Regulation and institutional investors seem to be pulling BTC ever further away from its original intended purpose. Surely, buying BTC should be as simple and anonymous as sending it? Luckily, voucher-based solutions like Azteco feel the same and they’ve made BTC as easy to buy as topping up your phone credit.
Kill Your Confidentiality
bitcoin has a (undeservedly) bad reputation; for enabling money-laundering, dark-web narcotics purchases, and countless other illegal activities despite .
In an attempt to clean up BTC’s act, various third parties have legislated, regulated, and otherwise hampered exchanges with KYC and AML hurdles. But isn’t this in effect sterilizing BTC, and robbing it of one of its original USPs?
The vast majority of users don’t like the associations with money-laundering and criminality. And of course, the vast majority of money-launderers aren’t using BTC as their , particularly since every transaction is transparent on the public ledger.
Nobody is suggesting that the anonymous transfer across borders of millions of dollars is acceptable. But should it require a passport to send a few hundred bucks for an Australian friends birthday?
At The Moment
Of course, we have the option to use a BTC ATM (under certain limits). The number of BATMs for the third year running, taking the total worldwide to over 4000. But that doesn’t mean there’s one near you. For comparison, there are 65,000 standard ATMs in the UK alone.
They are also a fairly pricey option, in part down to the cost of equipment, from $1000 per unit to significantly higher. And initiatives such as incorporating BATM machines into Coinstar change machines, seem to be suffering the same (or worse) as exchanges.
Voucher In Pocket
Azteco (and startups Bitnob and Fastbitcoins) have an alternative voucher-based solution. Azteco actually first sold BTC in Shoreditch, London in 2014. The best news is, it requires no specialist (or expensive) equipment other than a Mac or PC based POS system.
Simply pop into your local shop and buy some BTC (with cash naturally), and you will receive a printed receipt with a voucher code. Then point your browser at the Azteco website; enter the voucher code and wallet address where you wish to receive the funds, and voila! Even my granny could do it, and she (sadly) passed away many years ago.
This may seem similar in principle to the recent introduction of BTC sales at French . However, that requires registration to redeem vouchers, whereas Azteco’s solution doesn’t require your personal information.
Although the technology has been around for a while, word is slowly starting to spread, and Azteco is finding new fans daily.
Max Keiser was certainly impressed following a recent meeting with the company, that “This is the on-ramp the industry is gagging for.”
“This little Azteco printer replaces bitcoin ATMs,” he explained. “Merchants anywhere in the world can easily sell BTC. Swap your fiat for voucher-code that loads onto your wallet. Done.”
not only replaces ATM’s. It replaces *all* ATM’s.
Say Goodbye to Banks. Say Hello to BTC.
— Max Keiser, tweet poet. (@maxkeiser)
Would you use a voucher-based solution to buy BTC over less-private methods? Share below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock
Published at Wed, 23 Jan 2019 20:00:16 +0000
