So yesterday I was listening to the new CCT podcast and @starkerz and @brianoflondon occasionally mention #Bitrefill. Naturally I was curious and checked it out...
W-O-W
You are telling me that we have had this running the whole time and I didn't know about it?!
Bitrefill's motto is "Live On Crypto"
and that's exactly what it is. With Bitrefill you can buy goods and services with crypto! Why is this amazing?!
First, it actually has useful/common shops!
I know from other sites that tried this that there were only very small vendors available. I never expected to find the top online shops here like amazon, hotels.com, Steam, lastminute.com etc.!Second, no KYC!
Are you serious!? You can literally go to any shop and just send some crypto (most common are accepted) to an address Bitrefill provides you and buy stuff! Crazy... and here I was sitting thinking that a crypto/fiat bridge is still years down the road. One caveat is of course that for some shops you will obviously need KYC (e.g. if you want that amazon delivers somehting to your home address).
How does this work?
The trick is that you buy vouchers and that you can use these for your favorite online shops (again, it is not just restricted to retail!). In this way they don't need you to provide a KYC and they use some third party service to convert crypto to the voucher you want.
This is great. I can now buy my groceries or clothes with Hive. This saves me like $500-700 a month in fiat money and nobody asks any questions. It's just magic! In fact the first time I tried it I didn't believe that it would work. So I tried it out: send Hive to e.g. blocktrades which then converts Hive to e.g. Bitcoin and sends it the address Bitrefill gives you. Wait 10 minutes and BAM! You get the voucher...
I ran to the local grocery shop here and bought the very first blueberries with HIVE!
Again, this is a game changer
It's something we all wanted and it's here now.
Only one big caveat:
I have no idea how long this will last. Living in a highly regulated country I think it is just a matter of time before they make KYC obligatory... So enjoy while it lasts :)
Check out the Love The Clouds Community if you share the love for clouds!
If you're looking for smallish amounts (and I'm probably going to up the limits from 100,000 per transaction soon) you can use my @v4vapp service to send lightning direct to Bitrefil.
Fees are as low as I can make them at 200 sats + 0.8% per transaction. Rate is from the Coingecko spot rate.
yep absolutely awesome what you built :) But it is still a bit low for me ;)
It's awesome... I have not tried yet but will try soon.. Thanks for sharing..
I just check they have referral system also...
Let me know if you have referral code..
you are welcome!
Here is my referral:
https://www.bitrefill.com/signup?code=p9m3uawv
It's amazing to see. Crypto soon would replace fiat. It's no longer very far away.
I don't see why KYC would ever need to be implemented if all we are doing is purchasing a voucher with our crypto. There is no conversion between currencies, so why do they need to know if for instance, it doesn't involve USD.
I have relied on Bitrefill for quite a while now, it is actually pretty amazing. They just introduced bill payments which should allow many to pay utilities and other things with crypto. They don't have every single company in existence yet, but I'm sure more will continue to be added. Here is the link if you didn't see that section of the website yet. https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/bill
Yea correct. The only time kyc is required is if u are moving money from ur voucher to Fiat instead of spending it as intended.
U could argue that kyc could be required when u go from hive to voucher, but the amounts are so small that it should. It register
wow that is great, unfortunately this isn't available in my country (yet)
you are right, I guess they aren't converting a currency. But it is somewhat of a loophole as it is a private way of interacting with the fiat world with crypto magic money... its not what the regulators want and I am sure some will try to regulate it once they become aware of it... But who knows, maybe I am too pessimistic :D
Bitrefill is a good service indeed. They have been in business for a long time. So let's hope they stay the same as they are now.
I used them in 2019 to buy Hotel.com coupons because there were problems in my country with credit cards and it worked very well.
I feel stupid for only finding out about this now :D
You shouldn't feel stupid. I found it because I had a need. I had to book a hotel, and I didn't have a credit card to pay, nor how to buy coupons with it. At that time Bitrefill was a lifesaver for me. And better be happy of knowing about it now ;)
You can buy things using Hive on Bitrefill. No kyc at the moment, it is amazing !
It works in the Brazil too🐣