First Data: Gyft Deal Will Help Us Evaluate Bitcoin
First Data: Gyft Deal Will Help Us Evaluate Bitcoin
Buy Gyft Card Gift Cards Gyft
Gyft Offers Bonus for Purchases Made with Bitcoins; ATM ...
An Open Letter to r/Bitcoin from Gyft : Bitcoin
Amazon is rejecting Gyft.com gift card codes : Bitcoin
Finding Equilibrium: Searching for the true value of a Bitcoin [Opinion piece by Vinny Lingham, CEO of gyft]
Vinny Lingham, CEO of gyft, has written an interesting piece discussing his ideas on why the price is currently where it is and where he thinks it is going from here. One of his insights is that he thinks the price has dropped because merchant adoption is outpacing consumer adoption and merchants are selling the vast majority of coins they receive on exchanges just at the point when many buyers have become spooked about buying on exchanges. Finding Equilibrium: Searching for the true value of a Bitcoin
You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments. It all started with the release of the release of Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper however that will probably go over the head of most readers so we recommend the following videos for a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:
Some other great resources include Lopp.net, the Princeton crypto series and James D'Angelo's Bitcoin 101 Blackboard series. Some excellent writing on Bitcoin's value proposition and future can be found at the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute. Some Bitcoin statistics can be found here and here. Developer resources can be found here. Peer-reviewed research papers can be found here. Potential upcoming protocol improvements and scaling resources here and here. The number of times Bitcoin was declared dead by the media can be found here (LOL!)
Key properties of Bitcoin
Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoins created and they are issued in a predictable fashion, you can view the inflation schedule here. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary. The halving countdown can be found here.
Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read the source code yourself here.
Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works. You can even run a node on a Raspberry Pi.
Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoins reside has the authority to move them.
Low fee scaling - On chain transaction fees depend on network demand and how much priority you wish to assign to the transaction. Most wallets calculate on chain fees automatically but you can view current fees here and mempool activity here. On chain fees may rise occasionally due to network demand, however instant micropayments that do not require confirmations are happening via the Lightning Network, a second layer scaling solution currently rolling out on the Bitcoin mainnet.
Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
Secure - Encrypted cryptographically and can’t be brute forced or confiscated with proper key management such as hardware wallets.
Programmable - Individual units of bitcoin can be programmed to transfer based on certain criteria being met
Nearly instant - From a few seconds to a few minutes depending on need for confirmations. Transactions are irreversible after one or more confirmations.
Portable - Bitcoins are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can even be transported by simply memorizing a string of words for wallet recovery (while cool this method is generally not recommended due to potential for insecure key generation by inexperienced users. Hardware wallets are the preferred method for new users due to ease of use and additional security).
Scalable - While the protocol is still being optimized for increased transaction capacity, blockchains do not scale very well, so most transaction volume is expected to occur on Layer 2 networks built on top of Bitcoin.
Divisible - Each bitcoin can be divided down to 8 decimals, which means you don't have to worry about buying an entire bitcoin.
Bitcoin.org and BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com are helpful sites for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin (even just a few dollars worth) and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also check out the bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.
Here is a listing of local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use Bitwage. Note: Bitcoins are valued at whatever market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Preev is a useful site that that shows how much various denominations of bitcoin are worth in different currencies. Alternatively you can just Google "1 bitcoin in (your local currency)".
Securing your bitcoins
With bitcoin you can "Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoins OR you can use third party companies aka "Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoins for you.
If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, then you will need to create your own wallet and keep it secure. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor, Ledger or ColdCard is recommended. Alternatively there are many software wallet options to choose from here depending on your use case.
If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Gemini but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk.
Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email! 2FA requires a second confirmation code to access your account making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes.
As mentioned above, Bitcoin is decentralized, which by definition means there is no official website or Twitter handle or spokesperson or CEO. However, all money attracts thieves. This combination unfortunately results in scammers running official sounding names or pretending to be an authority on YouTube or social media. Many scammers throughout the years have claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin. Websites like bitcoin(dot)com and the btc subreddit are active scams. Almost all altcoins (shitcoins) are marketed heavily with big promises but are really just designed to separate you from your bitcoin. So be careful: any resource, including all linked in this document, may in the future turn evil. Don't trust, verify. Also as they say in our community "Not your keys, not your coins".
Where can I spend bitcoins?
Check out spendabit or bitcoin directory for millions of merchant options. Also you can spend bitcoin anywhere visa is accepted with bitcoin debit cards such as the CashApp card. Some other useful site are listed below.
Gift cards for hundreds of retailers including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc.
There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;
1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
Accept business from a global customer base.
Increased privacy.
Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.
If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;
Mining bitcoins can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read more here. Still have mining questions? The crew at /BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out. If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can run a full node using this setup guide. If you would prefer to keep it simple there are several good options. You can view the global node distribution here.
Earning bitcoins
Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoins by being paid to do a job.
You can also earn bitcoins by participating as a market maker on JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoins for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoins.
