‘Tis the season to be hodling… but if there’s ever a time to spend your Bitcoin, it’s Christmas, and if you’re going to spend on your loved ones, doing it with Bitcoin will make the world a slightly better place. Adoption is important, and merchants are yet to find a good reason to begin accepting Bitcoin because nobody wants to spend it! So, if you want to help drive adoption while buying some epic presents for your friends and family this Christmas, this article should show you how.
Unfortunate truth.
Unfortunately, most people still don’t accept Bitcoin, and I’m just not likely to find a good present as it is… Add “must accept bitcoin” to my search, and it’ll be damn near impossible to find. I’d just end up back where I was inevitably destined to be: Amazon.
Okay, not every present I buy is from Amazon, but it’s a solid majority. Unfortunately, despite many rumours over the years—that I’m 90% sure were just free marketing—Amazon does not accept Bitcoin. Bummer. Luckily for us, however, the Bitcoin types are an innovative bunch and created some cool ways you can use your Bitcoin to buy things on sites that don’t accept it! Let’s take a look at some of the options.
Gift cards – Bitrefil
If you really want to emphasise the ‘toxic’ part of ‘toxic maxi’ and buy the most sh*tty Christmas present of all time, a gift card, then go ahead, but that’s not why people are buying gift cards with Bitcoin. Bitrefil allows you to purchase Amazon gift cards with Bitcoin, but there is nobody forcing you to give those gift cards to anyone else… so people are buying their Christmas presents with these gift cards, and all they’ve spent is Bitcoin! This helps support Bitcoin companies that are offering services and building products which help to make Bitcoin more accessible… but Amazon isn’t the only place that people are buying Xmas presents with Bitcoin.
Everywhere Else – BitPay
Bitpay is a payment service provider that allows users to send and receive payments in Bitcoin. It offers merchants the ability to accept Bitcoin payments on their websites and in their physical stores and provides a range of tools and services to manage these transactions. Pretty cool, but still encounters the same problem: adoption. There are still so few companies that actually accept Bitcoin… so how are people using this service to spend their Bitcoin? Well, they’re sending their Bitcoin to their BitPay wallet, and BitPay is able to make the conversion from Bitcoin to the appropriate currency of the recipient and complete the payment. Although the payment is still technically being made with fiat currency so far as the merchant is concerned, the Bitcoiners are still… Bitcoining?
The best way to use Bitcoin for Xmas presents.
All of these ideas are cool, but let’s be real, most of the presents people buy and receive on Christmas are gifted just for the sake of gifting… and it’s often just useless stuff that the recipient forgets about by February. If you really want to gift something of value to your loved ones, get them some Bitcoin. Yes, they will look at you funny. Yes, they will throw their drink at you. Yes, they will eventually thank you (it just might take a few years). And its not because they’re going to get rich from the amount you give them, it’s because they will need somewhere to store it, and so they will start looking into Bitcoin. After a while with Bitcoin on their radar, and a few conversations with the right people, they will inevitably become orange-pilled. As soon as they become savvy to the danger of the backwards financial system they currently participate in, they will begin to buy Bitcoin of their own accord, and a few years down the line, they will be very happy that they decided to spend their finite time stacking finite money. But please, spare yourself the pain; maybe don’t talk about Bitcoin for the entirety of Christmas… that can wait until boxing day!
Happy Holidays from the team at FastBitcoins, we are excited for a rocket-fueled 2023, and we hope to see you there!
