It is universally accepted that the best gift is the thoughtfully personalized gift of a gift card. Cash has been vilified as implying that you just don’t care or that you couldn’t take the time to think about the person you’re gifting to. Yet gift cards somehow imply that you’ve thought about that person to a degree that you’re willing to give them a limitation as to where they should spend their gift. It’s as if you’re communicating to your friend/family member/colleague or acquaintance, “I know you well enough to know that you would never shop at ____, but not well enough to do your shopping for you.”

Since everyone surely thinks exactly like me and everyone is also actively trying to propel Bitcoin’s mass adoption and acceptance, then how can you gift gift cards while paying in Bitcoin? Of course, you could just find out if the store you’re wanting to associate your recipient’s shopping habits with accepts Bitcoin, but the short answer is: probably not. Instead, try Paxful!

At first sight, the website seems like a typical online crypto currency exchange. However, it’s more! The beautiful thing about Paxful is that you can choose so many ways to either buy or sell X. Unlike cryptocurrency exchanges that limit you to fiat, Bitcoin and unfortunately, shitcoins, Paxful takes a very decentralized approach to…everything.

Here’s how to do it:

Start by switching it to sell instead of buy (top right corner of the screen).

Then click on the Get paid via box.

Select gift cards and scroll down to find whatever store you think matches your _____’s courteously narcissistic personality the best.

Then determine how much your _____ is worth this year by putting the value of the gift card into the I Want To Get field.

And then click on the Find Offers button.

Of course, this is a peer to peer network, so if you enter a reasonable sum (like 10 or 20 euros), then you’re probably going to find a lot of buyers. However, making your offer unreasonable of course will most likely not yield any results.

There’s also a far less snarky explanation on how to use Paxful on Paxful’s website, but where’s the fun in that? Regardless, the amazing thing here is that with Paxful, you can use your sats to buy gift cards for someone and not even have to deal with wrapping the gift since it’s just a code they get to use when shopping online. This means you don’t have to orange pill them, walk them through buying a cold wallet or downloading a hot wallet, teach them how to send you the address, etc. Instead, just send them the appropriate amount of fiat that quantifies your relationship in the context of the store you think characterizes them best. If this isn’t the ultimate last-minute shopping idea for Bitcoiners, what is?

The post Buying Gift Cards with BTC on Paxful appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Open source means that the programming, or source code, is open to everyone and anyone can see it.  Additionally, anybody can contribute to the development of the code and use the code in any way they see fit. It’s typically developed by people committing their free time to collectively writing, testing and updating the code. Most open-source projects are decentralized in that developers collectively agree on what or what not to merge into their core programming. This means that consensus has to be reached for progress to be made. As expected, the process can be painfully slow and achieving consensus is often next to impossible. A good example of this are all of the major changes that have happened with Bitcoin over its lifetime. For each, the process of achieving consensus took months of debate before the process of reaching consensus even began. In fact, it’s not uncommon for this to take years to go from conception to completion.

zkSNACKs is centralized when it comes to approving the source code. There are only 2 developers with permission to merge any changes. In an ecosystem where centralization is treated as a dirty word, the reasoning for this makes sense. Anybody can still contribute to the development, testing and checking of the code; but by limiting the final approval process to just two developers, it removes the lengthy process of reaching consensus. This, of course, vastly improves the speed with which changes can be implemented while maintaining all of the beneficial attributes of an open-source project.

zkSNACKs is a private company. Like most private companies, it generates revenue in an attempt to make a profit. But Wasabi Wallet is a free software…so how does zkSNACKs generate revenue from a product that is completely free? Most companies working on open-source software go into the business of consulting. But once again, zkSNACKs does not do this. Instead, it draws a marginal fee for operating the server that is coordinating the CoinJoin rounds. This means that the software is free to download. The wallet is free to use, but making your Bitcoin private through CoinJoin costs a marginal fee that is hardly noticeable to the user [0.003% of the amount times the anonymity set].

