Send Bitcoin to anyone with a Twitter account(bitcointipper.com)
bitcointipper.com
Send Bitcoin to anyone with a Twitter account
http://bitcointipper.com/index.html
11 comments
Not to mention the e-mail address ends in @live.com. At least take the time to set up a proper e-mail address.
That's very true . It's an issue I'm thinking about and working on . :)
Just remind senders to notify receivers that they're going to get some money (or "a gift" at least).
Maybe that's the business side of the idea.
Interesting idea, but I think an awful lot of BTC will be hanging around going unclaimed because of random twitter users who have no idea what's going on.
I wonder if the tipper can get unclaimed money back.
I wonder if the tipper can get unclaimed money back.
I believe the receiver needs to approve a transaction before the transfer happens. Atleast that's how reddittip works.
Yes, and they return the money if they remain unclaimed for a month or so.
Yes, we are also using this policy. Documentation about it will be coming shortly.
So, I'm a little confused. Why is it so hard to do this with paypal / credit cards and so easy with bitcoins? What sort of fraud do credit card companies have to deal with that bitcoin does not?
Bitcoin is a lower abstraction than paypal and credit cards. It doesn't worry about fraud at all, or have a bottom line, or anything like that. Think of it as the US dollars.
The cash in your hand doesn't care where it's go and what kind of business it helps facilitate. Credit companies can be politically pressured, worry about the bottom line, and block payments, and so on.
The cash in your hand doesn't care where it's go and what kind of business it helps facilitate. Credit companies can be politically pressured, worry about the bottom line, and block payments, and so on.
Any time you're in the position of moving money from one person to another with credit cards, you're in extreme risk. Your service becomes the perfect fraud target, because an attacker can essentially use your service to withdraw cash from stolen credit card numbers (set up two accounts, "tip" one from the other, repeat).
Once the owner of the CC realizes that its been stolen, the CC company will issue a chargeback. If the money has already been withdrawn by the attacker, you lose. Chargebacks can happen three or four months from the date of the charge, so there's no way to effectively "hold" the charge for that long before allowing users to withdraw their money.
BTC, on the other hand, is an irrevocable transaction.
Once the owner of the CC realizes that its been stolen, the CC company will issue a chargeback. If the money has already been withdrawn by the attacker, you lose. Chargebacks can happen three or four months from the date of the charge, so there's no way to effectively "hold" the charge for that long before allowing users to withdraw their money.
BTC, on the other hand, is an irrevocable transaction.
But still, stolen credit cards == compromised bitcoin private keys right?
No. To 'steal' [1] a credit card, all you need is the information you get if you check the credit card in a legitimate transaction. ( Credit cards unfortunately predate public key crypto.) So a stolen credit card is actually similar to a compromised public key.
[1] actually copy
[1] actually copy
But you try to keep your private keys private, and give your credit card info to every business you pay.
The question is who's liable when the theft occurs.
In the CC world, the liable party isn't the card holder or the CC company, but the merchant. Chargebacks make services where money is transferred from one person to another extremely difficult to operate. Your service will be eaten alive by fraud unless you invest heavily in fraud detection, ratchet it up to the max, and hope that you have the volume to cover the attacks that still slip through. This is, in part, the recipe that leads everyone to hate PayPal.
In the BTC world, however, there is no risk to the service. There's no need for a fraudster to even use the service: if they've stolen someone's BTC private key, they already have the money.
In the CC world, the liable party isn't the card holder or the CC company, but the merchant. Chargebacks make services where money is transferred from one person to another extremely difficult to operate. Your service will be eaten alive by fraud unless you invest heavily in fraud detection, ratchet it up to the max, and hope that you have the volume to cover the attacks that still slip through. This is, in part, the recipe that leads everyone to hate PayPal.
In the BTC world, however, there is no risk to the service. There's no need for a fraudster to even use the service: if they've stolen someone's BTC private key, they already have the money.
compromised bi-coin private key ~= lost cash.
If you look into it the only thing bit coins have going for them is pseudo anonymity. You can't use them for vending machines as you can revoke transactions in the short them and nobody want's to wait 20 minutes for there soda with the same problem showing up on any fast transaction. You also have no protection vs a lost wallet.
If you look into it the only thing bit coins have going for them is pseudo anonymity. You can't use them for vending machines as you can revoke transactions in the short them and nobody want's to wait 20 minutes for there soda with the same problem showing up on any fast transaction. You also have no protection vs a lost wallet.
The likelihood of people double-spending against vending machines is very low. There is no reason a well placed vending machine could not give out cheap items without verification.
Sure, don't put your vending machine in the ghetto. But an upscale mall should be fine.
Sure, don't put your vending machine in the ghetto. But an upscale mall should be fine.
If I were the enterprising lawless sort, and bitcoin vending machines did let me double-spend, that's precisely what I would do.
Bitcoin is, at a very rough level, cash.
If you give it to someone, you can't do any kind of automatic charge-back (lead pipes still work of course). You can't give the same cash to someone else (double-spending, easy with checks). You can't give someone cash you don't have (no debt / bounced checks). No transaction fee (technically. in practice, there may be none, or a very-tiny one compared to the amount transferred). No drivers license / social security number / home address required for either participant.
Now imagine if you could send cash over the internet, to anyone. There are some extra tidbits (Bitcoin comes with a 'coin use history' essentially - all transactions are public knowledge, though the participants are anonymous. and other differences.), but that's basically the appeal.