Bitcoin-Related Projects
The following is a short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.
One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:
Unit
Symbol
Value
Info
bitcoin
BTC
1 bitcoin
one bitcoin is equal to 100 million satoshis
millibitcoin
mBTC
1,000 per bitcoin
used as default unit in recent Electrum wallet releases
bit
bit
1,000,000 per bitcoin
colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin (μBTC)
satoshi
sat
100,000,000 per bitcoin
smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor
For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $10000 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:
0.001 BTC
1 mBTC
1,000 bits
100k sats
For more information check out the Bitcoin units wiki. Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit. Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval. Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!
You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments. The following videos are a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:
Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoins created and they are issued in a predictable fashion, you can view the inflation schedule here. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary. The halving countdown can be found here.
Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read the source code yourself here.
Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works.
Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoins reside has the authority to move them.
Low fee - Transactions fees can vary between a few cents and a few dollars depending on network demand and how much priority you wish to assign to the transaction. Most wallets calculate the fee automatically but you can view current fees here.
Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
Portable - Bitcoins are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can even be transported by simply remembering a string of words for wallet recovery.
Scalable - Each bitcoin is divisible down to 8 decimals allowing it to grow in value while still accommodating micro-transactions.
Some excellent writing on Bitcoin's value proposition and future can be found here. Bitcoin statistics can be found here, here and here. Developer resources can be found here and here. Peer-reviewed research papers can be found here. The number of times Bitcoin was declared dead by the media can be found here. Scaling resources here, and of course the whitepaper that started it all.
Where can I buy bitcoins?
BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com and Howtobuybitcoin.io are helpful sites for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also, check out the bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.
Here is a listing of local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use Cashila or Bitwage. Note: Bitcoins are valued at whatever market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Preev is a useful site that that shows how much various denominations of bitcoin are worth in different currencies. Alternatively you can just Google "1 bitcoin in (your local currency)".
Securing your bitcoins
With bitcoin you can "Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoins OR you can use third party companies aka "Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoins for you.
If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, there are many software wallet options here. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor or Ledger is recommended. A more advanced option is to secure them yourself using paper wallets generated offline. Some popular mobile and desktop options are listed below and most are cross platform.
If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Coinbase or Xapo but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk.
Another interesting use case for physical storage/transfer is the Opendime. Opendime is a small USB stick that allows you to spend Bitcoin by physically passing it along so it's anonymous and tangible like cash. Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email! 2FA requires a second confirmation code to access your account, usually from a text message or app, making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes.
Gift cards for hundreds of retailers including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc.
There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;
1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
Accept business from a global customer base.
Increased privacy.
Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.
If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;
Mining bitcoins can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read more here. Still have mining questions? The crew at /BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out. If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can run a full node using this setup guide. Bitseed is an easy option for getting set up. You can view the global node distribution here.
Earning bitcoins
Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoins by being paid to do a job.
You can also earn bitcoins by participating as a market maker on JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoins for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoins)
Bitcoin Projects
The following is a short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.
One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:
Unit
Symbol
Value
Info
millibitcoin
mBTC
1,000 per bitcoin
SI unit for milli i.e. millilitre (mL) or millimetre (mm)
microbitcoin
μBTC
1,000,000 per bitcoin
SI unit for micro i.e microlitre (μL) or micrometre (μm)
bit
bit
1,000,000 per bitcoin
Colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin
satoshi
sat
100,000,000 per bitcoin
Smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor
For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $500 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:
0.02 BTC
20 mBTC
20,000 bits
For more information check out the Bitcoin units wiki. Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit. A complete list of bitcoin related subreddits can be found here Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval. Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!
You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments. Some great introductions for new users are My first bitcoin, Bitcoin explained and ELI5 Bitcoin. Also, the following videos are a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:
Also have to give mention to Lopp.net, the Princeton crypto series and James D'Angelo's Bitcoin 101 Blackboard series. Some excellent writing on Bitcoin's value proposition and future can be found at the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute. Bitcoin statistics can be found here, here and here. Developer resources can be found here, here and here. Peer-reviewed research papers can be found here. Potential upcoming protocol improvements here. Scaling resources here. The number of times Bitcoin was declared dead by the media can be found here (LOL!), and of course Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper that started it all! :) Key properties of bitcoin
Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoins created and they are issued in a predictable fashion, you can view the inflation schedule here. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary. The halving countdown can be found here.
Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read the source code yourself here.
Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works.
Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoins reside has the authority to move them.
Low fee scaling - On chain transaction fees depend on network demand and how much priority you wish to assign to the transaction. Most wallets calculate on chain fees automatically but you can view current fees here. On chain fees have risen recently due to network demand however instant micropayments are on the way via the Lightning Network, a second layer scaling solution currently rolling out on the Bitcoin mainnet. You can even run a node on a Raspberry Pi :)
Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
Portable - Bitcoins are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can even be transported by simply remembering a string of words for wallet recovery.