What is significant about this is that the money going to the company increases the privacy guarantees of all users. Because there is a small fee on every CoinJoin input, it is a verifiable cost that must be paid. In doing this, the honest user with one input (for themself) has a negligible fee. But for a malicious user attempting a Sybil attack (one entity simultaneously impersonating multiple users), the cumulative fee becomes substantial.

The way the company spends its revenue aligns much more with a charity than a for-profit business. The vast majority of the company’s revenue pays the salary for everyone working at the company. What are these people doing? Well, most of them are developers, some of them work on the marketing/public relations (myself included), some of them handle the support, and some of them are designing the UI. This means that instead of relying solely on the charitable contributions of time and skills to the development of its software, the company is providing these people with the means to spend all of their time focusing on the development and innovation of Wasabi Wallet.

Additionally, the money is also spent to fund bounties for the contribution games. Producing an open-source software is great, but you’re essentially competing against people’s full time jobs to get the attention from the contributors to focus on its development. Of course, there’s no competition when you’re not getting paid. As a hobby, there are intrinsic benefits to working on the project, but at the end of the day everyone has to pay their bills. By funding contribution games, the development of Wasabi Wallet can compete for your time, even against your regular job. It’s the equivalent of gig work for musicians. If you’re really good at contributing, the potential exists for gig work to become full time work (by being hired by the company, zkSNACKs). So the fact that zkSNACKs is being paid directly by Wasabi Wallet’s users whereas many other companies are paid through consulting services is a bonus since the users are financially contributing to making the software better.

Aside from all the contributions Wasabi Wallet has made to the Bitcoin ecosystem by enabling users to easily gain privacy, the company sponsoring the development of Wasabi Wallet is quietly making an equally significant impact on the way open source software is being developed. One can’t help but point out the irony behind what is essentially a privacy wallet developed through multiple contributions being supported by a company sponsoring the contributorily developed wallet which is, itself, making a profound contribution to the way open-source software is being developed.

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Money makes the world go round. ~ Cabaret (lyrics by Fred Ebb)

Isn’t it funny that everyone accepts this colloquialism as matter of fact? All of us live with money. It’s inescapable. We depend on it. We dream about it. We demonize it. We even plan our entire lives on it’s scarcity or abundance. Let’s stop for a second and think about this. If you step back and really take an objective look at the concept of money and how it has pervaded our collective existence, you could be forgiven for thinking that we’ve become cult members to this monetary idolatry. How did we get here? What has brought us to this point?

To answer this, let’s go through a brief lesson on the history of money (think: School House Rock, not History of Finance 101).

Bartering

At the dawn of civilization, people realized they could trade things to get what they want. We call this bartering:

“I collected some berries, but I want some meat. Hey look! There’s a fisherman with a fresh catch. I could kill him for some of his fish…OR…what if I give him some of my berries for some of his fish? Then we can do this tomorrow and the next day and so on. I’m a genius!” ~ Caveman Joe

Problem with this is that not everyone wants what you’re offering. What if the fisherman is allergic to the berries you picked? What if the kids want chicken nuggets instead of fish? What if the fisherman gets killed by the next guy who didn’t have this transactional epiphany? This is why we created a standard currency. At first, it was pieces of obsidian because obsidian could be used to make many high quality tools (and kill Whitewalkers). But as civilizations developed around the world, the utility and availability of obsidian varied from culture to culture, forcing us to agree on some other form of currency.

It’s All About the Bling

The concept of a commonly accepted currency was a major relief because it meant that this could act as a representative medium for the stuff that someone wants:

“I traded my berries for some fish, but the fish spoiled by the time the A/C repairman got around to my hut. Now what? Well…the fisherman did give me a bunch of these cowry shells. Maybe the repairman will want some of those instead. I’m a genius!” ~ Tribal Joe

In lieu of obsidian, many tribes and cultures accepted cowry shells as a form of currency. These cowry shells were desired by just about everyone because they were the fashion statement of the millennia and they don’t spoil, weigh a ton, or try to escape in transit.

