Archive for the ‘General Info’ Category

EtherFaucet, a New Working Ethereum Ether Coin Faucet

22, Dec 2015

etherfaucet

There are a lot of Bitcoin faucets, Litecoin faucets, Dash faucets and faucets for a lot of other alternative crypto currencies that give away small amounts of free crypto currency to users, however when we talk about Ethereum there aren’t any or almost any to be precise. So here comes EtherFaucet, a new free Ethereum faucet that gives away users free Ether coins and all you need to have is a wallet address where the coins will be sent to. Of course like any other faucet this Ethereum Faucet gives away only a fraction of an ETH coin and you need to make multiple requests (once every 10 minutes) until you collect at least 0.1 ETH and then you can actually cash out the collected coins to your wallet. The catch is that you need to spend some time on the website to collect the minimum amount before it is sent to your wallet, but that is the idea of all faucets as they are supported by banner advertisements. So making users spend more time looking and most of all clicking banner ads is what they want to do in order to actually be profitable for the site operator and in order to continue operating and giving away free Ether coins to users.

– If you want to try out the EtherFaucet and get some free Ether coins from it…
– You can also try the new Ethereum Faucet and get some free Ether coins from it as well…

Bitcoin Debit Cards Now Available from Bitwala

15, Dec 2015

bitwala

The European company Bitwala that provides services for paying bills by transferring Bitcoin to fiat and more recently started offering BTC to PayPal transfers has added a new service – Bitcoin-powered Debit Cards. According to the service the cards should be already available for “Tier 2 verified” customers in the form of a physical or a virtual debit card nominated in Euro. You can order a virtual Bitcoin debit card for 5 EURO or a physical card for 10 Euro with the regular 0.5% percent fee of the service and funds should be credited on the card up 3 business days and often a lot faster according to the information available (during work days it should not take more than a few hours). This means that similar to their BTC to PayPal service the transfer of Bitcoins to your BTC powered debit card will not be immediate and this in the world of crypto currencies is a serious issue. When you want to spend Bitcoins through a debit card that is powered by BTC you will normally want to be able to immediately spend the coins as fiat and not having to wait for up to a few days. Thee are already alternatives for Bitcoin debit cards that we have tried and that offer users to immediately spend their available coins in a wallet or loaded to the card as fiat such as Xapo Bitcoin Debit Card or E-coin Bitcoin Debit Card. Though having more alternatives and different options can be helpful at times, especially in the world of crypto currencies, so this is one more option for a Bitcoin debit card that you can have.

– For more information about Bitwala and to try out the service yourself…

Shift Card, a Bitcoin Powered VISA Debit Card for USA Users

21, Nov 2015

shift-card-coinbase

The Bitcoin payment processor Coinbase has just introduced the Shift Card which is essentially a VISA Debit Card that currently allows Coinbase users in twenty-four states in the U.S. (for the moment) to spend Bitcoin online and offline at over 38 million merchants worldwide just like they would with a normal VISA card. With the Shift Card, you can now spend Bitcoin anywhere in the world that VISA is accepted with the amount of BTC coins deducted from your Coinbase account. It seems however that the Shift Card is a partnership with Coinbase and not their own product, so you need to link your account and authorize a payment of the $10 card issuance fee (will be paid in Bitcoins).

Currently the eligible states where users can apply for a Shift Card are: Alabama, Arizona, California, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia. With a beta test for California that is limited to the first 1000 applicants​. Other states can be added later on, so if you are interested in the product you might want to keep an eye on the list.

By default, the daily spending limit for the Shift Card is $1,000 USD. You can lower this limit to any amount below $1,000. The daily ATM withdrawal limit is $200 USD. There is no annual fee, no fee for domestic payments, however there is 3% for international ones, there is a $2.50 USD fee for domestic ATM withdraws and $3.50 USD for international ATM withdraws. So it seems that the target users for the Shift Card are USA customers that plan to spend Bitcoins for domestic payments and not withdraw BTC to USD on an ATM or use the cards abroad.

Since the Shift Card is limited to only certain states of the USA, if you live in a non supported state or in a different country there are other alternatives for debit cards that are backed by Bitcoin that you might want to check out. We have been using a VISA debit card powered by BTC linked to our Xapo account for a while already and are quite happy with the results. Another alternative is the service E-Coin that is essentially an online Bitcoin wallet along with a Bitcoin debit card linked to it and you can get either a virtual debit card or a physical one, though we have not yet tested the service we are soon going to. Another interesting alternative is the Gold-backed debit card from BitGold where you can purchase Gold with Bitcoin and still fund your card with BTC, even though your account balance will be in Gold.

– For more details about the Shift Card VISA debit card that is powered by Bitcoins…


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