Bitcoin Forum

This is made possible by Abra as they partnered with 7-11 stores in the Philippines this is according to the news posted by Cointelegraph however, as far as I remember, Coins.ph is the first one who partnered with 7-11 so people in the Philippines can buy Bitcoin in 7-11. I hope with this positive news, there will be more merchants in the Philippines who will start accepting Bitcoin. cointelegraph.com/news/all-7-eleven-stores-across-the-philippines-now-sell-bitcoin

https://i.imgur.com/hwFPlwM.jpg

Official statement of Abra:
https://www.abra.com/blog/big-gulps-and-bitcoin-abra-now-available-at-all-7-eleven-stores-in-the-philippines/

This is probably a good news for Abra users, more cash in options for them. However, it would be better if the users will receive their cash in instantly (just like how it is in coins.ph) and not after 1-2 business days.

Philippines is one of the smallest country that have been much used to cryptocurrency usage. Same time it is the country where more people are scammed in the name of bitcoin. Regularly there will be some news from Philippines related to cryptocurrency. Recently more universities and colleges started courses to educate blockchain to all grades.

As there is more support, it shows the growth in various forms. By this partnering there will be much easier access for common people to buy and sell bitcoin even if they weren't much into technology. Also stores, merchants and other businesses will start accepting bitcoin as they can change it to cash very easily.

bitcoin is a future economic revolution, I'm sure the Philippines will sooner or later accept bitcoin,
and if many who accept the sale or purchase of bitcoin will be very good, and ABRA has already done that, hopefully others can also follow like ABRA or coins.ph, because the more that supports buying or selling bitcoin, bitcoin will develop faster.

I'm from Philippines and once this partnership will work or much better than other cryptocurrency exchanges here in the Philippines, this ABRA with 7-11 will be much comfortable especially for buying Bitcoin.
Because my experience, if you want to buy Bitcoin, is, cashing in first your Philippines Peso(PHP) in some Money Remittance or Banks, so you will be a queue and wait for your turn since there's a lot of people here using money remittance.
I already tried to use 7-11 for cashing in some e-money like GCASH or Coins.ph here in the Philippines, you can do it with less than 3 minutes and receive the money instant.

And I am also a user of Abra and no problem at all especially for their KYC, I already have multiple transactions with Abra and until now they are still not asking some of my personal documents.

Seriously. Abra is honestly a very underrated exchange.Their prices are great(compared to the alternatives in the Philippines at least), and not to mention that their wallet is actually non-custodial, which is a big deal for an exchange. The only pitfall I currently see is that their mobile app sucks.

I'd kinda disagree with this. The biggest bitcoin wallet/exchange in the Philippines, Coins.ph, has very very high usage sure, but I really doubt majority of people use it to use their bitcoin. They can use Coins.ph's features without touching bitcoin, but use fiat instead.

Over more than 6,000 Outlets have active using bitcoin in Philippines is the best strategies how to make bitcoin become famous virtual transaction and could replace of bank and money transaction.

I also hear good reviews about their platform but that is also my issue about their app. I always use my phone for my crypto transactions so I still prefer coins.ph because it is alot more convenient. If they can make their app more mobile friendly then I think their number of users would greatly increase.

Transacting with cryptocurrencies through Abra's mobile app is also fine and easy enough though. I'd just give coins.ph a slight edge over crypto transacting(unless you're transacting coins.ph <-> coins.ph, whereas coins.ph definitely has an edge due to off-chain instant txs). The thing that separates Coins.ph and Abra is just a bit on the UI/UX side, and the potential things you can buy with Coins.ph in-app(e.g. mobile load, Steam points, giftcards, etc). Oh, and Abra definitely lacks marketing. A lot of marketing.

As I have said in our local boards, Abra entering the picture should be received with enthusiasm by crypto Filipinos because it will open doors for competition. And with competition each one of them will try to better to be on top and it's going to be a win-win situation for crypto enthusiast. However, coins.ph (top local exchanges) are miles ahead and Abra needs a lot of catching up to do specially turn around times, KYC procedures, specially support in our local board.

