Bitcoin Forum

I don't see any ads on their site, and all of the services they offer are free. How do they make the money to stay online?

I thought they charged like 1.5% to send Bitcoin anonymously?

Interesting question.  While we're at it, how do you suppose the other alternate wallets Electrum, MultiBit, and Armory make money as well?

They steal bitcoins for their users. Randomly.
And usually inactive wallets. Noone even knows it :)

And wallets where people have lost the key right?

https://blockchain.info/wallet/send-shared


They charge a 0.5% fee, it used to be 1-3%...

$4776872509.45 * 0.005 = $23884362.54725


I think piuk is a very, very rich man now.

If only. That figure includes none-shared transactions as well and the majority of blockchain's transactions are free.

Luckily the site has very low operating costs.

OK. Thanks for explaining that.
I'd like to thank you for operating the Blockchain site, and I especially appreciate the iOS app. It's the only Bitcoin wallet available, and it's pretty good.

That was a joke. No good clients steal Bitcoin.

That's a different question. There is no ongoing cost to program a wallet and put it onto GitHub. There is an ongoing cost to keep a website running, pay Amazon AWS fees, etc.

So, it is a valid question which is how I found this thread.

I don't see a link on blockchain.info about their fees. If there is one, please point me to it.

BlockChain.info wallet code is available on Github ? Can you please point to it ?

There is ongoing cost to keep the wallets up todate with the latest protocol changes, fix bugs, and continue to add new features that the users desire.  Furthermore, Electrum requires an Electrum server to connect to.


I didn't say it was an invalid question.  I was just pointing out that (back in mid-2013) there were several bitcoin services that were surprisingly cheap (or free), and that it wasn't clear what the business model was for any of them.


I think blockchain.info generates revenue from partnerships with several bitcoin service providers.

When you log into your wallet you'll see links to:

• ZipZap
• ANXPRO
• Beast Options
• ZeroBlock
• BitcoinShop
• Gyft

I think they are also backed by venture capital that is accepting short term losses (or small profits) in hopes of long term large profitability.

Sure.

Here:
https://github.com/blockchain/My-Wallet

That's probably a reasonable expectations. That's how Gmail, Facebook, Mint and other "free" services work.

Like that man said...

"If you aren't paying for the product, YOU are the product!"

Don't they also charge for a mixer service?

Outstanding question, and I commend you for asking it.  I'll hope and expect that ~piuk will as well.  That is one of the top three questions that should be asked of EVERY endeavor in Bitcoinland.

I have no answer, and some plausible ones have already been given anyway.  After dicking with BTC for some time now, they only two efforts I trust with any funds at all are blockchain.info, and Coinbase, and of course even then I only entrust to them what I can afford to lose.  I trust the latter because they have a fairly straightforward business model among other things.  I trust blockchain.info mostly because I appreciate the theoretical aspects of their service (UCE like mega.co.nz) and because they've been doing their thing for a while and their correspondence here on bitcointalk.org is open, timely, and believable.

Actually, I do of necessity, trust the core software with more than I wish to lose.  Even then, though, I trust older implementations of it to actually secure my stash, and most of my stash is protected also by physical means.

You mean the "shared send" feature? It has been removed for quite some time already.