Eventually, some kingdoms in China invented the first coins. They were cast in bronze and the idea really caught on (for the next 3,000 years). Soon, if you were any ruler, monarch, elected official, despot or warlord with any real power, you were minting your own coins out of something hard and shiny. Because, let’s face it: shiny trumps useful when it comes to making the wife and kids happy.

Money = Power

Skipping all the transitions that happened in currency (paper currency, issuing of stocks, etc.) for the sake of keeping your attention, let’s accept the fact that very few people have the capacity to create a unit of currency.

In order for you to make a coin, you had to not only mine the ore out of the ground, burn off the slack, divide the metal into perfectly weighted portions, create a cast with questionable artwork of some dude’s head and then mint these portions of metal into the coins you’d eventually spend. This is a lot of work and a complex set of skills for just one person. Heck, it’s a lot of work for many people. This is why the minting of coins was usually done on an industrial scale by the person in charge; otherwise identified as that dude whose head is on the face of the coin…or is his face on the head of the coin?

Semantics aside, the point is that as soon as humanity collectively agreed to accept a representative unit of currency for just about everything we produce or consume: food, products, services, education, bribes, medicine, influence; a handful of people gained incredible power over everybody else:

“Everyone in the land is using my coins! And since I’m the only person in the land allowed to make more coins, I’m a rich genius!” ~ Warlord Joe

Fiat Money

It wasn’t that long after people started using coins that the concept of paper money came about. Again, it was the Chinese who were the first to use paper money…and they were the first to experience inflation and the subsequent devaluation that goes along with it. But honestly, the idea of paper money makes sense:

“It takes a long time to make all these coins and my queen is getting tired of carrying 23.7 kilos of coins to buy berries, fish and cowry shells at the market. What if I just tell everyone that this piece of paper is worth one of my coins? Then I can make money faster, queenie stops carrying kilos of coins and…I’m a genius!” ~ King Joe

Pegging paper money’s value to a commodity like gold, silver, copper, silk, etc. is not fiat money because its value is based on something tangible. It took centuries for these people of power to truly convince the rest of us that they don’t need vaults full of gold or silver for their paper money to still have value. In fact, it was only in 1971 that the US converted the dollar into a completely fiat currency.

“I know that my paper money says each bank note equals one coin. But what if I lie a little and print more notes than there are coins in my coffers? I mean, those bags of coins didn’t get any lighter, and there’s no way everyone will trade in all of their notes for coins all at the same time…so who will find out? I’m a genius!” ~ Elected Official Joe

With the transition to fiat currency, the age of accountability ended for both, governments and the banking industry. Governments were given carte blanche to print as much money as they desire and banks, the greediest organizations of them all, could rely on the government (thanks to the Federal Depository Insurance Corporation set up by the Banking Act of 1933) to bail out the poor people whose money they’ve squandered. To reinforce this point, look at this list of the biggest bank failures in (only) US history. Notice how none of the dates occurred before 1971. Coincidence? I think not.

But why did this happen? Shouldn’t we be able to trust in the government that’s “of the people, by the people, for the people?” ~ Abraham Lincoln. One would think…but let’s remember: the US does not have a monopoly on money. Money is a human concept. It’s acceptance as the system by which we give value to and transact just about everything has been and is accepted the world over.

Additionally, the amount of times those people of power couldn’t think far enough ahead to realize that inflation is the consequence of fiscal overindulgence is striking. Here’s a list of all the nations who have experienced the most extreme hyperinflationary events in history:

To be fair, many of these situations weren’t the direct result of a government just printing money to make it rain. But this asterisk is of no consequence to the poor souls who lost their life savings as a result.

Of course, going back to the gold standard is an impossibility. Today, only about 10% of all the money in the world is represented by physical money (banknotes and coins). The rest of the funds are essentially just numbers in a book. Does this mean that 90% of all the money in the world is not real? Essentially…yes! The majority of the value that we, human beings, collectively give to things is not represented by anything that physically exists.

