Many people have asked me to talk about the U Card. It's not that I don't promote it; I've already experienced it myself. Do you think I wouldn't know? (Including the underlying logic of the U Card, its advantages and disadvantages)

Many people say that my threshold for receiving U is too high, starting at 50,000 RMB, which is a large amount. They want me to promote the U Card, so I will explain the underlying logic of the U Card to you, and then you can decide whether to use it. Right now, there is a bit of chaos in the market.

The various U Cards we see now started to gain popularity around October 2022. The transaction fees were high, and only a few banks supported withdrawals. At that time, no one could understand the value behind it, so many bloggers simply didn't have the ability to promote it. Of course, they also didn't understand the industry trend and thought it was just a tax on intelligence.

However, a self-media person who specialized in OTC research understood it and established some industry rules, happily earning money for half a year. Only then did other bloggers slowly realize that fans didn't care about transaction fees; they cared about safety.

When they had agency rights, they thought about naming the product. Since it was a Mastercard channel, they casually named it "Mastercard U Card." Now this term has become an industry jargon, which is indeed a bit ironic.

Later, a large number of so-called agents flooded the market, leading to chaotic promotion and advertising. Coupled with some scammers, the official quickly closed the agency rights.

Initially, the agency rights were very expensive, with an agency fee and a performance requirement of 40 million dollars a year, which kept many people out. Meanwhile, those second-hand dealers thrived since they were not subject to official supervision, promoting everywhere on platforms like Douyin with false promises.

The company behind the Mastercard U Card is called Paytend, and the full name of the Mastercard U Card is UnionCash. It's not that complicated, and you don't need an intermediary; you can just download it from the app store. For Apple, you need an external network ID and then pay over 100 euros. Previously, you would wait two weeks for the card to be delivered, and you didn't need to find any intermediaries.

However, Paytend is quite problematic, suppressing agents and not providing services, and commissions are not paid. This is also a mainland company, with policies changing frequently. After the marketing director achieved results, they were suppressed and forced to resign, leading to a desire for self-operated business.

As a result, the UnionCash business was sold to a payment company called ALC around September last year. The foreign currency channel for OKEx uses this company's channel, and this company also issues a token called ACH.

It is important to note that you should never apply for those so-called virtual cards, as there is a risk of asset loss.

Many of the U Cards that came out later are similar. The international U Card supports more banks, while the Mastercard U Card only supports a few major banks and has a limit of only 7,000. It does not support binding to WeChat or Alipay, and the initial three transactions bound to Alipay were quickly flagged for risk control.

During the same period, various virtual cards were released, with Depay doing the best. The physical cards are the Mastercard U Card and the international U Card (which was later suspended by the official due to chaotic promotion by agents). Of course, the latter is superior, as it can be used directly at gas stations, convenience stores, supermarkets, etc., by showing a QR code for payment. These functions are now available in various U Cards.

Seeing many so-called lawyers in the industry talking extensively about the U Card, they actually don't even understand the core of the U Card. The U Card is just a code name; its true nature is a prepaid consumption card issued overseas. Its main function is to pre-load US dollars (not CNY) onto the card, allowing you to use it for card payments and ATM withdrawals in most regions, automatically converting to the local currency. If you don't have US dollars pre-loaded, in some compliant regions (countries), you can exchange digital assets for US dollars through third-party platforms (websites, mini-programs) and then entrust a third party to load the US dollars onto your card.

It's like when you trade OTC on an exchange, giving your digital assets to a currency dealer, who then gives you RMB or US dollars. What does this process have to do with the card issuer?

They don't even know what U is. It has just been misused by intermediaries. Retail users can use it normally without any issues; the problems arise from the third-party exchange platforms, but they operate in compliant regions.

In fact, if you have US dollars in hand, you can also get involved with a so-called U Card. You can take a legitimate bank or supermarket prepaid card and claim to support U, allowing you to load U onto it. After you have U, you can transfer safe funds to this prepaid card.

What you need to do is diversify your consumption scenarios as much as possible, so that it can be used in every scenario.

In fact, the international issuers might not even know how it became the U Card.

I must say that Chinese people are really clever. But how were these U Cards misused?

Originally, it was fine to promote within one's private domain, but these unscrupulous intermediaries went to publish a lot of Douyin promotions. Those who couldn't promote resorted to using these things to scam and create Ponzi schemes.

This led to attention from those who weren't originally interested. If you aren't regulated, who is? So, it was really the intermediaries who messed it up.

There is no currency exchange behavior (not occupying foreign exchange quotas), and there are no illegal points. It is a transaction behavior generated from your own U cashing process, and there is no business behavior involved.

It's equivalent to a personal process of cashing out cryptocurrency, and this high transaction fee also prevents some criminals from arbitraging, so it is safe. It's just such a simple thing; don't be fooled by intermediaries.

Even worse are those lawyers who don't understand the situation and go around criticizing currency exchange and legal risks. If you go to a supermarket to buy a prepaid card, is that illegal? The Supreme Court just said a few days ago that holding virtual currency is not illegal. Not being illegal in law means it is legal; a lawyer should understand that.

If you exchange your legally sourced virtual currency through a third-party intermediary for US dollars, and they load it onto a KYC-compliant card for you, and you use this US dollar account for consumption, which automatically converts to legal tender at the merchant, what law are you violating?

As for the so-called promoters, just don't be an agent. You can just send the registration link to retail users, and they can register and apply themselves. What law are you violating? After being a lawyer for so long, do you see everyone as a suspect?

So, these half-baked lawyers on the internet, especially those in the cryptocurrency circle, should learn a bit more and reflect on themselves instead of making a fool of themselves.

If you write about OTC, go open an account and test the OTC process yourself. If you want to write about cryptocurrency inflows and outflows, actually buy and sell some coins. If you want to understand the U Card principle, spend 100 U to go through the process. If you want to write about how a sewing machine smokes, go in and experience it for 37 days. Oh, I got it wrong; they wouldn't dare to do that.

You do nothing but search for a few advertisements written by self-media online, and you call that understanding the underlying logic? And then you come out to teach and educate users? If you don't get criticized, who will?

Look at how many people criticize me; why don't they dare to debate with me? At most, they just call me a fool and leave.

Let me tell everyone again: the U Card can only be used for small daily consumption. The loss is significant. I haven't told everyone to use it as a cash-out channel or a storage channel; those are not the same concepts. They latch onto this and criticize, saying prepaid card, prepaid card. What is a prepaid card? It means you need to load a few hundred yuan in advance for consumption, not that I teach you to gamble all your assets into the supermarket.

Although I tell everyone that the U Card can be used personally, many agents lack vision. For example, if I have 400 clients who need U Cards, I just put out an advertisement:

Dozens of U Card advertisers come to me, and here I have hundreds of clients. It feels like they can't showcase their strength at all. It's a pity they are losing such a large market; they have no vision at all. I'm really afraid they will run away with the funds…

To summarize: the U Card is indeed suitable for retail users for small amounts of U for daily consumption. However, it is not that magical; it is essentially a legitimate card, with third-party redemption, and there are no risks or legal responsibilities. But be clear: it is for daily small consumption; it is not suitable for large cash-outs, nor is it a storage channel for your digital assets.

The beautiful imagination of blockchain is just for your daily consumption scenarios like eating, shopping at supermarkets, watching movies, and refueling cars. What is needed is the ability to discern unscrupulous intermediaries' tricks and the scams from issuing parties.

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