[UPDATE] Bypass the exchanges w/ BitInstant Pay-to-Email feature

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

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UPDATE:

We've now added the PIN security verification system. This had been recommended to help offset the risks of using email to send Bitcoin, and it's now ready to go.

During your checkout, you'll select a PIN if Bitcoins are being sent to your email. In order to get those coins, you'll need this PIN, so write it down.

Once the Bitcoins are received to your email, you'll need to enter your PIN to redeem them. The PIN is passed securely from our servers to the redemption.

BTW - the Bitcoin-to-Email feature has been a huge success. In the past week alone, over 2,000 BTC has been sent from BitInstant's cash deposits to customers' email accounts.


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Good Morning!

BitInstant has fully integrated with Coinapult, so our users can now select "Bitcoin to email" as a "pay to"
destination. This means that you can now avoid the exchanges entirely!

When you select "email" as the payment destination, you no longer need to use an exchange to get
Bitcoins. Your USD funds convert automatically to Bitcoin and are sent right to your inbox instantly.
Bitcoins are purchased at MtGox, instantly at time of sale

Let's use Liberty Reserve as an example:

1) You transfer $100 Liberty Reserve to BitInstant and select "email" as the destination

2) Our system immediately buys $100 (minus fees) worth of Bitcoin and emails these coins to
you (via Coinapult)

3) You can then grab the coins and send wherever you'd like.

This can be done with all of our methods - Cash Deposits, Crypto X Change/BTC-E coupons, Dwolla,
Bitcoinica, etc.

This feature is especially valuable for those who are new to Bitcoin, as they can ignore exchanges and
bid/ask orders, etc. Just deposit cash, and get Bitcoins directly in your email! Can't get much simpler
than that Also great for anyone who is hesitant to use exchanges due to security concerns, etc.

Try it now! www.Bitinstant.com

Enjoy!

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[FreeMoney]

Nice.

[hazek]

This is actually awesome news since it removes the need to ID yourself in order to convert your fiat to BTC.

Two thumbs up from me! 

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

This is actually awesome news since it removes the need to ID yourself in order to convert your fiat to BTC.

Two thumbs up from me! 

Yes, but don't forget we monitor fraud and AML 24/7

We have per-day and per-transaction limits in place for that reason, and any attempt to defraud our system will be taken seriously.

Thanks 

[BadBear]

Well, that's cool. Good work.

[FreeMoney]

This is actually awesome news since it removes the need to ID yourself in order to convert your fiat to BTC.

Two thumbs up from me! 

Yes, but don't forget we monitor fraud and AML 24/7

We have per-day and per-transaction limits in place for that reason, and any attempt to defraud our system will be taken seriously.

Thanks 

What does this mean?

I sell bad powders, get cash, take cash to bank, put in your account, get coins.

Isn't that money laundering? How can you possibly do anything about that?

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

This is actually awesome news since it removes the need to ID yourself in order to convert your fiat to BTC.

Two thumbs up from me! 

Yes, but don't forget we monitor fraud and AML 24/7

We have per-day and per-transaction limits in place for that reason, and any attempt to defraud our system will be taken seriously.

Thanks 

What does this mean?

I sell bad powders, get cash, take cash to bank, put in your account, get coins.

Isn't that money laundering? How can you possibly do anything about that?

We are required by US law and FinCEN regulations to not allow 1 person to transfer more then $1,000 per day

[bearbones]

Quick note for those using this service:

Please check your spam folder for Coinapult emails. I've integrated Amazon SES, which should fix this spam issue, but our account is still pending production approval. In the meanwhile, Coinapult emails may end up in your spam folder.

[coinuser4000]

Good Morning!

BitInstant has fully integrated with Coinapult, so our users can now select "Bitcoin to email" as a "pay to"
destination. This means that you can now avoid the exchanges entirely!

When you select "email" as the payment destination, you no longer need to use an exchange to get
Bitcoins. Your USD funds convert automatically to Bitcoin and are sent right to your inbox instantly.
Bitcoins are purchased at MtGox, instantly at time of sale

Let's use Liberty Reserve as an example:

1) You transfer $100 Liberty Reserve to BitInstant and select "email" as the destination

2) Our system immediately buys $100 (minus fees) worth of Bitcoin and emails these coins to
you (via Coinapult)

3) You can then grab the coins and send wherever you'd like.

This can be done with all of our methods - Cash Deposits, Crypto X Change/BTC-E coupons, Dwolla,
Bitcoinica, etc.

This feature is especially valuable for those who are new to Bitcoin, as they can ignore exchanges and
bid/ask orders, etc. Just deposit cash, and get Bitcoins directly in your email! Can't get much simpler
than that Also great for anyone who is hesitant to use exchanges due to security concerns, etc.

