A story about shopping with bitcoins
Do you want to know where to spend your bitcoins, are you unwary about using bitcoins for shopping online, no need to worry, keep reading and your questions will be answered. Bitcoin shopping is a thing of the future, it is here to stay. The following article has reviewed some of the newest alternatives to bitcoin shopping, it does not contain specific stores and retailers that accept bitcoins, but only revolutionary startups related to shopping with bitcoins, such as BitBrochure.com and All4BTC.
What are bitcoins?
Bitcoins are an online cryptocurrency where the creation and transfer of bitcoins is based on an open-source cryptographic protocolthatm it is independent of any central authority and/or government. In other words; bitcoins are based on an ‘ever evolving’ algorithm and it is not controlled by any state or government. The bitcoin was introduced in 2009 by the Satoshi Nakamoto, it was not revolutionary in its idea, it was revolutionary in its simplicity and secure algorithm, which allows for a “natural” increase of currency quantity.
Today
Today more and more places accept bitcoins in their stores, some 300 new places a week. This presents a big issue for shoppers. Even though it is getting easier, because more places accept bitcoins, it is very confusing and often difficult to find your way around all the shops that do accept bitcoins. On the web there exists hundreds of lists showing hundreds of stores that accept bitcoins, however, it is not easy to find the exact store and product you are looking for. Unfortunately a large variety of good stores simply get lost in the midst of them all. Some of the best ways to find good and reliable store is to join bitcion related networks and forum. Some of the biggest and bests forums are:
- https://bitcointalk.org/
- http://www.bitcointrading.com/forum/index.php
- https://www.coinforum.ca/
- http://www.thebuddyforum.com/bitcoin-forum/
- https://www.bitcoinforum.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=jhqt762t0don0000cv7hquf290;wwwRedirect
- http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/
- https://forum.bitcoin.de/
- http://bitcointalk.co.uk/forum.php
On each of these forums you can ask, post and find information about this ever growing new exciting topic of online shopping, which is much needed.
Furthermore there is a group of websites that have made a business out of listing online shopping portals for bitcoins. However, I do prefer going to the forums instead, because it is possible to verify these stores by asking members about their experiences. So the question is no longer, where can I spend my bitcoins? It is more; where should I spend my bitcoins. And to be honest, it is not as difficult as it seems, it is with bitcion shopping as it is with anything else; think before you do the transaction, find reviews of the stores, does the store look dodgy, is there any bad stories attached to the store, etc..
News
In the world of bitcoins there are new startups sprouting up everyday, some are good, some are geeky, some are less necessary and some are simply stupid. Below I have listed some of the more interesting and useful new initiatives.
All4BTC
All4BTC is a German based startup, which transforms your bitcoin payment into whatever currency needed. This means you can buy from any store online whether they accept bitcions or not. The positive side of this startup is that you can now buy from Amazon who does not accept bitcoins, and probably wont for quite a while. The downside is that you must pay a fee for this service making your bitcoin shopping that bit more expensive.
https://all4btc.com/buy-everywhere
All4BTC is not the only startup with this initiative.
BitPay
Is one of the most successful bitcoin startups handling the biggest amount of bitcoin payments worldwide. They arrange the payment system with bitcoins, so stores can accept bitcoins. There are several other companies supplying the same service, however, BitPay has so far been the company with the biggest success and international reach.
BitBrochure
BitBrochure Corporation Ltd. is a very young startup with great potential. BitBrochure.com aims to make online shopping with bitcoins simple and easy. BitBrochure.com is the first Bitcoins ecommerce site that connects multiple site, and lets the user browse through the products as if they where all supplied by the same retailer. If you want to spend your bitcoins, but you are tired of going through endless list, as shown above, then try BitBrochure. Bitbrochure.com is, in contrast to many other similar sites, completely free. Bitbrochure.com does not handle the payment, they simply provide a service that guides the user from search to product to retailer. Bitbrochure.com only samples some 20 different suppliers at the moment, but the list and the inventory keeps growing. Bitbrochure is a great bitcoins store because it literally is an online mall of bitcoinstores.
Sources (not containing the links above):
http://bitcoinexaminer.org/14-awesome-bitcoin-startups/
Nakamoto, Satoshi (1 Nov 2008). “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. Retrieved 20 December 2012. (http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf)
10000 ways that might work 