Scalable - Each bitcoin is divisible down to 8 decimals allowing it to grow in value while still accommodating micro-transactions.
Bitcoin.org, BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com and Howtobuybitcoin.io are helpful sites for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also, check out the bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.
Here is a listing of local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use Bitwage. Note: Bitcoins are valued at whatever market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Preev is a useful site that that shows how much various denominations of bitcoin are worth in different currencies. Alternatively you can just Google "1 bitcoin in (your local currency)".
Securing your bitcoins
With bitcoin you can "Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoins OR you can use third party companies aka "Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoins for you.
If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, there are many software wallet options here. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor or Ledger is recommended. A more advanced option is to secure them yourself using paper wallets generated offline. Some popular mobile and desktop wallet options are listed below and most are cross platform.
Another interesting use case for physical storage/transfer is the Opendime. Opendime is a small USB stick that allows you to spend Bitcoin by physically passing it along so it's anonymous and tangible like cash.
If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Gemini but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk.
Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email! 2FA requires a second confirmation code to access your account, usually from a text message or app, making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes.
Gift cards for hundreds of retailers including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc.
Coinmap and AirBitz are helpful to find local businesses accepting bitcoins. A good resource for UK residents is at wheretospendbitcoins.co.uk. There are also lots of charities which accept bitcoin donations, such as Wikipedia, United Way, ACLU and the EFF. You can find a longer list here.
Merchant Resources
There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;
1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
Accept business from a global customer base.
Increased privacy.
Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.
If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;
Mining bitcoins can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read more here. Still have mining questions? The crew at /BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out. If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can run a full node using this setup guide. Bitseed is an easy option for getting set up. You can view the global node distribution here.
Earning bitcoins
Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoins by being paid to do a job.
You can also earn bitcoins by participating as a market maker on JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoins for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoins)
Bitcoin Projects
The following is a short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.
One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:
Unit
Symbol
Value
Info
millibitcoin
mBTC
1,000 per bitcoin
SI unit for milli i.e. millilitre (mL) or millimetre (mm)
microbitcoin
μBTC
1,000,000 per bitcoin
SI unit for micro i.e microlitre (μL) or micrometre (μm)
bit
bit
1,000,000 per bitcoin
Colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin
satoshi
sat
100,000,000 per bitcoin
Smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor
For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $10000 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:
0.001 BTC
1 mBTC
1,000 bits
For more information check out the Bitcoin units wiki. Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit. A complete list of bitcoin related subreddits can be found here Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval. Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!
TL;DR at bottom I think we need to seriously examine our path forward to growing the community. I believe we should focus less on getting businesses to accept BCH and focus more on living on BCH, and getting other people to become full time users. I've been moving towards living on BCH for some time now. Let me go over the benefits to the community, the benefits to the user, and the methods for accomplishing this. Firstly, without a strong user-base, companies accepting BCH will do us no good. Sure, YOU can spend it more places, but that business will not get much more traffic because of accepting the coin. They are likely to drop the practice once they've lost interest. Imagine invading a country. Do you start by invading the capital? No. Do you start by invading the edges? Even still, no, you start by building an army. We need an army of users if we want to hold any ground we take. To be clear, what I am saying is that if we want businesses to continue accepting BCH, we need a strong, large userbase. Next I will go over the methods I use for living on BCH and their benefit. I primarily use 3rd party services such as gyft or even the Shift card (https://www.shiftpayments.com/card). Only a couple of the people I do business with accept it directly, but that's fine and it still does the BCH cause good. Get your coins: The way I get my coins is simple, and I imagine most people may do it this way in the USA. I have a recurring buy in my Coinbase account on the same day as I get paid my USD. This amount is the same amount as all bills and other expenses I pay in BCH, plus about $200 a month for recreational activities or purchases. This comes out to about $500 every two weeks.
I pay my electric/insurance/waterbills/gas/Groceries via the Shift card. See my reasons why this is beneficial below.
If a business is on Gyft, I use Gyft for purchases, or giftcards.bitcoin.com if I know at least half an hour ahead of time. Gyft is instant though.
I eat at menufy (https://www.menufy.com/), since you can buy food via BCH using menufy at most restaurants that have a menufy website.
I get my internet via Calyx. Calyx is actually a non-profit which offers a 4G wireless modem for members who donate enough ($500, good for 1 year) with a technically unlimited data plan. They accept donations via BitPay.
I also browse places like OpenBazaar or https://acceptbitcoin.com/ occasionally for new places or services.
Edit: I forgot purse.io! I frequent there Also I don't follow these rules strictly. Don't feel that you must.
