Crypto savings can now take a new form - credit cards.

Crypto enthusiasts have been waiting for the day their currency of choice is ‘ripe’ enough before they spend it. Luckily, the time has come for crypto fanatics to be able to spend as little or as much as they want to without having to go through the classic trading scheme.

Aussies can now pay their bills or purchase anything they want, thanks to CryptoSpend. CryptoSpend is an app made by Australian people allowing everyone to enjoy crypto to AU$ transactions as smoothly as if they were using regular cash.

This software has been integrated with the Australian banking system authorizing crypto owners to use small or big chunks of cryptocurrencies to make their lives more comfortable.

Check out the birth and evolution of CryptoSpend in the following inspiring story of Andrew Grech.

The Birth of an Idea

Andrew Gretch, the co-founder of CryptoSpend, hasn’t revealed too much of his personal and early life. The only thing known to the public is that he is an Australian who has always had a knack for technology and innovation.

Before launching this major one-of-a-kind project, Andrew was mostly dabbing into web design. Nonetheless, Andrew Grech has a background in tech and finance. He went to the University of Technology in Sidney (UTS) and earned himself a double degree in Finance and IT in 2019, and it's the place he met Richard Voice - his future business partner.

The university was of great help to Andrew since it gave him an opportunity to attend a startups incubator program called UTS startups. Andrew raised his hand at a teacher’s question if anyone had a start-up idea. After that class, he and Richard hit it off and became good friends. Thanks to the UTS class, Richard and Andrew became close friends that shared interests. Plus, it helped them network as it connected them with many mentors and established people in the industry of financial technology. Such connections triggered the rebirth of Andrew’s entrepreneur mindset as he says he has always had it in him.

Andrew and his team still use the university facilities for collaboration purposes. The choices that Andrew made back at the university had helped him a lot, providing him with the basis for what he is doing right now, at only 23.

Before Andrew and Richard became friends, Andrew had already given crypto some thought about making it spendable but didn’t do much about it. Once Richard stepped in, the wheels started turning. Communicating well and never fighting over disagreements made the ideas flow even smoother, which resulted in progress over time.

Splicing Crypto With Regular Currency

The CryptoSpend app had only about 400 users as of the first quarter of 2021, which shortly grew to 1400 within a couple of months. The small number of users was due to Andrew and his team not pushing too much in the marketing field. They tried to save up some money first before they were able to create the physical Visa card for the CryptoSpend app. After achieving this milestone, in the third quarter of 2021, they dove deep into the marketing frenzy that will change the game for both them and the many potential new users.

The unrolling of this strategy came into the picture as the physical CryptoSpend card holds the actual value for the entirety of this project, according to Andrew, which turned out to be true. This card became the first ever through which crypto users could buy over-the-counter stuff, pay their bills, etc.

However, their project branched off into ‘payment for merchants.’ This move would basically be a reverse of their current system where merchants will be able to process payment in crypto, and they can get paid out straight away.

This option creates a win-win situation as merchants won’t have to worry about the volatility or set up wallets. It gives a unique bitcoin wallet, for instance, for each transaction that they do so they can link it to each invoice or each point of sale payment.

The way CryptoSpend works is that users will be able to link their crypto wallets to the CryptoSpend app. This action no longer requires converting to fiat money as customers can start spending immediately. There’s not much to be said about how these apps and cards work, as the necessary rocket science was done by the brainiacs in 2021 and has been going smoothly ever since.

Jumping Over Rings of Fire

One of the first technological hurdles to be overcome was to be able to get good liquidity with the Aussie dollar because most people with the big cryptos, let’s say Bitcoin, trade with the US dollar.

This ‘adversity’ left the CryptoSpend team with two options: to either go from particular crypto to US dollar, then to Australian dollar, or establish a partnership with exchanges that already had Bitcoin to AU$ pairs. Eventually, Andrew Grech and his team decided to skip the partnership and go the whole route this way; they were able to manage a more considerable consumer volume. Another thing is that with AU$, there are a lot of slippages, as Andrew says, when they tend to do more oversized orders.

Raising capital was yet another massive ring of fire that Andrew and his team had to jump through for their project to see the light of day. Fortunately for them, a couple of investors with reputable backgrounds came on board and saw exactly what Andrew saw - a bright future for crypto ahead.

The total funding of CryptoSpend as of now is AU$530,000. Thanks to a couple of anonymous investors who gave AU$30,000 in December 2019. The big bucks came in August of the next following year with a value of AU$500,000. With those funds, the company was standing firmly on its feet.

However, one of the biggest obstacles was combining the integrated crypto technology with the Aussie banking system so to be compliant with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) and Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) regulations.

Before getting on their feet regarding compliance, Andrew and his team were de-banked by the National Australian Bank (NAB), Bankwest, Suncorp, and quite a few others. Fortunately for them, once the emphasis was on the vividness of enabling instant liquidation technology that will send money immediately, they managed to maintain a business bank account(s).

What the Future Holds

Andrew and his team are well prepared once the volume of traders increases. Their goal is to be able to handle as many orders as possible. Such dedication comes from expecting more and more Australians to start using the Crypto-AU$ pairs.

Today's company consists of four people, each doing an equally important job. These include the founders, Andrew Grech, the CEO, and Richard Voice, the COO, and the development team of Lingxu Meng and Sabih Sarfaraz, both working as full-stack developers. Before gathering the attention of Aussies, Andrew and his team had to face the competition coming from companies like Apto Payments, Amon, and Lendo, among a few more.

As for far-ahead goals, CryptoSpend is planned to go overseas, thus reaching Pacific Asia first, and then move on to North America or Europe, and even both at the same time. Spreading its tentacles over such a big market will be more lucrative for the company as it will open up opportunities to reach more people and more volume.