That is actually a good news. I've been using 7-11 to cash in money instead of cash because it is much easier than banks and only 2 companies I know today do that which is Abra and coins.ph. I don't really know much about Abra if it's international but coins.ph is local wallet that is like abra. This will spice up the cryptocurrency competition in the Philippines for sure.

In that case, I am sure many will agree that for now Coins.ph remains to be undisputed leader in the cryptocurrency scene in the Philippines. I also like Abra but they still have many things to catch and learn while doing business in the country. I am suggesting that Abra improves on its delivery time by linking with other financial service providers to enhance its current offerings.

Good news I had no idea you could do that but are people really paying in Bitcoin in these 7-11s? Or are they just buying? Because I cannot see why I would ever go into 7-11 and say hello, give me $10 in BTC. And then the counter says, sure,,, pay $12. Like Bitcoin ATMs, right;)

Another good step towards mainstreaming of Bitcoin in the Philippines. Getting into a 7-11 partnership is kind of a big deal because 7-11 stores are almost found in all the major islands of the country. Abra competing with coins.ph is a healthy sign. Competition will benefit the customers more than the competitors themselves. The good thing about Abra is that it is catering to a lot more altcoins than coins.ph. That is going to become an edge of the company especially to those people who are huge supporters of altcoins.

I clearly get your point, and I'll also love it if the OP or anyone with knowledge on it to answer it.

It would be great if they are actually allowing payments in the bitcoin, to me that would be the best move, as it'll be easier to get people willing to pay for items in the store with bitcoins than getting one to buy bitcoins with fiat in the store.
The more people pay for items with bitcoins, the more people who own the coins and they may not necessarily have to buy it from the store, as an exchange can serve that very purpose.

I am glad to see this Abra is a wallet & exchange partnership and not just another payment processor. We need more exchanges and wallet providers to team up to develop apps like this for direct Bitcoin payments.

Previously people just had to use Payment processors, because the merchants did not want to deal with Bitcoin, they were only interested in fiat currency... so these services converted all bitcoins into fiat for them. This is not real adoption and also not real Bitcoin payments.  ::)

Now I am wondering if Abra has a local office here in Philippines, unlike Coins.ph, whenever I am having trouble with their cash out, I will drop by their office.There's a lot of Facebook Online sellers in the Philippines and I hope they would consider accepting Bitcoins because of the ease of payment. I hope this development will open their mind in at least trying Bitcoins as a mode of payment for their online business.

I think now Coins.ph provides you with reference number instead of creating your own barcode. when I bought bitcoin back
in 2017 coins.ph provided me with referene number and paid it on 7-11 and the paid amount will be credited to your acount.
the transaction was easy. the only thing I hate about coins.ph is that they have withdrawal limit and the limit will depend on
what level of verification you have on their system.

You're right with what you said because the last time I checked Abra is more a global investment (crypto and stocks ) platform than been use as a payment system and I'm not surprised with the news of their partnership with the 7-11 because the project was actually officially launched in Phillinpine since 2016. But, this positive news of partnership will definitely boost more crypto user and investors in the Philippine and around the world.

In their about us page (https://www.abra.com/about-us/) it was mentiomed that they have an additional office in Manila. However, the exact office address wasn't disclosed, neither on their website nor fb page.

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The answer was only 2 post above yours. To make it clear, people are not paying bitcoin to 7-11, and the store isn't accepting cryptocurrencies either. The partnership only help people to be able to top up their Abra account with fiat and then convert it to any cryptocurrency supported in the App.

The competition between these companies are getting stronger as time goes by. This is a good thing for the Filipinos as we can expect that they'll offer a cheaper fees and better services, thanks to the competition between these two companies. As we have seen that Abra is trying to take over the coins.ph, being the first place in offering Bitcoin wallets for the Philippines; coins.ph need to make sure that it's not going to happen.

