although many people think that giftcoins is a fast and effective service. a upto 50% reduction in potential Bitcoin arklan could have got is a reason why the mainstream, non crypto, average joe would not want to get into bitcoin.
imagine someone invests $220.
this second bitstamp 138.33
this second giftcoin 157.83
$220 becomes $200.20 after jagoo's admin costs
they would have over 1.59BTC from bitstamp with a 2 day wire transfer delay
they would have over 1.45BTC from bitstamp with a same day cash deposit through bitinstant/moneygram
but only getting 1.26btc through giftcoins same day
which using bitstamps value is a loss of $46 worth of bitcoin. that is one hell of a convenience surcharge
this is only useful if someone wanted to invest the $220 in a hurry and don't want or can't open an account in a exchanger, otherwise it's always a bad deal
yes, i had to wait 2 days for my wire transfer (free of cost) to arrive at bitstamp, but after that it's always only 0.5% charge versus 20%? or whatever they're charging here, if people received at least a physical gift card, well, it could be acceptable, to offer someone or introduce a person to bitcoin, but just a email with a code it resembles a service i saw somewhere, they were selling sms for bitcoins with 50% charge on top of them...
