transfer is usually just a few minutes (expect around 5 minutes for USDC, but it depends on how busy things are at the time). Once it is completed, the Cribbage Pro Gold will appear in your account in the game.

As always, if you have any questions, please let us know by emailing us at support@FullerSystems.com We probably can not help with specific cryptocurrency service questions, but will always try to assist in whatever way we can. Change is never easy, but we do hope that you will find these changes an overall improvement for everyone.