In the Philippines, the situation of citizens is too difficult. They need a way out of this situation and it is Bitcoin that can help. I also hope that everything will be okay

Country of the Philippines proves to us is one of the crypto friendly because because another wallet who can use to buy bitcoin easliy with their partners and for sure many merchant will follow that. I really love because Im here in the Philippines because I can buy and sell my bitcoin easily without any problem experienced and that good with that they have instant cashout and cash in option.

It is always encouraging to see the crypto influence grow anywhere, so good job, Philippines. There will come a day when the world will move to crypto, all it takes is a bit of time and patience.

I'm very glad to hear this news since this could be a great leap to the Philippine crypto-industry as  it could increase

cryptocurrency awareness and adoption among an ever increasing number of Filipino crypto enthusiasts especially on those

who are unbanked! I hope this kind of merchant adoption would be replicated not just in other Asian countries but to all

emerging economies in the world!

The Philippines is one of the few countries with a large blockchain community. However, this payment method also faces many difficulties when BTC prices may have strong fluctuations in a short time.

It's convenient. I hope we will have something similar soon

Now all Filipino's who are crypto and bitcoin enthusisast have many choices to encash their bitcoin profit.
This is a great news actually, also We are blessed because BSP approved several platforms like coinsph in the
Philippines now. Also it can boost our confident that Filipino crypto fanatic are proud to be a part of here either.

That 1-2 business day is a pain in the ass, especially when you really in need with your own money.
I'll stick to coins because I find it convenient to use their service so far their customer support is awesome
only a few minutes they will reply to your email with a satisfying answer. no sugar coating but this is true.

I'm not a citizen of the Philippines and I don't know the exact conditions there, but I really appreciate the crypto enthusiast there and fast steps from major merchants in adopting payments via cryptocurrencies, I hope Bitcoin can help as you say.

This is what I worry about, Bitcoin is not too convenient to be used as a means of payment, only stable coins that are good as a means of payment.

What a nice news that bitcoin will rise soon in the Philippines will be welknown in my country.So l believe bitcoin will grow up soon and meet the price we hope for. Bitcoin is the answer to the world's poverty. Because bitcoin really gives an earnings and profit to those who accepts bitcoin and search how to have an income or extra income.

In the Philippines, you can see ATMs - Bitcoin everywhere in cities in this country. Many stores accept Bitcoin and Altcoins as a form of payment. But using Bitcoin for payment in this country is still very difficult because very few people use it as a currency, so it is not really popular in the Philippines.

All information from the news report came from coin telegraph is true, cins ph is first parthner 7/11 but now t all branches of 7/11 is accepting bitcoin or sell bitcoin specially the purchanse, I experience on that because I'll try to deposit to 7/11 branch at manila to transfer fund to coin ph.
But is great sounds to hear this news meaning Philippines and the merchants are open their mind about the importance of bitcoin as new form of money for the abra congrats to the team.

It is a good thing that bitcoin has been recognize here in the Philippines. The only means g of this is that our country is open for any kind of changes just like bitcoin which we can be used to buy online. But I do hope that bitcoin awareness should spread out not just in the city but of course to all remote areas.

This is great news. I must say people in the Philippines are definitely embracing crypto and putting it to good use. I hear you can even pay bills on coin.ph that would be great if it happened everywhere.
If that happened here my family and I would have very little use for fiat besides food.

Update : I just found out that when you cashing in using 7-11, it's not instant, it takes 1-2 business days. How sad  :(

Update : I just found out that when you cashing in using 7-11, it's not instant, it takes 1-2 business days. How sad  :(
It turned out that it was still not effective enough, it took days for the process.
But at least the adoption of bitcoin in the real world is giving a good signal for the long term. I am sure if the upgrade is done by improving facilities and services so that it is more effective.

I've mentioned it in my post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5186098.msg52504587#msg52504587) (#2), most likely you two missed reading it. Anyway, if you're going to covert it to BTC only (or even XRP and BCH), you'd rather use coins.ph. They offer instant cash in from 7-11 and cliqq after payment.