Think of the money in your bank. Does that local bank have enough cash in their vault to equal exactly the amount of money you and every one of their customers have in their accounts? No way! In fact, regulations require that a bank only maintain about 10% of your money on hand (hmmm, where else did I hear that percentage?). So what does the bank do with the other 90% of my money? Great question. This is why I made that snide remark about banks being the greediest organizations of them all.

Greedy Banks

When you deposit any money into a bank, the reason banks are so happy and willing to take your money is because they get to leverage 90% of those funds. Leveraging means that they can use these funds to invest into (what they hope will be) interest or value earning investments. So if you deposit $10,000. They will then take $9,000 and buy a property by offering your money as a mortgage to someone else. Or perhaps they will loan that $9,000 to an entrepreneur looking to expand their business. Did you give the bank permission to do this with your money? No. But they are legally allowed to do so. After all, banks have tons of very intelligent people working for them in fancy offices to figure out how they can earn more money. So of course, these intelligent people are going to make sure they’re not buying a property that could potentially lose value or loan your money to someone who’s business might fail, right?

“I’m going to make a very safe place for people to put their savings. We’ll call it a bank. But now that everyone put their money in my bank, I have a ton of money! What if I give my cousin some of that money to start his shellfish restaurant, Obsidian Cowry? Of course, money isn’t free in this world (except for me), so I’ll charge him a fee for giving him this money. And if he doesn’t pay me back, I’ll just take his restaurant. I’m a genius!” ~ Banker Joe

Remember the mortgage crisis of 2008? That’s when this system catastrophically failed. If you watched ‘The Big Short’, you got a much more detailed explanation of what happened.

Essentially, banks and the finance industry as a whole got into big trouble when the real estate market dropped 20% over 2 years. Greed drove corporate financial institutions and the mortgage industry to use your money to underwrite mortgages to people that were not qualified to get one. And when these people couldn’t pay their mortgages en mass, the banks lost your money because they had to repossess thousands of homes whose value had dropped. They didn’t tell you this, of course, because the government was there to bail them out with…oh that’s right, your tax money.

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. ~ Henry Ford

Who Else is Getting Rich Off My Money?

Now that we have entered the digital age, cash is being used less and less. What this means is that the flow of money is happening more easily and much more often. But when you pay for your vegan double shot spiced mocha frap with your debit or credit card, how do Visa, Mastercard, Amex or whichever credit card company you choose to support make money?

The obvious answer is the interest rates they charge on the high balances everybody racks up and pays off over time (or never). Well, for Amex and a few other card companies, that’s true. But for the biggest players in the field; Visa and Mastercard, this stream of income is given to the banks who offer the loans through their cards. So all those interest payments millions of people are paying each month is not where most of the money is coming from and this puts us back at square one.

The real answer is the hidden fees most people don’t even know exist. Now there are those fancy cards that give you X miles for every dollar you spend who charge you a small fee to use these cards and earn these perks. But nobody is getting all that rich off that 50 to 100 bucks each year. Instead, it’s the fees the card processor charges the merchant or business owner every time a card is swiped. The customer doesn’t see these fees because they are charged the exact amount the product is sold for. Instead, it’s taken out of the business owner’s profits for giving their customer’s the privilege of paying by card. How much are those fees? Only about 1-3%. But multiply that 1-3% by all the transactions being processed all over the world each and every day. Here’s some sobering statistics: Based on Visa’s Fiscal 2019 Annual Report, Visa earned $15.3 billion of profit off of $22.9 billion of revenue. The scary number is the total amount of money Visa processed last year…wait for it…11.6 trillion dollars!

And that’s just Visa! Mastercard processed $6.5 trillion, earning $8.1 billion in profit and American Express processed $1.24 trillion, earning $6.7 billion. Remember that the US GDP in 2019 was $21.43 trillion. This means that the top 3 credit card companies processed almost the equivalent of the world’s richest nation’s GDP through their terminals last year. All of a sudden, that innocent 1-3% doesn’t seem so small.