Try it now! www.Bitinstant.com

Enjoy!

This is good news for people who don't have banks, or who prefer to avoid large exchanges due to AML and KYC privacy invasions, frozen accounts, hacking, etc, or those who find the BTC-otc verifications overly technical and daunting, people new to btc that just can't figure it all out.....just to name a few

This is one of the best things I've seen you roll out since bitinstant.

[kiba]

We are required by US law and FinCEN regulations to not allow 1 person to transfer more then $1,000 per day

FinCen should die and all the resource that were devoted to FinCen should be invested in catching actual murderers and scammers rather than violating the rights of normal people who dare transfer anything larger than 1 thousand dollars.

[MemoryDealers]

Bump for one of the best new Bitcoin services yet!

[Jan]

Bump for one of the best new Bitcoin services yet!

+1

[istar]

Thats fantastic.

I informed my collegues about it. This is the tagline I used.

Checked your email? You might have or get an email worth a million dollar!

Now you can get Bitcoins in your email or send them to someone by emailing them.
You just have to hope that someone sent an email full of Bitcoins to the wrong adress...

Ofcourse you have allways been able to email Bitcoins...But now even your aunt can do so.

[bearbones]

As of now, emails should no longer be flagged as spam.

Thanks for all of the feedback and support!

[radracer]

will be trying this out soon

[reg]

great for us dollar a/c holders but what about other currencies? are there exchange rates involved? outside the states we do not even know what liberty reserve is? sounds like some sort of young girls under garment!

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

great for us dollar a/c holders but what about other currencies? are there exchange rates involved? outside the states we do not even know what liberty reserve is? sounds like some sort of young girls under garment!

Thats a good question.

Right now, we only have US Cash Deposits enabled.

Within a few weeks, we're going to be rolling out more locations in the US, Russia, Brazil, and Canada (To start)

The way it will work on our website, is it will show a USD/Local Currency form that dynamically updates.

So, if you want to deposit $33.90 it would tell you 1000 RUB in Russia, so on and so forth. The funds will be converted by the bank, so we will be getting competitive rates.

Should clear up a few things!

Charlie

[FreeMoney]

This is actually awesome news since it removes the need to ID yourself in order to convert your fiat to BTC.

Two thumbs up from me! 

Yes, but don't forget we monitor fraud and AML 24/7

We have per-day and per-transaction limits in place for that reason, and any attempt to defraud our system will be taken seriously.

Thanks 

What does this mean?

I sell bad powders, get cash, take cash to bank, put in your account, get coins.

Isn't that money laundering? How can you possibly do anything about that?

We are required by US law and FinCEN regulations to not allow 1 person to transfer more then $1,000 per day

Where and when do you ID? Do you just make the assumption that 1 email = 1 user?

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

This is actually awesome news since it removes the need to ID yourself in order to convert your fiat to BTC.

Two thumbs up from me! 

Yes, but don't forget we monitor fraud and AML 24/7

We have per-day and per-transaction limits in place for that reason, and any attempt to defraud our system will be taken seriously.

Thanks 

What does this mean?

I sell bad powders, get cash, take cash to bank, put in your account, get coins.

Isn't that money laundering? How can you possibly do anything about that?

We are required by US law and FinCEN regulations to not allow 1 person to transfer more then $1,000 per day

Where and when do you ID? Do you just make the assumption that 1 email = 1 user?

We are required by law to make a reasonable effort to be compliant.

For cash deposits, the burden falls on TrustCash, but we monitor IP address, Bank Deposit Branch, Account Deposited, MtGox (or other exchange account), and email address

[casascius]

From Coinapult.com:

No really, is this a safe way to send money?

Coinapult is as safe as the security of the email inbox or mobile phone of the recipient. If a cracker accessed your grandmother's email and saw the Coinapult message in there, then the cracker could go get the coins. So the answer is, it's pretty safe, just don't send stupid amounts of money.

This doesn't sound like a good idea to connect to BitInstant for this very reason.  E-mail is incredibly easy to intercept - there is no security on it - anything more than pocket change is a "stupid amount of money" as referenced here.  Crackers need not crack Grandma's password, they merely need to sniff on any of the networks that carry the unencrypted SMTP session to deliver the e-mail, and steal the plaintext code out of the message.

If someone were to lose $20, it's not a whole lot of money, but are they going to hear?  "Sorry, someone must have stolen the code out of your e-mail... you're screwed!"  Wal-Mart is already taking a hit in the press for people getting scammed buying compromised GreenDot MoneyPaks and having their funds stolen by scammers before they make it home.

Any time I have ever passed a MtGox code or a private key to somebody, I will e-mail half and text the other half on my phone.