Bitcoin Forum

jjjrmy and I are participating in Startup Weekend in Orlando, and we have created a physical bitcoin gift card.  These are available NOW for pre-orders at the websites:

http://lovebitcoins.org (http://lovebitcoins.org)

https://www.giftcoin.net/card (https://www.giftcoin.net/card)

We go on stage to present our startup idea sometime between 5:00 and 7:00 pm.  We would like to win this competition and show some orders for these products!

The actual cards will be available to ship in approximately 2 weeks.  After that, the turnaround time should be a few days.

http://lovebitcoins.org/img/cardstack.png

Price of each card is the face value plus 0.5 BTC, which includes manufacturing and shipping within the United States.

Well done! How do they work?

I'm guessing you can't swipe them or only use partial amounts. You either redeem the whole thing or none at all?

They look like they could be used as cash though, instead of paper, they are plastic cards.

I like!

Some more info would be nice, though.

Also, I fully agree that the cost per card should be the same for each denomination. I do think, however, that there should be bulk order pricing. Any plans for this?

nice product, but the fees are...wow.

50% on a 1 BTC card
10% on a 5 BTC card
5% on a 10 BTC card
2.5% on a 20 BTC card (reasonable)

Yes, how many do you want? And for 50+ cards we'll put your logo on it!
BUT YOU MUST BUY TODAY for the best rate!

Look at the markup on the 1 BTC Casascius coins.  You will find our product to be a better deal!

Are you affiliated with this project? What is the cost per card if I get 50 1BTC cards?

Is your product made out of brass and laser-etched or out of flimsy plastic?

Yes, check the OP.
50 = $1.75+BTC/each
100 = $1.50+BTC/each
You MUST order before 5PM EST to get this deal.


You can email me at bulk@giftcoin.net

It's a high quality credit card hard plastic.

You should plug the bulk pricing directly into the website for convenience.

We will, at this point its a hackathon and we are frantically finishing our presentation.

Our competition is a dollar-shave-club knockoff for mail order tampons.  Let's get Bitcoin to win this thing!  We need more orders than them!

Remember - FREE SHIPPING!!

So the fee about $2.50 including shipping. 

You think that is high?   I personally would avoid the 1 BTC one but the others are priced quite nicely.

yes, for what i imagine will be a regular white envelope and a normal stamp, i think its high.  your breakdown only works if your going to buy one card. the fee doesn't come down if i buy a handful. the "free" shipping would be $20 for 4 cards, and i imagine they'll still ship in that same white envelope with the same stamp.

I am going to be frank:

Your artwork and designs depress me. They make me feel like I am staring at old flyers advertising 50% off diapers at Walmart, in a waiting area behind the restrooms.

Suddenly, a large obese woman with a Walmart vest walks by, with toilet paper on her shoe and a sagging scowl on her face. You can see her old, worn-out panties rising up over her shirt from the back.

That's how your designs make me feel. I can only hope my honest perspective motivates you to create better work.

To be specific, it's very bland. Default gradients, stock photos and clip art are only going to take you so far.

All you really had to say was "I HATE PASTEL COLORS MAKE THEM VIVID" and they might have given your post some consideration. But the undue and insulting criticism was completely uncalled for and unnecessary.

It may of not been. I have a feeling that it makes others feel the same way. When people get the full feeling of what their design produces, they'll understand the reality of the situation.

Yes, I could say I hate pastels but what does that mean? Why do I hate pastels? What do I feel when I see a pastel color? Why is the artist incapable of what I feel?

Criticism requires specifics capable of stimulating understanding. That's why I decided to be rude and honest.

Your characterization of the design this way belies your lack of education of the art and science of industrial design. Oh, I am sure that you could teach a thing or two to Walmart with your business track record. OTOH, talking about obese women's panties is another conversation entirely and best left with your therapist.

Now, if only it was possible to turn these giftcards into debitcards I would actually accept them locally as currency.

They do look mighty pretty ;)

well we did not win the investor presentation, but we definitely got a good number of new bitcoiners from the effort!  I will link to the video once they post it.

Our business DID sell the most orders out of all the startup candidates, so thanks guys for your support!!

I expect to have the holograms in house by next weekend, so the first batch of cards should be able to ship around April 2.

Can i buy them with euros?

Any updates?

Why does the expiration mean on the front of the card? You don't take back the bitcoins if left unused for a certain period of time....right?

I am still waiting on the holograms to come in, but they have shipped so it should be any day now.

The expiration date will be used for future capabilities.  All cards purchased now do not expire.

The idea is that if you buy this for someone and give it as a gift, if they lose it or don't redeem the bitcoins by a certain date, you get the bitcoins back!  So it is a low-risk way to spread the word about bitcoins to your friends and family.

Has anyone gotten theirs yet?  First impressions? I can't wait to see how they stack up against my bitbill set.

We're about to ship them out. Just making sure everything is perfect.
Don't want to send something out we aren't proud of.

Have any of these shipped yet?  Hope you got lots of orders!