So after the greedy banks invest our money without our permission and the omniscient credit card companies take their cut from every transaction, who else is getting rich off my money? Let’s make a list:

• Currency exchanges buy/sell currencies at terrible margins and sometimes even add a commission on top.
• Banks typically charge a wire fee every time you want to wire (transfer) money to an outside party (someone not a member of your bank).
• ATMs usually charge fees unless you use your own bank’s machines.
• Financial advisors charge fees on every trade they place or for just overseeing your accounts even if they don’t do anything with your money for years.
• Stock Exchange Platforms usually charge fees on every trade taking place (thank you Robinhood for freeing us!).
• Closing costs for buying a home (US) are usually 2-5% of the home’s value…why? What are title companies actually doing for all that money…paperwork, really?
• Governments charge a myriad of taxes on income, inheritance, dividends, gifts, capital gains, payroll, property and on every single transaction that takes place.

It All Comes Down to Trust

In going through this (arguably) abridged journey through the history of money, it’s obvious why money was created and the reasoning behind its acceptance. But what began as a logical method of representing value evolved into a more and more complex system; agreed upon by the masses, but controlled by a few. As the system grew more and more disconnected with the logic of why X has value, the greater the opportunities for those in power to manipulate, leverage and control the entire financial system.

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. ~ Satoshi Nakamoto

The result: on January 3rd, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto embedded into the block why Bitcoin was created by citing a newspaper article in The Times.

Perhaps this was the straw that broke the camel’s back or maybe it was just a poignant coincidence for a project that was years in the making, nobody will know but the message is clear. Here is our alternative.

The post Why Bitcoin Started appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Why is every Bitcoin skeptic citing its lack of utility as its biggest flaw? It seems everyone is comparing Bitcoin to digital gold or digital real estate, but has everyone forgotten that it’s a currency? I’m sure Peter Schiff feels good prodding the Bitcoin community with his perceived wisdom, but it’s like asking for people to demonstrate your iPhone’s ability to open a beer. It can’t, it’s a phone!

So going into depth on this concept of Bitcoin being a currency (I know, Peter, this is a difficult concept), the reason people are grasping at straws in making these analogies with commodities (gold) or interest accruing assets (real estate) is because the world has never seen a currency with a limited supply. Greed has always trumped the utility of currency to function as a medium of exchange and thus, any king, despot, government, financial institution, etc. issuing the historic currency, has always succumbed to the temptation to just make it rain = print more money.

And here is your utility, Peter:

When you accept the fact that Bitcoin is a currency, then you can recognize the fact that it’s the first massively accepted and adopted medium of exchange that is not issued, regulated or manipulated by governments. This means that Bitcoin is the currency to liberate people all over the world from the rampant mismanagement, nepotism and greed that has inevitably plagued every other currency up to this point. The fact that El Salvadorians are able to provide an economic future to its desperately poor or the way that Bitcoin can provide stability to the Lebanese people who are currently suffering after their government’s impotence and rampant corruption has thrown the currency into free fall is the utility of Bitcoin. It empowers the poor and disenfranchised by giving them access to banking and financial tools that were previously out of reach. It frees people from the monopolistic stranglehold the banking industry has held over the world which free market capitalism has been unable to solve. It gives people a currency that doesn’t rely on trust or manipulation for the first time in history. And this, Peter, this is your sought after utility. Perhaps I’m being too bold, but I think I’d rather take this than a shiny metal that makes me feel fancy.

The post Bitcoin’s Utility appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Taking this one step further, the same perception exists around CoinJoin, if not even moreso. As a result of numerous articles published by Blockchain research companies like Elliptic, CoinJoin is being associated with hackers and thieves. CoinJoin is complex and the underreported side of this argument is that more and more people are recognizing the value of their financial privacy.

In the early days of the internet and social media, everyone (including the original entrepreneurs and innovators) saw the potential good all this interconnectedness could bring. But now that these services have grown into some of the largest corporations on Earth, people are starting to question their motives and the ethics of how this wealth of information on themselves is being used.

