Bitcoin Forum

Monday afternoon I needed a service where I easily can turn a Bitcoin-Address into a short, shareable URL providing the appropriate QR code for my address.  I did not find it.  Sure I can take Blockchain.info … But, now compare this URL:


to that URL:


:-)  I proudly present my quick hack: 1bit.co -- a bit.ly like service -- where you can turn a BTC-address into a short URL.  On the front page, just enter the Bitcoin address you want to shorten:


and you'll receive the appropriate page to your address:


where on the left you have the QR code for your BTC-address and on the right you'll find the QR code with URL to your short URL page.  These are images and can easily be saved and shared, e.g. per mail.  If you don't like to use the web-form for generating a short-URL for your address, just open your browser and append your address to the URL like:


The service is fully responsive and displays also on your mobile.  Also 1bit.co provides the right code for Twitter- and OpenGraph embedding, like if you share on Twitter:


Facebook:


or as Pinterest rich pin.

The service is currently ad-free but I will ad one banner in future to cover at least a part of my costs.  Also donations are welcome: https://1bit.co/eoI5OFX

Questions, applause, (positive) criticism, help or remarks are highly appreciated.

Update:

Ideas and future improvements:

• Put the code to GitHub.  Without HTML as I have used a payed premium HTML theme. (GitHub repository will be located here: https://github.com/johndoe75/1bitco)  Will not yet release the code.  Maybe at a later stage.
• Share short URL per Mail/SMS/Twitter/Facebook/…  Facebook, Twitter, Mail, WhatsApp added, SMS pending due to a lack of free services.
• Let people enter a requested amount of Bitcoins to be sent to that address and create appropriate QR codes.  Yet only possible per URL parameter like: https://1bit.co/{shortURL}/{amount}{ISO currency code}, e. g. https://1bit.co/qZvz/101EUR
• Add shortener for tx (blockchain/blocktrail).
• Support LTC, DOGE, etc..

Update 2016-12-28: New version released.  See more details here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1724968.msg17325256#msg17325256

// alex

It's definitely a good idea , It's the first service that I've seen doing this. I have a few suggestions as well , I hope you take them in consideration.
Domain name for example , It's not really recommended to use numbers in it so If you could find something short without the need of using a number that would be great. I also think that adding a couple of buttons under the QR code to Send SMS or Send email could be a great add , and why not... social media sharing buttons too.
Finally , If you could share the source code as well so more developers works on it or If you decide to shut it down for some reason, someone else could setup the code again.

Thanks for your input and ideas.

GitHub project is on my list.  For domain name -- not sure, now that I have this one already. :)  But I will think about it.  SMS/Email/Social-Share-buttons: good catch.  Will add them.  :-)

// alex

Ahhh very nicely done. I never thought of this being a need but if you're trying to share this over twitter you'll obviously need to shorten that blockchain.info url! That's a beast! Does your service also also you to automatically send people transaction amounts? What I mean is you send a link and it opens their wallet with a transaction of whatever you set up. That could be a good idea too.

Thanks for your input!  That's something I have on the list for the improvement.  But this is somehow tricky as the short UIDs are permanent so the request for a dedicated amount must expire after some time.  Also you maybe want to change that/put in a new amount in future.  Still needs more thinking but is a good idea.

// alex

I have a question, how do people profit from making things like this? This is probably a project for the good of the people,
but if people used it, and eventually it became mainstream, how would you sustain it? How would you monetize it?

Actually I'm not interested in monetizing this … I will add some ad-banner in near future and hope to get some of my costs back, and also I still have faith in the donation habit of people … But this project is more for me and so I did dedicate it to the community.

As written, beginning this weeks I needed and missed such a service.  It's not rocket science to code it so I decided to just do it (some hours effort).  For this I'm happy, if people like and use it.

// alex

This is the answer to your question. Just look at these forums or anywhere else really.

Really nice idea :)

okay it looks interesting enough to get the address wallet shorter, but I think it would be better to make something that is also beneficial to you as well, I think your idea is good enough, may be useful for all the people here, cheers

Really good work and sometimes that's really need, for QR code I think original adress is already satisfying and new short's adress qr code is waste. I haven't seen but if you can, add transactions shortener, both blockchain and blocktrail, also do this kind staff on famouse altcoins. Test your code on bugs and work on fixing, it's new and there will be some very small problems.

Good idea with a adding blockchain/blockrail shortener.  Support for "famous" altcoins like LTC, DOGE, etc. are on the list ☺

// alex

I like this idea but I think it's too soon for something like this. Bitcoin is still not mainstream.

If I would put thousands of US$ into this project and run for venture capital – then you are right.  But for a free service which did cost me 0,013 BTC for the domain and some hours of coding (which was not a "waste" of free time as I've learned a lot again) and which was just fun for me … I don't think that it's important if BTC is mainstream or not, do you?  :)

// alex

Does anybody know this asshole?  No, it's not his project and I'm not @TheBusyBrain …

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16981472/1bitco-tweet.png

No, it's not a short link creator … :(

//alex

I've been looking for something like this for a while. It will definitely make sending BTC addys easier without the need to read through all the characters to make sure they match up.
Would love to see this for LTC too.
Thanks for the great work and for sharing! :)

Now that I have some free days after Christmas, I'll implement ways to easily send your short URL per Mail, Twitter, Facebook.  For WhatsApp I need to check the share capabilities and for SMS need to check for a free/cheap gateway as the most SMS gateways are not for free and ads will not yet give enough return to cover these costs.  Other altcoins coming soon.