The partnership of Abra with ECPay and 7-Eleven is still fresh/new, it's a good start and they can improve it later on. Hoping that they implement instant cash in too soon.

Well, atleast the Bitcoin adoption in the country is surely expanding. Yet, we dont see any competition yet as coins.ph clearly has an edge in terms service.
They will absolutely improve their service soon, just like what you said " instant cash/convertion from php to crypto and vice versa" as this feature alone makes a huge difference against other exchange like coins.ph.

Coins.ph is still the best because after your payment deposit at any 7eleven outlet your deposit received in your wallet after a few minutes unlike Abra that you need to wait 1-2 business days. But i believe Abra will continue to develop and upgrade their system as the time goes by. We just thankful that we have choices now and the adoption of cryptocurrency in our country keep on progressing. It was a good news for us.

I think it is quite difficult for ABRA to take over position of coins.ph, because coins.ph has had a very good reputation in recent years in Philippines. But good enough for ABRA in its development so far, maybe I will see some new features in future that are no less good than coins.ph. So I don't want to compare too far because ABRA is still relatively new to compare with coins.ph.

I'm just happy that more and more establishments are accepting Bitcoin in our countries. This is a proof that we are embracing the new currency that came to our country :D.

Even though the adoption of Bitcoin and crypto in our country is expanding, I know that there are many of our countrymen will be scammed with the use of Bitcoin because of lack of knowledge about it so aside from adoption, I think what we need is people who can spread information about Bitcoin even just the basics (how it works and how to transfer and how to store etc.)

Well congratulations to abra!! what i like in abra is, you don't have to do KYC in order sell your bitcoins and turn into cash unlike in coins.ph you have to do your KYC in order to cashout but the disadvantages of ABRA over coins is the availability of cash out options abra is available on tambunting pawnshop and also, you can cashout to bank but the problem is it may take 3-7 days to credit it on your account unlike in coins.ph there are a lot of cash out options for the users anyways, i hope abra team continues what they are doing maybe we knew abra is the next rival of coins.ph

Happy to read about it, , Bitcoin gives a lot of prosperity to many people like me who really support and a bitcoin users. Coins.ph cash out your money from bitcoin almost a great but about this bitcoin will now have a 6,000 an available outlets all over the philippines is so much thankful i am.

Right now we need more merchants accepting cryptocurrencies. I don't think it will be harder for the Philippine market compared to the US market. US customers are avid users of credit cards while in the Philippines, many don't have a credit card or banks at all.

Maybe this is the right time for a Trezor wallet that focuses on payments rather than cold wallet storage.

Interestingly, I'm in Vietnam and haven't seen any stores that accept Bitcoin, why ABRA didn't choose Vietnam ???

The road to global adoption is very certain I must say, seeing all this news about btc being accepted in one place or another is an indication of what will be happening in the nearest future, very positive news for the crypto community, btc gaining recognition slowly, the future is bright for crypto all we need is patience.

It is all good that many Asian countries are adopting the real use case for Bitcoin which is for merchants and for buying and selling and transacting in general. I do hope more countries take this as a good example as to how to bring mass adoption through shopping. Abra has done well to choose a country that has a lot to do with the remittance Industry and is big in this regard. Hopefully the Philippines can grow it's economy through the mass adoption of Bitcoin as more and more people turn online to find work also and earn an income in Bitcoin.

Philippines is very serious about cryptocurrencies. They are trying everything they can to not get behind the changing world and technology. By doing this, they are supporting Bitcoin usage and it is a nice thing even it doesn't directly affect Bitcoin price.

Remote areas in the Philippines may not have heard of BTC yet. I from the outskirts of national capital region, almost a city, we got big malls also but doesn't have one BTC ATM. But its good to see there are several in the Philippines, I've seen one in Makati but never really got a chance to buy.

There is so much news that encourages the use of BTC but the price isn't moving up. I think they should also be convincing businesses/merchants to accept BTC in the Phils.