We're actually just about to ship them. I finally finished the program that lets us easily generate them.
So if you ordered expect them soon. :)

It's been two weeks since the last update. Still haven't received them.

I can already smell the drama!

dis gon b gud

How's it going?  This is why I didn't spend much...I'm starting to think that was wise :-/

Looks like it scans with a QR code. What if I don't have a reader?

You mean you don't have a camera, or phone? Well, you can redraw it in paint, and it'll probably still scan fine.

Oh. It was my (false) assumption that you needed a smartphone with an app. That seems to be the most widely used implementation.

So, I mentioned five days ago that it had been two weeks since the last update, and I still haven't gotten a response. I'm starting to think I got scammed. Bit-pay has a good reputation around here, so I'm not too worried. But the lack of any response is definitely disconcerting.  :(

I just found this and it seems exciting; however, I dont' see a response to how do they work?

Any details, or a link to a website where I have to go will suffice.

I would love to get some of these with expiration dates so that I could leave them in geocaches.

I've been leaving a flyer directing them to an instawallet website, but this could be another method (although it comes with a cost).  Meh, seems like it might be worth it as no one seems to be taking my fliers... haha  Peeps aren't interested in free bitcoins I guess...

My understanding is that this is a totally legit business plan but totally legit folks. But I'm sure that these are real people with real lives....jobs, kids, health, etc. I am hoping they can ship soon, but I more just want them to iron the business details out. This idea is too good and will benefit the community too much to fail.

Hey guys!

They're all printed out and I'm personally sending them out tomorrow.
You should get them in the mail within a week!

Sorry for the delay guys!

Yeah, we had a problem then.
But I just shipped them, just got back.
I hope you like the stamps I used :)

Rock on! I hope this works out well for you guys. It's a great idea.

I got my card today.

It's a nice looking card and if I could buy in bulk and reduced prices I may buy more in the future.

Complaints:

The glue you used to stick the card to the paper letter blows. They have good glue nowadays that the credit card companies use. The glue rolls right off in one lump and doesn't leave any sticky trace. This shit is a pain in the ass.

Visiting lovebitcoins.org I tried to click check the value of the card. It doesn't work. It also doesn't work on the giftcoin.net page either. Neither does the redeem coin button work.

Booger glue (http://www.gluefast.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=21_40) would do the trick.

I'm working on the check value thing. I've been at college orientation for the past few days with no internet.
I'll get it done tonight, promise!

We didn't use glue to stick the cards on. It's called like a glue dot or something. I hope you liked the stamp I used <3

https://www.giftcoin.net/card/check.php

It is ugly, but works.

I'll make sure to make it all pretty and stuff sometime soon.

Can somebody help me redeem my card? I peeled the hologram off and have both a QR code and binary code for manual importation.

I created a wallet at blockchain.info and tried manually importing it there, since I don't have a smart phone, and it failed. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong? Can I use the Satoshi client to receive my coins? Help!

The private key is printed in human readable form next to the QR code. You can redeem it at Mt. Gox (and via other web sites and by at least one unix-y method.

Was out of town for a week. Got very excited to see my new bitcoin card and copy of bitcoin magazine (which is also great) and forgot too look at the stamp :(

Anyhow, the card is great. Much more durable and stiff than the bitbills were. You guys did a great job (presuming my card is redeemable...I'm not trashing it to get my BTC back so soon!)

Any plans for a bank card?  Just put the public address in place of the verify code and the matching private key behind the hologram and stamp 0 on it (or bearer card, etc).

Can it not be done at blockchain.info wallet? I went to the import section and put it into the import private key section. I got an error saying it's not a valid format. I tried several times and always get the same error.

Then I went to my mt.gox account to see if I could do it there, but I have no idea where in mt. gox it allows me to import private keys. Help!

I don't think blockchain.info supports 30 char private keys.

Okay, then what about Mt. Gox? I couldn't find where I needed to go to import it.

So Giftcoin.net appears to be defunct but they were only a distributor, right?

Is this card still in the works?

Necro warning!

Any way to check the value on these cards anymore? The verify code wasn't the best idea...simply putting the address on the card would have made it simpler on you guys.

Necro warning!

FYI: I can confirm my card was redeemable at MtGox and _not_ via blockchain.info (they must not support the 22 char mini-private key, despite the UI elements stating all formats are supported).

[Massive necro warning]

I found 3 of these cards in my old mail. I had some trouble redeeming them. Here is some info for anyone stumbling across this post.

The mini private keys on these cards are not well formed. This means that most places can't import them as is.
Even though they are not well formed, you can still take the SHA256 of them, and they still make a valid private key.
On ubuntu, I did that via this command:
The result should be usable by any app. I used armory, but blockchain.info should work as well.

Funnily enough, only 2 of the 3 cards actually contained an untouched coin. The third had once had 4 satoshi on the address, which has since been removed. I have no flipping clue why, but I'll be making a Bitpay support request to get my last coin :D