Movies like Netflix’s The Social Dilemma and Apple’s advertisements are highlighting their concern for their user’s privacy (however skin deep it may be) and have raised the public’s attention as to how their privacy is being habitually violated. Just like Bitcoin, the overwhelming majority of CoinJoin users are average people. From die-hard libertarians to people who are simply trying to use Bitcoin in a country where it is curtailed, there are many reasons to want privacy and Wasabi Wallet is the solution in an ecosystem where there is none.

Suggestions on how to spin Bitcoin & CoinJoin:

Plastic lobbyists recognized early on that they needed to manage the perception of the plastics industry. As studies began revealing the negative impact their product is having on the environment they programmed us to believe that it’s our responsibility to keep the environment clean rather than allowing governments to regulate the producers and hold them accountable.

Unfortunately, Bitcoin doesn’t have a multimillion dollar lobbying team (nor should it). It can’t easily set the record straight when a slanderous article is published or when a wealthy celebrity changes their mind and labels it unclean. There are lobbyists representing the public’s interests regarding privacy, but without millions and millions of dollars from corporate backing, inaccurate public perception is going to continue to have the biggest impact on any government’s stance.

In this instance, perhaps it would help Bitcoin’s adoption if there were a campaign persuading everyone that it’s up to us to pay our taxes. Instead of trying to regulate Bitcoin, we should make a public service announcement saying that it’s the user’s job to make sure their taxes are paid, not the government’s.

Elon Musk tactfully posted a photo as a blatant statement to regulators visually demonstrating that they are impeding mankind’s progress. I agree with Eric Berger’s article on Ars Technica in that this was a deliberate jab at the FAA (Federal Aviation Authority). My question is; however, where is the Bitcoin version of this image? Where is the iconic picture of Bitcoin that highlights the impediment regulations are imposing on humanity’s mass adoption of the decentralized currency? A picture that represents the independence and stability Bitcoin has given to those people who’s central government has failed them by irresponsibly mismanaging their countries financial system (elbow nudge @Alex Gladstein). Can there be an image which illustrates these things?

Aside from the suggestions, the stigma behind Bitcoin is initially negative for most people. But perhaps this is the nature of things that are new. People were so accustomed to horse-drawn carriages that public sentiment looked down on dirty, loud automobiles when they first came out. Thus, is it only a matter of time before Bitcoin becomes so commonplace that we’re going to look back at these perceptions as ridiculous?

The post The Stigma Behind Bitcoin appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Keeping it BTC:

The first and easiest way to do so is to keep it in Bitcoin. There is a long list of companies that accept Bitcoin, but as is always the case, read the fine print. Many of them only accept Bitcoin in specific countries or at specific locations so it’s typically not as easy as just walking into your local supermarket with your Bitcoin wallet.

Trending Online Payment Processors:

There’s a lot of talk about Paypal and Square enabling Bitcoin transactions. Although this is promising and certainly indicates its mass adoption, if you already own some Bitcoin, you can’t use these services (yet). The value these companies offer is that they make it easier for people new to Bitcoin to easily purchase and even spend Bitcoin. It’s just that they’re not exactly letting you own the Bitcoin you purchase. Yes, it’s in your account and it’s super unlikely that they will steal it from you, but for the purposes of what we’re wanting to accomplish, you cannot deposit your CoinJoined coins into these types of services…yet (elbow nudge @Jack Dorsey).

Bitcoin Friendly Banks:

There are many Bitcoin friendly banks to choose from. Each of them offer different perks and charge slightly different fees for using their services. The most important things to consider are overall cost, insurability and ease of use.

Ease of Use: Using a Bitcoin friendly bank is one of the simplest methods to buy things with your CoinJoined coins. Almost everyone uses a bank issued debit card to purchase just about everything in their life. And almost all of these debit cards enable the account holder to purchase things in any currency at the instant exchange rate with minimal fees. So if you open an account with banks that accept Bitcoin like Ally or Wirex, you can easily transfer your Bitcoin into fiat currency and then spend this money through your debit card.

