Tangem, a Singaporean company managed to create physical Bitcoin banknotes after 3 years of development. One million Bitcoin Banknotes will be printed and sold in regulatory friendly countries like Japan, Switserland, Germany and Singapore via world largest retail chains and specialized ATM’s first, whereafter a global rollout is planned. When this really takes off it will be huge for Bitcoin adoption!
What is a Bitcoin banknote?
The Bitcoin banknotes are plastic cards with a small specialized chip inside. These chips are loaded with 0.01 or 0.05 BTC, and this can be verified by via NFC with a smartphone. You can simply check the balance on the blockchain. These banknotes can be handed over in a trade just like cash.
Why is this interesting?
The availability of Bitcoin banknotes could be more important than it looks like at the first glance, it will help Bitcoin on almost every front: It will make Bitcoin more resistant to overregulation, it will help with anonymity, it will make cold storage easier, it will help with scaling and it makes Bitcoin more accessible for everyone.
It would be great for humanity if we go back to the gold standard, but a Bitcoin standard is even better!
Bitcoin banknotes are accessible
Bitcoin banknotes will make Bitcoin accessible for people who are not educated about cryptocurrencies, you can exchange them without any knowledge as you can do with fiat banknotes. Also, exchanges will be more and more regulated and KYC and AML will be implemented, by buying these banknotes you can own Bitcoin while avoiding all of this (bullshit). Furthermore, blockchain analyse companies will not be able to track these notes!
If successful, these banknotes will spread over the entire world and will even be smuggled into counties where they are needed most and thus illegal (the reward is great, because they will trade for a huge premium).
For merchants it will be way easier to accept these notes, since they don't have to install any software to accept Bitcoin payments, only an app have to be installed and a NFC reader have to be present. Furthermore, there are no fees and a hack is not possible.
Bitcoin banknotes are a perfect form of cold storage
Cold storage is complicated when you want to do it properly and hardware wallets are expensive for most people. A Bitcoin banknote is actually a perfect form of cold storage, what is already done for you almost for free! Instead of a multiday study and making expenses to buy a device that has never been online to create a paper wallet, you can now just go to the post office or specialized ATM and buy bitcoins that are in high quality cold storage!
Bitcoin banknotes work offline
You can transact with the Bitcoin banknotes like you would do with normal cash, and it will have the same features too. The payment will be anonymously, instant and there will be no fee. This is also a great thing for the Bitcoin network itself, these transactions take place off the blockchain, so people ARE trading Bitcoin but are not putting load on the blockchain. These notes could realize mass adoption, without the need for progress in scaling!
A question for the readers:
I did some investigation on this subject, but one important point I can’t find any information about. I would like to know how bitcoins locked up on these notes can be brought online again. When people can do this themselves, it could be risky, because someone could take the funds off later while they were there when you checked at the moment of the transaction.
I think it makes more sense that only Tangem can extract the private key, so that they will buy back the note via there distribution channels when you want to do this. This creates a banknote as in the good old days of the gold standard, where you can redeem your notes for the real thing.
Does someone know how this is done? I would love to know it! Let me know in the comments!
Conclusion:
Bitcoin banknotes are about to hit the market and I think it will be huge for adoption and anti fragility of Bitcoin as a whole when successful. If it turns out to be successful, we will soon have the choice between holding paper money that can be printed at will of bankers or money that is as good as or better than it was during the gold standard. The future to an era of the Bitcoin standard is available, we only have to choose it!
Disclaimer
This is no financial advice, just my view on the market.
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