I know some people think there's no point in using BCH if the receiver converts it straight to fiat or some other coin, but I think this is a wrong assumption. I've covered this a bit and I cover it more below. Why I use the Shift Card: There are advantages to the BCHer who uses the shift card. Firstly, using the shift card (which is a debit card that can link to any coinbase asset you have) allows you to segment your money. If you don't have a credit card, this protects the money in your bank account while only putting your coinbase funds at risk of fraud if someone steals your card information. I keep the funds in my coinbase account low in order to combat this threat. Next, holding value in crypto rather than dollars resists entities from stealing from you via inflation. Third, holding crypto in any way at any time increases demand ever so slightly. One convenient thing about the Shift card is you can just send money from your own wallet to coinbase whenever you know you are going to go make a purchase. Best to do this ahead of time. Why I use Gyft: There are advantages to the BCHer who uses Gyft. Gyft is a company (who has a convenient mobile app) that sells gift cards for various retailers. Check out their website to see where all you'll be able to spend BCH via Gyft. The advantages include directly holding your coins with your own keys and just completing a BitPay invoice when you want to buy something. This method has all the advantages of the shift card plus holding your own keys and subverting the VISA system, thus avoiding a degree of surveillance. I believe if enough people used BCH wherever they could, the demand for the coin would be higher, and TL;DR: I use the Shift card and the Gyft app, along with a couple other things, to try to live on BCH. PS: If you do this, be sure you have an emergency fund big enough to cover any market crashes so that you can still, you know, eat.
You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments. The following videos are a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:
For lots of additional video resources check out the videos wiki page or /BitcoinTV. Key properties of bitcoin
Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoins created and they are issued in a predictable fashion, you can view the inflation schedule here. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary.
Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read the source code yourself here.
Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works.
Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoins reside has the authority to move them.
Low fee - Transactions fees can vary between a few cents and a few dollars depending on network demand and how much priority you wish to assign to the transaction. Most wallets calculate the fee automatically but you can view current fees here.
Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
Portable - Bitcoins are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can even be transported by simply remembering a string of words for wallet recovery.
Scalable - Each bitcoin is divisible down to 8 decimals allowing it to grow in value while still accommodating micro-transactions.
Some excellent writing on Bitcoin's value proposition and future can be found here. Bitcoin statistics can be found here and here. Developer resources can be found here and here. Peer-reviewed research papers can be found here. The number of times Bitcoin was declared dead by the media can be found here. Scaling resources here, and of course the whitepaper that started it all.
Where can I buy bitcoins?
BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com is a very helpful site for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also, check out the bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.
Here is a listing of local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use Cashila or Bitwage. Note: Bitcoins are valued at whatever market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Preev is a useful site that that shows how much various denominations of bitcoin are worth in different currencies. Alternatively you can just Google "1 bitcoin in (your local currency)".
Securing your bitcoins
With bitcoin you can "Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoins OR you can use third party companies aka "Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoins for you.
If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, there are many software wallet options here. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor or Ledger is recommended. A more advanced option is to secure them yourself using paper wallets generated offline. Some popular mobile and desktop options are listed below and most are cross platform.
If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Coinbase or Xapo but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk.
Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email! 2FA requires a second confirmation code to access your account, usually from a text message or app, making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes.
Gift cards for hundreds of retailers including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc.
There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;
1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
Accept business from a global customer base.
Increased privacy.
Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.
If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;
Mining bitcoins can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read more here. Still have mining questions? The crew at /BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out. If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can run a full node using this setup guide. Bitseed is an easy option for getting set up. You can view the global node distribution here.
Earning bitcoins
Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoins by being paid to do a job.
You can also earn bitcoins by participating as a market maker on JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoins for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoins)
Bitcoin Projects
The following is a short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.
One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:
Unit
Symbol
Value
Info
millibitcoin
mBTC
1,000 per bitcoin
SI unit for milli i.e. millilitre (mL) or millimetre (mm)
microbitcoin
μBTC
1,000,000 per bitcoin
SI unit for micro i.e microlitre (μL) or micrometre (μm)
bit
bit
1,000,000 per bitcoin
Colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin
satoshi
sat
100,000,000 per bitcoin
Smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor
For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $500 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:
0.02 BTC
20 mBTC
20,000 bits
For more information check out the Bitcoin units wiki. Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit. A complete list of bitcoin related subreddits can be found here Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval. Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!
Over 1,500 Danish Restaurants Accept BTC For Online Orders
https://myeos.press/over-1500-danish-restaurants-accept-btc-for-online-orders/ Denmark, named one of the happiest places on earth and known for their award-winning cuisine, is also a Bitcoin-friendly nation when it comes to getting the munchies. Danish website Hungry.dk now accepts payment in Bitcoin for online food orders from over 1,500 restaurants in Denmark. While the restaurants don’t accept Bitcoin on location, hungry Danes can pay with BTC and fulfill their cravings by ordering online and having their food delivered. There are few places in the world that allow customers to buy food with Bitcoin as it’s not a desired payment method due to its volatile nature. In most cases, people would rather not spend their Bitcoin on food for the fear of missing out if the market goes up. Take, for instance, the famous Bitcoin pizza story, wherein 2010 a programmer bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins (worth $30 at the time). Today, even despite the drastic bear marketwe’re in, the value of those two pizzas is $38 million. But while it may not be desirable to spend your Bitcoin on food, it’s nice to know there are companies out there empowering users to spend their Bitcoin like cash, just as it’s intended for.