I have been getting to know much about Philippines these days. They have been involving much in bitcoin.
It's good to know that it has been such a good supporter of bitcoin while many other countries are going against it.
Good to see Philippines is promoting bitcoin at such a huge level.

Woah. This one is a good news. Knowing that the Philippines are slowly adopting bitcoin and cryptocurrency. I know the Philippines is already positive towards cryptocurrency, but this kind of movement is a great way to introduce bitcoin and crypto to other Filipinos. Of course, it would be easier for crypto users to make transactions, the more the country would recognize crypto and develop such things. Although Philippines is a small country, I'm glad that they're one of the countries that's adopting crypto and bitcoin very fast.

No KYC?  Wow, you're lucky.  I just tried using a bitcoin ATM yesterday (which malfunctioned, of course) and it asked me for a scan of my ID and phone number for an SMS verification. 

And hey, go Philippines for the win.  Based on how large the community is on bitcointalk, I'm fairly sure bitcoin is very popular there and this is yet another step toward mass adoption.  We've got 7-11 stores in my country but they're not partnering with any bitcoin-related businesses (yet).  I'd love to see that sort of thing happen in the US, but I have a feeling it won't.

I wouldn't expect it to.  But with bitcoin under $9k right now, think of it as a buying opportunity that you might not see again.

This is actually a very good news for the people living in Philippines. If countries like this can easily adopt and spread the usage of crypto currencies, why can't our western countries do the same? Why are they so aggressive towards crypto currencies? Just look at Philippines, they are so crypto friendly. It won't be take long enough for them to become one the first countries to have real financial freedom. They should keep it up and expand the usage of crypto currencies even more!

For my almost 3 years now in crypto, I still didn't heard any KYC things about Abra here in the Philippines, it's maybe because they are only registered with SEC and maybe this will be the reason too:
(we have 1 popular exchange here which is Philippine based that is extremeley strict when it comes about KYC, but if you compare it with Abra, it is really opposite)

Aside from this Cliq machine where we can buy Bitcoins, we can also buy Bitcoins in Shell Select gas stations and Mini Stop where there's a kiosk that works just like Cliq where you can add funds to your Coins.ph account. Shell Select is a convenience store within the Shell Gas station, its open when the gas station is open and Mini Stop is also a convenience store that is open 24/7.

https://i.imgur.com/iQXuUpo.jpg

Yeah mate how can they compete against coin PH when the request will be received in another working days when in Coin.ph is instant that sometimes in just a second the request was already in place for withdrawals

But about the topic I think Abra is one of the most competent in the Philippines that may challenge Coins.ph foot favor the users of both

That's only one of the few negative things when cashing in from abra aside from the small delay there's more positives on their services like the wallet's private keys. Their KYC being less strict than other exchanges could be beneficial for some people who doesn't want to be bothered with their personal information.

Edit: Did anyone here tried cashing in from one of the outlets and how was the experience?

All I can say is that 7-11 and Abra are doing great work for contributing towards crypto massive adoption in the Philippines. However, I would really love to see those banners inside or outside of each 7-11 outlet that we can now buy or sell Bitcoin.

In that way, it would begin true awareness to those who regularly buy stuff in 7-11. This is really huge for the Philippines, which proves to those haters and doubters before that Bitcoin is not a scam. I have some contacts who have their minds fixed that Bitcoin is truly 100% scam. But in the end, they just misunderstood and lazy enough to “Google” or “Youtube” it, or even reading the Wikipedia.

Is good to know that Philippines are now opened into crypto currency or bitcoin. Does 6000 outlets
that you are talking about is the 7-11 convenience store? Because nationwide 7-11 are everywhere in the Philippines.
Because as far as I know the exchange you have if I am not mistaken was 48 correct me if I'm wrong.

The Philippines have been very amazing in the issue of bitcoin investment. I meant a large of them online during the 2017 great year growth of the bitcoin, I was amazed how a friend by name Jerry, went to military base close bye to make some presentation about the bitcoin. I am sure those soldiers will be happy about it today.