App creator urges Hong Kong's coffee lovers to wake up to bitcoin

The value of bitcoin may have slumped, but one US start-up is betting on the digital currency after developing an app for Hong Kong's coffee drinkers that will allow them to pay at Starbucks with it.

The app, called Fold, is offering a 20 per cent discount to customers paying in bitcoin at the coffee chain. Starbucks is the first major global retailer where bitcoin can be used in-store.

The app works through stored-value payment cards such as Octopus, which can be synced with the user's account on the app.

Matt Luongo, founder and chief executive of the firm that built the app, said he hoped it would provide a turning point after bitcoin's troubled past.

"I hope [working with Starbucks] helps raise awareness. Bitcoin needs to erase its past," Luongo said. "People see it as a scam and speculation, but I'm looking forward to showing them how to get cheaper groceries."

Luongo said the Starbucks discount was a bid to "drive more usage" because "bitcoin is difficult to use" without an incentive.

Michael Chau Chiu-lung, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong's faculty of business and economics, said any move to allow bitcoin to be spent was "helpful".

"This app is more of a help for the merchants in my view, but giving a discount is certainly a good way to attract more people to use bitcoin," he said. "Such incentives may encourage customers to overcome the hurdle of using bitcoin."

He said the jury was out on "whether consumers are willing to adopt it".

Hundreds of delegates are expected to attend Hong Kong's second bitcoin conference today and tomorrow in Wan Chai, despite the value of the currency slumping to US$242 a piece, down from US$1,242 at its height.

Since bitcoin emerged, it has allegedly been used for illegal drug purchases and money laundering.

In Hong Kong, some 150 people reported they had been defrauded by local trading platform MyCoin, saying they had lost of total of HK$100 million.

Fold is able to offer the Starbucks discount by buying US dollars from unwanted Starbuck Cards - the coffee chain's own stored-value payment card - at a low price and passing on the savings to bitcoin users.

Leonhard Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association Hong Kong, said: "The Fold app is a great demonstration of how smooth it is to pay with bitcoin. I'm sure other retailers are watching closely, and we will see more of this soon."

---

Source: http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/1796021/app-creator-urges-hong-kongs-coffee-lovers-wake-bitcoin

Do you just buy some new accounts every other week to increase it?

I'm not getting paid enough for the time I'm wasting here.

Yep, at 0.01-0.04% per day it's definitely not worth it.

There are already several websites mirroring bitcointalk and calling it bitcointalk.xyz should make it quite easy to detect for those who are monitoring the traffic. I think I would use a foreign (non-chinese) company if I tried to bypass the "Great Firewall of China" to avoid getting arrested for doing that.

Flight booking:

expedia.com (only works for Expedia U.S.) and cheapair.com (worldwide)

Registering TLDs:

Namecheap.com


Namecheap is widely known. No idea about domains4bitcoins.

That's good to know. I actually don't know too much about Sudan, but it seems your legal system is based on Sharia law. Did you learn English in Sudan?


It's not really a 'trick', it's just how international business works. There are agreements to avoid double taxation between many countries and as a company you normally have a VAT ID.

Maybe you should start a Bitcoin business then. You already know about Bitcoin and you have no competitors in your area so far.

The trust system should be disabled completely, since it's a terrible indicator of reliability and if you're new here you might think it actually means something and get tricked.

What does this trust mean when people are selling accounts "with Green Trust" on here? It's not linked to anything like a PGP key.

I just reported it to Google and others for phishing.

What's the cost to get access to a stable broadband internet connection in Sudan?

If anyone gets electricity for less than 5 cents per kwh with internet access it could become a nice location for a bitcoin mining company.

I would personally rather invest in a mining operation in Canada, because it's politically stable.

Please send me 10 blockchain? Start your blockchain client? Nope, it's definitely bitcoin.

Threatening to kill many people and asking others to help... that's really terrible.

By the way: did anyone here watch the Mean Tweets videos on Jimmy Kimmel ? (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRBoPveyETc)

I just said this on twitter:


I think in every single instance it's going to be Bitcoin that is being utilized.

Thanks for sharing, especially with the debate in the comment section.

The Blog Admin later published this:

Are you sure you can get 0.04 Cent not 0.04 USD? OP is living in a paradise if 0.08 Cent per kWh is the actual price.

Verizon is offering 4.4 billion USD for AOL (5860 employees) while all bitcoins put together are worth 3.3 billion USD. I say we're more productive than AOL.

GBTC 49.00 USD / share

Bitfinex lending rates are getting lower (already at 0.01%): http://bfxdata.com/swaphistory/btc.php

OKCoin rates just dropped to 0.02% p. day .