Paris-based Bitit launches to let you buy Bitcoins from 100,000 physical stores

[alyssa85]

http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/24/paris-based-bitit-launches-to-let-you-buy-bitcoins-from-100000-physical-stores-around-the-world/

Bitit now lets people walk into physical stores and buy the virtual currency with cash. The startup also lets people purchase Bitcoins online through the company’s website.

And soon, people will be able to buy plastic gift cards or electronic vouchers to give as presents. The company currently has the Bitcoin gift cards for sale as part of a trial at La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris, a meetup space for people working on projects related to the virtual currency.

The key to Bitit’s process is that it has arrangements with partners (it can’t reveal the names) to buy Bitcoins on a regular schedule. At the moment, many users have been reporting that it can take a week or more for the Blockchain to process a transaction. Bitit eliminates that delay for users by having the Bitcoins ready to deliver in as little as 10 minutes.

The trick, and what Bitit hopes will be its secret weapon, are algorithms it has written to help minimize its risk profile by carefully balancing the rate at which it buys Bitcoin and the rate at which customers are buying them.

Also, its system is designed to minimize the risk and chances of fraud. People can buy up to $25 worth of Bitcoin with no paperwork. They can buy up to $500 after that, but must submit a series of documents to confirm their identity in the system.

[Bit_Happy]

People can buy up to $25 worth of Bitcoin with no paperwork
They are making it really easy to buy online with a credit card, and controlling risk with limited amounts.
Let's hope they do not get bleed to death with "$25 worth of fraud" done thousands of times.

[calkob]

sounds like a great step forward,  i would love the ability to walk in to a store and buy some bitcoin.

[Kprawn]

The $25 limit is a joke, but I guess their main concern is to curb criminal activities with Bitcoin and you can go up to $500 when you identify yourself on their system... basically the same as the many

American companies, who has to adhere to the AML/KYC regulations. I was just wondering why people would want to buy Bitcoin vouchers, if they could just buy the Bitcoin directly? Is this a quick way to

introduce new people to Bitcoin, when you give them a Bitcoin voucher as a gift... if that is their main goal, I congratulate them for the innovative idea to boost adoption. 

[fuathan]

Waov!.. That's the big news. I started to thinking this idea when I saw some gift / promotion cards in stores...

[alyssa85]

People can buy up to $25 worth of Bitcoin with no paperwork
They are making it really easy to buy online with a credit card, and controlling risk with limited amounts.
Let's hope they do not get bleed to death with "$25 worth of fraud" done thousands of times.

Well the scammers would need thousands of credit cards to make it work - I'm guessing it would cost them more than $25 to buy a stolen card, which is why the limit was set at that amount.

[BellaBitBit]

Good news.  I like the idea of walking into a store and buying btc and buying btc in small amounts with no paperwork is good too. Will follow the progress.

[SFR10]

Personally I'm against this in a way that criminals could go ahead and just buy $25 in BTCitcoin whenever they want and do it in numerous ways. The idea itself is really great though (to introduce new users to BTCitcoin) but it would be better to somehow track each buyer (we never know when those informations could come in handy and help protect someone from as a result of criminal funding). So my saying is, regardless of the amount, their identity should be provided instead.

[RoommateAgreement]

i think this is the biggest opperation that i have seen done for bitcoin.

i specially love the part that it lets you buy gift cards on top of everything else, ofcourse this part is not new but it is a good thing to have on top of just selling bitcoin.

[tiggytomb]

I'm surprised where it states that currently it can take the blockchain up to a week to process transactions, maybe I missed something but that doesn't sound right.  The idea itself is great, we do have ATMs spread about at the moment but their fees are quite high, if they can compete with lower to no fees this would a huge positive.

[LiteCoinGuy]

Finally. I want to buy such cards since 2 years. Hell, it's about time!

[gentlemand]

We've been here before. I dunno what happened to the previous attempts. Anyone know what happened to zipzap?

[Raimonn]

Its a similar idea than gift cards, is very accessible for users that not want to share its credit card with online exchanges. But i think that 100.000 stores is a very high number, they will sell the card on stores than no one could explain what is this card?

[lumeire]

The $25 limit is a joke, but I guess their main concern is to curb criminal activities with Bitcoin and you can go up to $500 when you identify yourself on their system... basically the same as the many

American companies, who has to adhere to the AML/KYC regulations. I was just wondering why people would want to buy Bitcoin vouchers, if they could just buy the Bitcoin directly? Is this a quick way to

introduce new people to Bitcoin, when you give them a Bitcoin voucher as a gift... if that is their main goal, I congratulate them for the innovative idea to boost adoption. 

The bitcoin voucher thingy has been done a thousand times. In fact there have been as far as I remember bitcoin prepaid cards where you can buy btc in the form of a prepaid card like a phone load.

@ontopic I checked it out they use Neosurf as payment method, so It's basically it's like a cash card you'll load with btc.

[Zeke2345]

I like this but not a fan of collecting details over $500. Seems to be what needs to be done to get your foot in the door.
Giftcard part should help to giveas gifts for noobies.

[knowhow]

Soo its like an exange and allowing to get gift cards,will this kind of project able to survive,we hold bitcoins but wont spend them all at cards or coupons we wanna be able to buy a computer with bitcoin full not partial,but well sounds a good project ,lets see if has market to keep alive.

[bitbaby]

ATMs aren't available everywhere and I would personally feel much comfortable buying bitcoins from a store than a machine that may or may not work.

As far as gift cards are concerned, you can always print them with paper wallets.

[yoona]

From my point of view, the best part isn't the ability to buy from a store (we already have ATMs that allow this).

It's the bitcoin gift card idea. Imagine if we'd had a Christmas promotion saying "Buy a bitcoin gift card for your loved one". A sort of cool and useful gift in one go.

lol I totally agree with you, giving bitcoin as gift cards, letting people know the advantages and the usability... When will they be here??

[Devesh]

I see this update at my bitit app, nothing much different about it we just buy bitcoin there in the app.

[RealPhotoshoper]

http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/24/paris-based-bitit-launches-to-let-you-buy-bitcoins-from-100000-physical-stores-around-the-world/

Bitit now lets people walk into physical stores and buy the virtual currency with cash. The startup also lets people purchase Bitcoins online through the company’s website.

And soon, people will be able to buy plastic gift cards or electronic vouchers to give as presents. The company currently has the Bitcoin gift cards for sale as part of a trial at La Maison du Bitcoin in Paris, a meetup space for people working on projects related to the virtual currency.

The key to Bitit’s process is that it has arrangements with partners (it can’t reveal the names) to buy Bitcoins on a regular schedule. At the moment, many users have been reporting that it can take a week or more for the Blockchain to process a transaction. Bitit eliminates that delay for users by having the Bitcoins ready to deliver in as little as 10 minutes.

The trick, and what Bitit hopes will be its secret weapon, are algorithms it has written to help minimize its risk profile by carefully balancing the rate at which it buys Bitcoin and the rate at which customers are buying them.

Also, its system is designed to minimize the risk and chances of fraud. People can buy up to $25 worth of Bitcoin with no paperwork. They can buy up to $500 after that, but must submit a series of documents to confirm their identity in the system.

Nicolas Katan, cofounder and CEO of Bitit, says the company’s goal is to solve two of Bitcoin’s biggest issues: accessibility and fraud.

this is good idea,Nicolas not just make bitcoin more popular and trying to introdice bitcoin to new people,but he also doing great thing by solving some bitcoin issues,and i think this way will make bitcoin more easy to accs and stay away from fraud.