Paying With BTC
The idea and act of accepting Bitcoin payments aren’t new. Big name merchants such as Overstock, Microsoft, Gyft, Etsy, Expedia and many more currently accept Bitcoin. Even Hungry.dk’s acceptance of Bitcoin is not new. Hungry.dk has been accepting Bitcoin as payment since 2014, which is a long time in terms of the cryptocurrency revolution. However, last year during the parabolic price rise of the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin’s blocks became full and transactions were utterly slow and very expensive. Some BTC transactions took hours or even days to validate and cost around $30 per transaction. For this reason, Hungry.dk had suspended their acceptance of Bitcoin for payments… until now. As shared with Bitcoinist, a representative at Hungry.dk explained their reasons for suspending Bitcoin payments and why they are now accepting BTC again:
We have accepted Bitcoins as a payment method for quite some time. We decided to remove the feature temporarily last year though because the average transaction time took too long, and the experience wasn’t the best. The problems have since been solved, and we have added the option again… Hungry.dk handle the payment, so you will always be able to use Bitcoins with all the restaurants currently found on Hungry.dk.
The Future of Payments with Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s problems that led to Hungry.dk suspending its use have since subsided, but what if the cryptocurrency market goes parabolic again? Well, there has already been various improvements not in place during the height of Bitcoin in 2017. For one, SegWit vastly increases the speed and decreases fees of transactions. Another development showing substantial signs of growth and adoption is the Lightning Network. The Lightning Network has seen a surge in usage and capacity, and recently surpassed $2 million in capacity. The network is still in its very early stages but development is at an all-time high and continues to grow. If Bitcoin’s Lightning Network turns out to be a success, we might see BTC being adopted across many more merchants. We have yet to see the giant merchants of Apple and Amazon accept Bitcoin, but perhaps they will if Lightning Network proves capable.
It's Time to Let Everyone in on Litecoin's Biggest Secret
Fellow Consumers, It's possible that you might be getting a little upset at the current BTC fees. Please assist me in sending, or editing as you see fit, this drafted outline and email to whichever business you feel would benefit from using Litecoin instead. Or you can make a video, or tweet the link, or 100 other things. Just help in bringing attention to Litecoin in BTC's mempool time of need. It's time they learned Litecoin's biggest secret .... It’s THE BEST payment method out there. Also, please support businesses that currently accept Litecoin. I've put together a list below the draft. ........................................................................................................................................ BEGIN EMAIL DRAFT To whom it may concern, Has your company ever considered receiving the alternative payment currency Litecoin? To begin, you may already be accepting bitcoin and Litecoin is very similar to bitcoin. If you're unfamiliar with bitcoin as a currency then Litecoin is a great place to start. They are even built from the same Core coding. A benefit to Litecoin is that it has a 2.5 minute block time instead of bitcoin's 10 minutes. This makes Litecoin's transaction speed four times faster and much less expensive than bitcoin. In layman's terms, this just means payment is confirmed faster and less expensively with Litecoin. For reference - you can see the average fee of both bitcoin and Litecoin in US Dollars compared here: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactionfees-btc-ltc.html#1y This chart shows the average fee for Litecoin is staying around 10 to 20 cents, and bitcoin bouncing between a low of $1.50 and $8.00 recently. This means you would pay less in fees to convert the same total value into fiat or USD in this case. If you were to compare this to the average credit card transaction fees, of say 2.5%, any transaction over $5.00 would be more profitable through Litecoin. Reference of fees found here: https://www.cardfellow.com/average-fees-for-credit-card-processing/#Typical If you've heard of Litecoin, I'm sure you have heard the saying "Litecoin is the silver to bitcoin's gold." But really, Litecoin should really be considered Platinum instead of silver. Platinum is stronger, more durable, and much more ductile. Over 20% of all consumer goods either contain platinum or are produced using platinum. Platinum is truly an enduring metal just as Litecoin is truly an enduring cryptocurrency. It will be 6 years old this October, bitcoin is 8 years old. A few facts that demonstrate Litecoin's strength, durability, and ductility are listed below:
Litecoin has a large economy and your current bitcoin technology should work on Litecoin with very little changes. If you don't use bitcoin, it is still easy to implement.
Litecoin has the best combination of economic size and technical similarity to bitcoin than any other cryptocurrencies.
Litecoin is capable of eight times as many transactions as bitcoin in a ten minute period.
Litecoin has much faster confirmation times with blocks that are not full.
Litecoin has proven its longevity compared to many other cryptocurrencies that have come and gone.
Also, if changes ever need to be made to Litecoin, it doesn't take years to implement them. Litecoin implemented Segregated Witness before bitcoin, and will most likely run on the lightning network before bitcoin as well. If you don't deal with bitcoin, this all just means Litecoin is a front runner in implementing new technology and features.
