CoinCard is a service for those who wish to sell bitcoins and receive payment through PayPal. CoinCard’s sister site, CoinPal is for those who wish to buy bitcoins and pay using PayPal.
Behind the scenes, CoinCard draws from the service provider’s PayPal balance and CoinPal adds to it. The provider had to temporarily halt CoinCard service until additional funds to replenish the provider’s own PayPal balance would resume after a temporary halt to that service as well.
These are called growing pains. Having to put up a “Temporarily closed, come back soon!” sign because you have too much business is an enviable situation.
What’s in your Facebook Credits wallet?
One of the benefits with using bitcoins is that what you have in your wallet is your business and nobody else’s.
Recently, Facebook added a tool to give developers insight into how many Facebook Credits each of the application’s users holds. From Inside Facebook:
This allows them to identify high rollers with a large balance of Credits and dynamically price virtual goods to increase purchase probability or profit margin, improving monetization.
Rarely in the physical world do retailers get the chance to look inside a potential customer’s wallet and price their wares accordingly.
Fortunately, this information simply reveals the balance for Facebook Credits, a virtual currency that is used just for online games within Facebook.
Or will Facebook Credits be redeemable elsewhere? Facebook is reportedly setting up a payments unit:
Facebook is likely looking to build a payments system that could ultimately extend to the physical point of sale. “If you connect the dots, I’m very comfortable that those dots point to the fact that Facebook will have a payments capability that goes beyond Facebook Credits,”
Facebook wasn’t the first organization to make us realize that much of our social network lives are no longer private and it won’t be the first to try to share every bit of our financial lives as well.
When debate regarding these privacy issues intensfies, Bitcoin will stand out as the alternative in stark contrast to Facebook Credits and others, such as WingCash.
Involved in privacy discussions across the board:
Etsy meets Bitcoin
Judit, founder of The Critter Casual, a “designer fashion label for animals”, writes:
I’m a Hungarian girl who runs a small website selling dog collars and leashes (that I make myself). I find Bitcoin absolutely fascinating and I’ve made my first small steps in accepting [Bitcoin as payment] so that I can help support the economy in my own little way. I love living in the future :)
What is Bitcoin?
Excellent introduction to Bitcoin! Length: 1 minute, 44 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um63OQz3bjo
from WeUseCoins.com
The video’s credits show: Announcement from @JustMoon
The presentation “Using Technology to Advance Liberty” will be given during the Agorist Unconference (http://agora.io and held online). The presentation includes a section on bitcoin.
The live presentation will be on Sunday March 27, 2011 at 2:00PM EST.
Presentation sneek peek (pdf), (ppt)
Announcement
Update: The presentation is now available on video.
Bitcoin lead Gavin Andresen is interviewed on EconTalk, an award winning economics podcast show hosted by Russell Roberts.
Russ commented: “I hope some of my colleagues will find this of interest.”
The Gavinator
The artist writes that the inspiration for this drawing comes from the photo in the Forbes article in which Bitcoin’s technical lead Gavin Andresen is shown lighting a match under a fistful of paper currency.
Depth Chart showing Accumulated Bid / Ask on Mt. Gox Exchange
Excellent and needed utility from warpi that shows the levels of supply and demand that exist.