If you give it to someone, you can't do any kind of automatic charge-back (lead pipes still work of course). You can't give the same cash to someone else (double-spending, easy with checks). You can't give someone cash you don't have (no debt / bounced checks). No transaction fee (technically. in practice, there may be none, or a very-tiny one compared to the amount transferred). No drivers license / social security number / home address required for either participant.
Now imagine if you could send cash over the internet, to anyone. There are some extra tidbits (Bitcoin comes with a 'coin use history' essentially - all transactions are public knowledge, though the participants are anonymous. and other differences.), but that's basically the appeal.
BItcoin "accounts" are not based on identities. Therefore it is very easy to accept and send payments, since there are no identities at all. No possibility for fraud, because there is only hard cash.
There can be a possibility of fraud, it's just that bitcoin doesn't care or know if it's fraud. If you want to care about fraud, you could use escrows and additional layers on top of bitcoin.
Excellent, excellent question. The thing is that money can be faked (that's why we need to fill out all of our personal details on every payment form we ever see), but Bitcoins are cryptographically secured. You have to be aware of the risks if you want to be really secure, but at least you can be assured that Bitcoins are legitimate and not counterfeited.
Unless a software bug causes another fork.
I think gittip does paypal etc donations to twitter accounts - it's not that bitcoin is inherently easier I guess
Gittip has had its fair share of fraud. It is probably lots of hassle compared to the volumes they handle, which are fairly low.
http://blog.gittip.com/post/35057426257/stolen-money-on-gitt...
http://blog.gittip.com/post/35057426257/stolen-money-on-gitt...
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Interesting idea, but I'm feeling like you were trying to pass one by in the line:
> ...a bitcointipper account will be automatically created for them.They can leave the bitcoins in their account or withdraw them to a bitcoin address .
So if the user does not claim, you're not returning it, but presumably claiming it for yourself after a certain timeout. This doesn't sound very honest.
> ...a bitcointipper account will be automatically created for them.They can leave the bitcoins in their account or withdraw them to a bitcoin address .
So if the user does not claim, you're not returning it, but presumably claiming it for yourself after a certain timeout. This doesn't sound very honest.
HI, I'm the developer behind Bitcoin tipper. We WILL be returning unclaimed tips to the sender. Right now , we are trying to figure out how long to wait before returning the tip . The documentation about this will be posted shortly.
Hi guys, I'm the developer behind Bitcoin Tipper. Tips we receive that are unclaimed will return to the sender. right now,I'm still figuring out how long we should wait before returning the tips. There will be lots of improvements to the service coming, so stay tuned :)
Nice idea.
It's going to be amusing if the value of Bitcoin skyrockets, and people look back at how much the Bitcoin tips they never claimed would be worth...
It's going to be amusing if the value of Bitcoin skyrockets, and people look back at how much the Bitcoin tips they never claimed would be worth...
Just wondering about the obvious "competitor" to your service, twitter users putting their bitcoin address on their user page, saving the fee your service charges.
What benefits does your service offer over someone doing this?
What benefits does your service offer over someone doing this?
You are right that the processes are fundamentally the same , but the Bitcoin Tipper streamlines the process and makes it much easier and more convenient. Doing it manually requires that you look up their bitcoin address, open up your bitcoin client ,and then send the bitcoins . with Bitcoin Tipper , you just need to send a single tweet .
Because Bitcoin Tipper works through Twitter , it also has a social purpose. The person receiving the donation knows who gave it to them. Instead of seeing a Bitcoin address , they see a person. The person who giving the donation can publicly state ," I support this person and value their contribution " .
Because Bitcoin Tipper works through Twitter , it also has a social purpose. The person receiving the donation knows who gave it to them. Instead of seeing a Bitcoin address , they see a person. The person who giving the donation can publicly state ," I support this person and value their contribution " .
Love the idea, a similar thing has been pretty active on reddit lately http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcointip. The purpose is to reward people for meaningful comments and posts with more than just imaginary karma, but it also has an amazing side effect of building awareness for those who would otherwise never had exposure to bitcoin. Something about showing people how easy it is to transmit this currency over the internet is very powerful.
The Reddit one is fun. They work on a freemium model- the basic service is free but you can pay for some fun additional functions. For example, you can "roll" to give a semi-random tip.
My favorite extra function is that you can use "internets" to tip bitcents.
"+5 internets verify" will send 0.05 BC to the recipient. Cracks me up.
My favorite extra function is that you can use "internets" to tip bitcents.
"+5 internets verify" will send 0.05 BC to the recipient. Cracks me up.
This is crazy. This couldn't possibly work. Feel free to prove me wrong by sending your Bitcoins to @ebbv.
The SPAM potential here is amazing. Now instead of follow-spamming someone you can tip someone 0.0000001 BTC with a nice spam message, and who could resist not picking up a tip?
we are building a minimum tipping amount into the system to combat this issue . It will probably be around 0.05 USD.
Due to the high number of signups, we will not be able to accept new users. To be notified when we will allow new users to join the system, follow us @bitcointipper .
A colleague of mine build something very similar a few months ago: https://twitcoin.net/
Minor nitpick: You have "Global Reach" on the frontpage. With an image above it that shows almost exclusively the Americas.
There are too many spam variants of "Free money! Claim it here!" which might make people cautious and never even try to claim.
Work out how to solve this, and I think you'll be good to go!