Litecoin is a limited supply coin, launched fairly, with no coins premined (no developer is hiding a majority somewhere), nor has it ever hard forked for any special interest groups. It is decentralized and no one person or group controls what happens to it and no one person or group can manipulate the market.
Whole Litecoins are much more affordable than whole bitcoins. This helps eliminate some psychological barriers to entering the market.
In conclusion: If your company was to accept Litecoin, I would be happy to start conducting my business with you. If your company accepts bitcoin payments but not Litecoin, I hope I have helped shed some light on the benefits Litecoin could bring to your business. If your business does not accept bitcoin payments, I hope I have introduced you to an alternative payment option that a large number of people transact with everyday who would love to add you to their list of merchants accepting Litecoin. It really is the currency of the future. If you have any questions about Litecoin or need help in possibly implementing Litecoin into your business, please let us know. There are many of us here excited to help you transition into accepting Litecoin or to help you further and answer any questions you may have. We can be found here: [email protected] [email protected] https://www.reddit.com/Litecoin https://twitter.com/LitecoinCA http://litecoinalliance.org/ https://twitter.com/ltcfoundation https://twitter.com/litecoinsupport A few options of the easiest ways to implement Litecoin payments currently are:
https://shapeshift.io - currently used by Overstock.com - "The Safest, Fastest Asset Exchange on Earth"
You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments. The following videos are a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:
For lots of additional video resources check out the videos wiki page or /BitcoinTV. Key properties of bitcoin
Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoins created and they are issued in a predictable fashion, you can view the inflation schedule here. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary.
Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read the source code yourself here.
Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works.
Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoins reside has the authority to move them.
Low fee - Transactions cost a few cents, most wallets calculate this automatically but you can view current fees here.
Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
Pseudonymous - No need to expose personal information when purchasing with cash or transacting.
Secure - Encrypted cryptographically and can’t be confiscated with proper key management such as hardware wallets.
Nearly instant - From a few seconds to a few minutes depending on need for confirmations.
Peer-to-peer - No intermediaries with a cut, no need for trusted third parties.
Portable - Bitcoins are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can even be transported by simply remembering a string of words for wallet recovery.
Scalable - Each bitcoin is divisible down to 8 decimals allowing it to grow in value while still accommodating micro-transactions.
Some excellent writing on Bitcoin's value proposition and future can be found here. Bitcoin statistics can be found here and here. Developer resources can be found here and here. Peer-reviewed research papers can be found here. Scaling resources here, and of course the whitepaper that started it all.
Where can I buy bitcoins?
BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com is a very helpful site for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also, check out the bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.
Here is a listing of local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use Cashila or Bitwage. Note: Bitcoins are valued at whatever market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Preev is a useful site that that shows how much various denominations of bitcoin are worth in different currencies. Alternatively you can just Google "1 bitcoin in (your local currency)".
Securing your bitcoins
With bitcoin you can "Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoins OR you can use third party companies aka "Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoins for you.
If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, there are many software wallet options here. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor or Ledger is recommended. A more advanced option is to secure them yourself using paper wallets generated offline. Some popular mobile and desktop options are listed below and most are cross platform.
If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Coinbase or Xapo but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk.
Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email! 2FA requires a second confirmation code to access your account, usually from a text message or app, making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes.
Gift cards for hundreds of retailers including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc.
There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;
1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
Accept business from a global customer base.
Increased privacy.
Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.
If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;
Mining bitcoins can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read more here. Still have mining questions? The crew at /BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out. If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can run a full node using this setup guide. You can view the global node distribution here.
Earning bitcoins
Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoins by being paid to do a job.
You can also earn bitcoins by participating as a market maker on JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoins for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoins)
Bitcoin Projects
The following is a short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.
One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:
Unit
Symbol
Value
Info
millibitcoin
mBTC
1,000 per bitcoin
SI unit for milli i.e. millilitre (mL) or millimetre (mm)
microbitcoin
μBTC
1,000,000 per bitcoin
SI unit for micro i.e microlitre (μL) or micrometre (μm)
bit
bit
1,000,000 per bitcoin
Colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin
satoshi
sat
100,000,000 per bitcoin
Smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor
For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $500 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:
0.02 BTC
20 mBTC
20,000 bits
For more information check out the Bitcoin units wiki. Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit. A complete list of bitcoin related subreddits can be found here Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval. Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!
