Have you ever had difficultly sending money abroad from Japan?

Have you ever had difficultly sending money abroad from Japan?

Several years ago, when I had just moved to Kumamoto, I needed to send about $1000 back home. I didn’t have many options for sending the money, so I settled on Western Union. But the fees were extremely high — around 15-20%! Paying $150 dollars felt unreasonably expensive.

I think it crossed my mind to send money using bitcoin, but I was totally clueless about it at that time. Moreover, the people to whom I was sending money also knew nothing about bitcoin.

Fast forward to today, and bitcoin is gradually gaining mainstream acceptance along with other “crypto currencies”.

While doing some research on which coins to invest my money in, I came across a project called “Monaco Card”. It’s a prepaid Visa debit card that automatically converts bitcoin or other crypto currencies in your account to local currencies (e.g. $¥€£) when you purchase something. It also converts bitcoin to local currencies when you make withdrawals from ATMs.

In anticipation of going back to Japan next Spring, I’ve signed myself and my family up for Monaco Cards so that we can easily (and cheaply) send money to one another and withdraw it from ATMs.

If the card sounds useful to you, consider signing up for the wait list here: https://get.mona.co/IVWT/kLh77gdYxI

Thanks for reading,

-Noel

▲Neither Kumamoto International nor I profit from this link. I’m simply sharing this information because it seems really useful to the Kumamoto expat community!▲