Opendime (first purchase with BTC)
20 days ago i made my first ever purchase with Bitcoin, and the thing i bought was Opendime. Mailman visited me today, i was a bit surprised as i went for the cheap shipping and situation being as it is, i had no expectations of arrival date. I kinda ordered it and tried to not think about it.
Opendime is a usb flash drive used to "load" Bitcoin on it by the first user, and then he can just pass it on to someone. The private key attached to each Opendime is generated by the device at the time of setup but it is not known to anyone till the seal is broken (you use a small nail to make a hole on marked spot, and that will disconnect a chip and Key will be visible when you connect it to a computer). So the person that got it does not have to worry do person that gave it to him knows the key.
The marketing of it is, that you can do Bitcoin transactions without blockchain transactions. So you give someone some Satoshi but there is no trace of it on blockchain. It is probably an important function, but for me it looks like an interesting gift and it will most probably be used as one.
The first BTC purchase experience, the thing that should have been the point of this post, i almost forgot about it :D It was a bit nerve-racking. How it works on their shop is that when they generate a price in BTC you get the address where to transfer and there is 30 minutes window for transaction to go through. If not it will generate new price. So i entered the address, amount, clicked send and watched the timer goes down. First thing i thought was, i would really love if this was possible with Hive, it would be so much less stressful and over in 3 seconds. After some 15 minutes i started browsing for blockchain explorer and looking at the wallet. Around 20 minutes the btc was there but nothing happened on the site. After 30 minutes i got a new page where it said i need to pay 4$ more. After contacting Opendime costumer service, they said it is all ok, i don't need to pay anything more, and just to expect my mail. I must say the response from them was really quick.
Now i just need to do some research of how this works, how to use it, what can be done with it, have some fun, and hopefully not fuck up and lose some BTC :D
It definitely sounds like a cool gift, but I do see some flaws in the idea. How would someone tell the difference between a real device and a clone? I think an engraved QR code would be an awesome feature and it would allow for one to verify the amount on the chip. If the required security was added to the device, I could see it being used in money laundering.
from my current understanding, when you plug it to an usb on computer (or a phone) you can verify the amount on it. also they have blinking leds. if it blinks red it means that the key was reviled.
my main concern is what if removing of the chip does not do the job of reviling the key.
i am in a bit short of time, so no time to do the research of specifics.
Cool idea but people have to trust the device.
you have to trust that device will work as planed and show you the key.
that why i say, it is more like a cool gift.
not sure what happens if it does not work, could you fix it somehow...