Bitcoin and gold are very different assets. The cryptocurrency can’t replace gold as a precious physical asset as it isn’t a tangible commodity, while its volatility means it is unlikely to replace gold as a safe haven. Two are very different markets to focus on; Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer decentralized digital currency first ‘mined’ in 2009, while the precious metal gold, very much a tangible asset, has been highly valued for millennia. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BITCOIN AND GOLD 1. Volatility One of the most important differences between Bitcoin and gold is the volatility of the two assets. A useful measure of volatility is the average true range (ATR), which describes how much a market moves, on average, over a specified time. Visit BtcNewz for the bitcoin price, prediction and mining. 2. Storage Procedure A second difference between Bitcoin and gold is the way they are stored. As a physical asset, gold is stored in vaults, safety deposit boxes in banks and personal safes for smaller amounts. Bitcoins, on the other hand, cannot be stored in the traditional sense. Instead, what is stored is a secret number called a ‘private key’, which facilitates the transfer of Bitcoin from one party to another. Buying Bitcoin can be extremely risky if you do not make use of a hardware or software wallet to secure your private key. 3. Sources of Demand Gold, as an asset, has a 7,000-year history and its drivers of demand are easily identifiable, as can be seen in the chart below. The demand for Bitcoin on the other hand, is less clear and tends to centre around price speculation, buy-to-hold strategies and the underlying blockchain technology itself. 4. Bitcoin and Gold’s Utility as Currency Bitcoin and gold’s utility as currency is the subject of some dispute. Economists often describe money as having three crucial functions that must all be satisfied: medium of exchange, unit of account and store of value. Medium of Exchange Medium of exchange is the ability for something to be used as a currency to exchange for goods and services. While not widely accepted, this description fits Bitcoin; as of November 2018 organisations that accept the cryptocurrency include travel company CheapAir, gift card company Gyft, and US-based REEDS Jewelers, with many more showing interest. However, gold is not often used as a medium of exchange in modern economies and it is not generally considered legal tender. Unit of Account To satisfy the unit of account function, a potential currency must be ‘countable’ so that there is something to compare the cost of goods and services against. Unit of account is satisfied by Bitcoin due to the fact that the cryptocurrency is divisible. Most transactions will be fractions of a Bitcoin and these can go as far as eight decimal places. Gold can also be used as a unit of account as it is also divisible (although less easily). Its value can be related to other goods through its value per ounce in a given currency. Store of Value Store of value refers to an asset that can be set aside for future use. As it can be used in the future, it is believed to hold value overtime, as opposed to perishable goods such as milk, which is a poor store of value due to its propensity to spoil. Sceptics of Bitcoin argue that the cryptocurrency has no value and is merely worth what the next person is prepared to pay for it. Some also believe that the fact that you cannot physically touch it is consequential when ascertaining its store of value. In conclusion, it can be argued that while Bitcoin has been used as a medium of exchange, neither Bitcoin nor gold meet all three functions necessary to be considered ‘money’ and therefore neither fully satisfies a utility as currency. Bitcoin and gold share few similarities, so their differences are not to be overlooked, particularly from a trading point of view. Gold is still regarded as a safe haven, while Bitcoin is renowned for being a particularly volatile asset. Greater volatility brings with it a need for greater risk management in the form of position sizing and well-defined stop and take-profit levels.
I'm one of the developers of Honey, a browser extension with 700K users. We have an idea for a feature that lets people spend bitcoins seamlessly on Amazon. If you guys like it, we'll build it.
I am one of the cofounders of Honey, a browser extension that automatically searches and applies coupon codes for online shoppers at checkout. I'm also a fan of bitcoins and its disruptive potential. One of the biggest weakness of bitcoins at the moment is the lack of merchant support - especially large online retailers like Amazon. Unfortunately, it's a hard sale to get merchants to introduce a new payment concept to people who are about to checkout -- this could cause people to abandon the cart to go off to read about what this "bitcoin" thing is. Unless there's compelling evidence that the reward is greater than the risk, merchants like Amazon will not take that chance. We have an idea for adding a feature in Honey that can help prove the value of bitcoin as a payment method to giants like Amazon. The user experience goes like this:
You are checking out on Amazon
If you have Honey installed, you will see a "pay with bitcoins" button on the page
Hit the button and you will be asked to pay the total in bitcoins. The payment is sent to Honey
When the bitcoin payment is confirmed, Honey applies an Amazon gift card in the exact amount to your shopping cart
Your balance is now $0 and you complete the purchase
See the step by step mock-up Honey is simply selling you an Amazon gift card for bitcoins, like Gyft. The difference is in the user experience. The same technology we're using to automatically apply coupon codes can be used to apply gift cards, and it makes the experience frictionless. It should feel exactly the same as paying for something with your CC. Some additional benefits:
We will be introducing the concept of bitcoins to our 700K users, potentially bringing many of them into the ecosystem
We will collect and publish data about volume and checkout completion rates as reference for large retailers
We are a tiny team of developers so we don't want to commit the time to building something like this unless we know people want it. We would love to hear your feedback and if there's enough demand for it, we will build it. EDIT: formatting EDIT2: Wow, we are floored by the feedback and the support. It looks like we're going to have to build it or we might risk losing our kneecap. We'll be putting the development plans in motion first thing tomorrow. We'll be posting updates on Twitter @savehoney periodically. If you are a developer and you want to get invovled, please contact me at george [at] our url.