Thanks
// alex

Sometime, it is better to ignore big mouths like that dude, waste of time.

Good effort. Optional shorten link. Thumb up!.

Great and good idea.I always don't have my addy on all devices. This is a good service to keep your bitcoin address with you . Just want to add up my suggestion that you should bring up something like  bitcoin address drawer in which users can place any no. of bitcoin address they want + you should also add something like custom link like: http://1bit.CO/Avirunes links to all of my bitcoin addresses. What do you think?

Interesting, neat and ... don't know how to describe idea. I've seen some people with this sort of idea before though. Anyway, I like that it is advertisement-free and have a clean, sleek and modern looking user interface.

I also like that the URL is short and memorable. I'd bet you spent a lot of time deciding this domain.

It will be great if we can have a custom short URL. I actually want to have a https://1bit.co/1JTKing address instead of https://1bit.co/1JTKingdNGmCfbP8HCbhenoxRQuy8tqZvs (https://1bit.co/1JTKingdNGmCfbP8HCbhenoxRQuy8tqZvs). Maybe for people who sponsor some Bitcoin (don't charge too much though) for the service? Do tell me if the option is available and I may consider. :).

Generated my 1Bit.co address , https://1bit.co/PAq4 (https://1bit.co/PAq4). :).

I will keep eye on this since I have the same question too but I think it would really takes time to implement this feature and as OP said it would really require some thinking and time. Hopefully this thing would developed even more on the future and I would really be appreciate. Tips is not problem regarding on this kind of work :)

Glad you both like the service and find it useful.  I will consider the custom short link where you attach more than one address to.  Sounds for a great idea.  But as this requires some sort of user-login backend, it'll take some more time to implement this.  Thanks for your great input.

//alex

And be sure to not create any shortlink that start with 1 for now so that when you implant the custom shortlink later on, there will not be any clashes. Do remember to tell me once it is done. As for budget, I really don't mind paying one to two USD worth of Bitcoin for the custom URL but not more than that unless your website is popular - which need time.

Alright.  I've updated the service.  I've removed the QR code for the short URL as I don't think it's necessary and enlarged the QR code for the wallet address.  This also cleaned up the page a little bit.

https://i.imgur.com/jOMIZ1q.png

Now I've added social share buttons for sharing your wallet short URL on Twitter, Facebook and (does only work on mobiles) What's App.  Also you can send your wallet short URL page per mail to your friends.

https://i.imgur.com/yuNlAsC.png

Last but not least, you can add an amount of money/BTC to request and code into the QR code.  It's still missing an input field for this for more convenience/user friendliness but it's already available per URL api.  Just append the request amount to your short URL like:

https://1bit.co/O74a/49.95USD  or https://1bit.co/O74a/99.95EUR

For currency any ISO currency name supported by Bitpay.com is possible.  E. g.

https://1bit.co/O74a/99.95DKK
https://1bit.co/O74a/99.95JPY
https://1bit.co/O74a/99.95CNY
https://1bit.co/O74a/99.95INR

The request amount is live converted with latest Bitpay.com exchange rate.  When you send a request amount page per mail, the recipient receives the appropriate QR code with the amount coded in, the request amount and exchange rate in the email.

https://i.imgur.com/UXD2co7.png

Please consider this release as still beta.

Next to come: personal/custom short URLs where you can collect more than one personal wallet address/short link.

Please let me know if you have any questions or face any issue!

//alex

@trigger1975 : I've sent you a PM about an advertising proposal on your website, get back to me via PM.

Awesome service offerings for short address for own bitcoin wallet address to receive payments. Really appreciate for amazing concept with exact amount according to bitpay exchange rate for fiat currencies.

I'm really glad you like the idea and service :)

//alex

You should edit the original post as there are some things that you have done already but still listed in the Ideas and future improvements . I've seen that for phone , you are using WhatsApp however It's not working and I get this once I click :


I want to know when we should expect seeing the project in Github as I really want to start playing with it , I also want to know the name of the theme you used even though It's premium.

Great! I'd say this is by far the most user-friendly Bitcoin address showcase site I've ever seen. I really like how simple the site is with little to no advertising. Anyway, will the custom short URLs feature be free or will it cost money? To be honest, (again) I don't really mind paying a few dollars for a custom short link.

Good idea and very good job, trigger1975! My favorite part is how it warns me if I write an incorrect address, let us say a typo, into the textbox. Would it be possible to add an option where the User could generate custom URLs as https://1bit.co/codex for my address? ;)

Thanks for your feedback.  Are you seeing this What's App issue on Android, iPhone or Windows Phone?  I assume, What's App is installed, right?  As of now, I'm not going to release the code.  Maybe at a later stage.  The theme I'm using is Foundry: https://themeforest.net/item/foundry-multipurpose-html-variant-page-builder/11562108.

//alex

I've ever seen something similar like this service before, actually offering by our local exchanger here and i am currently using it however it's kinda different as yours there are no numbers out there just my name after domain, like people said above that's gonna be awesome if we could put our name after the domain so it's gonna be like 1bit.co/MyName for example, Just a friendly advise. This service is pretty cool to make our transaction is safer all we know if one of the caracter of our address is wrong then our bitcoin will be lost.
Well good luck for you.

Well, after I've sold the service in 2016 and the buyer did never merge it to his own server, I'm thinking about rebuilding it from scratch. What do you guys think, is there still a need? What would be your feature wishes, if any?