Many moons ago I extensively wrote about CoinZoom card that earns up to 5% cashback, everywhere. In my review I had mentioned that CoinZoom has a history of doing shady things (what else do you expect from crypto?) like partnering with MLM companies, but I apparently forgot to mentioned that they also had a history of changing card membership requirement without any notice.
There was a time when Gold card member required 12500 Zoom tokens but one day out of the blue the requirement was bumped to 25000. Everything else remained unchanged so there was little to no backlash at the time.
Fast forward to 04/22/2022, CoinZoom send out an announcement via email titled “You Can Now Fund your Account with a Credit Card!” but the body of the email also contained the fact that token requirement for various card tier was massively changing.
Card | Old Requirement (in Zoom) | New Requirement (in Zoom) |
Select (1%) | 2k | 10k |
Preferred (2%) | 10k | 37.5k |
Gold (3%) | 25k | 75k |
Platinum (4%) | 50k | 150k |
Black (5%) | 100k | 300k |
Within a few hours, $Zoom price had dipped as low as 2.5 cents.
Obviously their Telegram channel went nuts over this which is undertakable because (a) $Zoom token keeps falling in price (more on that later) and (b) there was apparently no plan to grandfather existing holders. The latter of which means that if someone was a 5% card holder (aka Black card aka held 100k Zoom token) and wanted to maintain their status, then would need to buy 200k more Zoom token or else they would dump two tier down to Gold (3%) card. This implementation is very off-putting considering other platform (see CDC) grandfather you as long as you don’t unstake your initial holding.
(Oh by the way, their Telegram is now in read only mode. I guess they didn’t like that Telegram users were asking to be grandfathered.)
So why was this change made and where is it headed? Todd Crosland, founder and CEO of CoinZoom, says this is because “we are looking to have the Black level VIP card level at $10k USD equivalent, and will adjust quarterly.”
$Zoom token has hovered around 5 cents for a while so getting 5% card required around $5k. In the recent time $Zoom started to hover around at 4 cents price which likely lead to some people getting 5% card for $4k. Now, 5% card will require $10k. Historically buying Zoom token at 5 cents was the sweet spot. Sure the price went up and down at times, but it often would find its way to 5 cents again.
But recently $Zoom price plummeted to 4 cents and an attempt to go back to 5 cents was very short lived.
Since CoinGecko hasn’t tracked CoinZoom price since late March 2022, I am kinda forced to use CoinZoom’s dated platform to show the price action. I have no idea why their graph thinks today is 4/10 (when the screenshot was taken on 4/23).
Is the 5% Card still Worth It?
You would need to spend $200k just to earn $10k cashback with a 5% card. Actually, the spend requirement will be slightly higher when you account for selling fee and spread. This is an important piece of information to keep in mind because low-cap crypto can easily go to zero overnight. The likelihood of this happening with CoinZoom is low but nevertheless it is worth pointing it out. Obviously you can sell your initial stake at any time but your initial $10k commitment could be worth less or more. Also, this initial commitment does not earn interest.
Now, I assume that many of CoinZoom’s loyal crypto fans were off put by this chance and have dumped $Zoom token. It may mean less liquidity and demand which in turn may mean that $Zoom may easily slip down in price. However, I also assume that heavy card users (eg readers of this blog) have dumped the token so we may not see as high of a sell pressure from the cashback they continuously used to dump.
The card may still be worth especially considering the fact that they seemingly don’t shutdown card users, however this could chance at any moment. This is partially why I called it the greatest card ever but the boat may have possibly sailed.
Lastly, it is worth mentioning that 300k tokens being valued at $10k means that each token is worth 3.3 cents. It is possible that $Zoom token may now hover around at 3.3 cents (like it used to at 5 cents) through natural, artificial, or other means…..well, until it doesn’t. Maybe next quarter the staking requirement will be 500k $Zoom tokens for 5% card….