A service called BitGreet is letting users spread more than just seasonal cheer – it lets senders attach bitcoin to its Christmas e-cards.
The commission-free service was launched last Christmas and it has already seen some 1,000 cards delivered, according to its co-founder.
BitGreet is a service from CoinCorner, a bitcoin exchange in the Isle of Man. Co-founder Daniel Scott said:
“We were thinking of a fun way to try and increase bitcoin adoption in the office one afternoon. It was nearly Christmas at the time and we were in the festive spirit so we came up with the idea of a digital bitcoin Christmas card.”
How it works
To send some Christmas cryptocurrency, users first select a card design from the BitGreet website. They then enter the receiver’s email address and the amount of bitcoin they wish to send.
Senders then see a checkout page, similar to merchant checkout pages from BitPay or Coinbase, telling them the amount of bitcoin they have to deposit to a CoinCorner address.
You don’t have to be CoinCorner customer to send a card with some bitcoin slipped in. Neither do you have to upload any data to satisfy Know-Your-Customer rules.
After four confirmations on the blockchain, the recipient gets an email containing a link to a page that enables them to send the coins to the digital wallet of their choice.
Beginners’ protection
BitGreet has also built a ‘clawback’ mechanism in case a sender made a mistake and wants to claim their coins back.
Every card sent contains a link to a page that lets the sender retrieve the coins. This only works, of course, if the coins haven’t already been claimed by the receiver.
There is an additional caveat to using BitGreet: senders have to trust CoinCorner, at least temporarily, with the funds they’re attaching to greeting cards. That’s because the funds sit at a CoinCorner-controlled address while they wait to be claimed by the receiver.
Scott addressed the issue:
“Yes, we hold them in escrow, so to speak. This is because the end recipient may not have a wallet already. Also, if your recipient doesn’t claim them, then you can get them back easily. Obviously you need to trust CoinCorner but we don’t see that as being an issue – we’ve been around for over two years now and have over 25,000 registered users. We are nice guys.”
Christmas coins image via Shutterstock