You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments. The following videos are a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:
For lots of additional video resources check out the videos wiki page or /BitcoinTV. Key properties of bitcoin
Limited Supply (there will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoins created and they are issued in a predictable fashion, you can view the inflation schedule here)
Open source (You can read the source code yourself here)
Decentralized (Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works)
Permissionless (No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network of your own free will, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking. This makes it a truly global payment platform)
Censorship resistant (No one can censor or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint)
Push system (there are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoins reside has the authority to move them)
Additional Bitcoin statistics can be found here. Developer resources can be found here and here. Peer-reviewed research papers can be found here and here. And of course, the whitepaper that started it all :)
Where can I buy bitcoins?
You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, more can be found here.
Here is a listing of local ATMs. Also, Lawnmower is also a handy way to make small recurring purchases of bitcoin. If you would like your paycheck auotmatically converted to bitcoin use Cashila or Bitwage. Note: Bitcoins are valued at whatever market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Here are a couple useful sites (bitkoin.io, preev.com) that shows how much various denominations of bitcoin are worth in different currencies. Alternatively you can just Google "1 bitcoin in (your local currency)".
Securing your bitcoins
With bitcoin you can "be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoins OR you can use third party companies aka "bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoins for you.
If you prefer to "be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, there are many software wallet options here. If you prefer easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor, Ledger, Case Wallet, or KeepKey is recommended. A more advanced option is to secure them yourself using paper wallets generated offline.
If you prefer to let bitcoin banks manage your coins, try Coinbase or Circle but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk.
Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email! 2FA requires a second confirmation code to access your account, usually from a text message or app, making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes.
Gift cards for hundreds of retailers including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc.
There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;
1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
Accept business from a global customer base.
Increased privacy.
Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.
If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;
Mining bitcoins can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read more here. Still have mining questions? The crew at /BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out. If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can run a full node using this setup guide. You can view the global node distribution here.
Earning bitcoins
Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoins by being paid to do a job.
You can also earn bitcoins by participating as a market maker to allow users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoins for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoins)
The following is a short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.
Use ChangeTip.com (/changetip) for tipping people on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Google+, GitHub, Slack and more! (you can even use custom monikers to tailor your tip to the discussion or add a bit of humor). Read more about ChangeTip at their reddit wiki.
Bitcoin Units
One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:
Unit
Symbol
Value
Info
millibitcoin
mBTC
1,000 per bitcoin
SI unit for milli i.e. millilitre (mL) or millimetre (mm)
microbitcoin
μBTC
1,000,000 per bitcoin
SI unit for micro i.e microlitre (μL) or micrometre (μm)
bit
bit
1,000,000 per bitcoin
Colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin
satoshi
sat
100,000,000 per bitcoin
Smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor
For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $500 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:
0.02 BTC
20 mBTC
20,000 bits
For more information check out the Bitcoin units wiki. Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit. A complete list of bitcoin related subreddits can be found here Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval. Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!
Gyft is the best way to buy & send gift cards online for retailers like Amazon, Starbucks, and iTunes. Use the Gyft mobile app to balance check gift cards. Discover the easiest way to buy, send, upload, and redeem gift cards. Gyft happens to have the much-coveted distinction of being the platform with the widest variety of retailers available. Its unique brand of features makes it arguably the most popular option on this list to buy Bitcoin with gift card. And it is not just retailers that they have an abundance of, it’s also payment methods. Gyft lets you choose between over 200 retailers and pay for ... Now she calls herself a hodler and sees the cryptocurrency as a viable alternative store of value to the US dollar. Bitcoin Advocate Consumers who purchased gift cards from Gyft.com on Thanksgiving and Black Friday received a discount on future purchases if they paid with Bitcoin. Gyft Inc., a San Francisco-based mobile gift card company, last week announced that 4 percent of purchases made with Bitcoin would be converted to Gyft Points that customers could use toward gift […] Gyft is providing a very valuable service to the BTC community bridging the gap between the bitcoin network and the major retailer's current payment systems. I applaud your contribution and use your service regularly -- well, not as much as I should as I tend to horde my BTC :) ; but Gyft definitely makes it easier to spend them.
Tim Draper predicts the price of bitcoin after the halving! - Duration: 49:17. Crypto Finder 267,379 views. 49:17. RandomCoin Mining Show LIVE! ⛏ - MicroBitcoin (MBC) - DMD-GR - Duration: 30:51. At least for some, bitcoin is seen to have both scarcity and utility. That makes it valuable. ... Digital Currency Has Real Value — Here’s Why CNBC. Loading... Autoplay When autoplay is ... 1. Travala: Travala is a hotel and accommodation booking website with 500,000+ hotels. You can make a hotel booking using Bitcoin, XRP, BNB, TUSD and numerou... Squarespace link: Visit http://squarespace.com/techquickie and use offer code TECHQUICKIE to save 10% off your first order. Why did Bitcoin's value crash aft... What Value Do I Offer Anyone In TrafficWave Or Not In TrafficWave - Duration: 21:48. ... Gyft Tutorial - How to Use Gyft App with Bitcoin - Duration: 2:11. MCKingJames 5,010 views.