Insurability: Although most people assume that almost all banks are backed by the government of the country they are based, the main reason Bitcoin began was because of a lack of trust in governments, banks and the other financial institutions that make up our current monetary system. Additionally, Bitcoin is a borderless digital currency. The potential for an ambitious and tech savvy web developer to set up a very convincing online bank based out of a very unregulated 3rd world country is real. Banks can and have failed. This is why insurability is an important factor to consider.

Some banks, like Revolut offer refunds on purchases or returns on items bought which stores don’t accept. They even have travel and purchase insurance available to their customers, but this comes at a cost in the form of monthly fees.

Fees: If there’s anything banks and lawyers are known for, it’s their fine print. This is why you should consider not just the up front fees banks charge, but the additional fees they might tack on to each deposit, transfer or withdrawal.

The possible fees are endless and very creatively labeled, but despite all the euphemisms the end result is that your hard earned sats are being slowly bled from your account into theirs. Especially in the case with Bitcoin friendly banks, the fees can add up very quickly.

Remember, when trying to spend Bitcoin, you’re exchanging a currency and there are many sneaky fees involved in that process (read on to learn more about these fees).

In the end, do your research and see which account is best for you. Some accounts reward international travelers more, some reward shoppers more, while others reward money hoarders more. The key is knowing how you’re going to use the account and then finding the account that you can utilize in the most economical way.

Currency Exchanges:

Assuming you already have a bank account, you may want to just use an exchange like Kraken or Coinbase to convert your money into fiat and then deposit it into your bank account. The benefits to doing this is that you can probably save more money than if you went with a Bitcoin friendly bank. The drawback is that there will be more steps involved and the process could take a bit longer.

You also need to check which currency these exchanges are willing to transfer your currency into. If you’re looking to spend money in Euros or Dollars, then you shouldn’t have any problems, but if you’re wanting to convert your money into Georgian Lari or Albanian Lek, you may have to add another expensive step.

Many exchanges charge a commission or a flat fee, but they also have a spread, or the difference between the amount an exchange or bank pays you to buy your currency and the amount it’s selling your desired currency for. The spread can vary significantly from one exchange or bank to the other and that’s why you should do your research. The best rate is the interbank exchange rate. This is the spread offered to banks when exchanging currencies and as is always the case, banks get the best rates. The spread still exists here, but it’s the cheapest you will find. This is why if you’re exchanging currencies, pay attention to all of the ways they might charge you. Whereas some exchanges don’t charge a fee or a commission, their spread may be grossly inaccurate/exaggerated. In the end, you could be paying much more than if you went with an exchange that has a flat fee, but a much smaller spread.

Fortunately, some exchanges allow you to determine the buy/sell rate you’d like to exchange your currency for. Much like trading stocks, you can determine the price that you’d like to offer your BTC for ____ fiat currency and just wait until someone is willing to pay that price. The drawback is that you can’t determine how long it will take to find a buyer for your BTC. So if you’re on a deadline to make that Ebay bid, you probably don’t want to go this route.

Other:

Lastly, there are some non-custodial exchanges for the privacy focused individual who; let’s be honest, is probably you if you’re reading this blog. Bisq is the most popular decentralized exchange, but it’s a little more expensive than the centralized exchanges. You can also use a peer to peer exchange to transfer money directly into your bank account, but as mentioned in the previous article, there are risks involved with this.

Bitcoin adoption is advancing at an ever increasing rate and now that all this has been written out, more and more channels will open up in the future. As advancements continue to be made like the Lightning Network and Taproot, Bitcoin’s fungibility should only improve. Although the timing is impossible to predict, it’s not unrealistic to think that paying with Bitcoin will be as simple as paying with your card or phone today. Until then, all we can do is to continue demanding these services to perpetuate their need.

The post Spending CoinJoined Coins appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Of course, there are several options and each of them have their benefits and drawbacks. The point is that living a Bitcoin life is not as difficult as most people perceive. It gets even simpler when you don’t need to pay for things in cash. But that is coming in the next infographic.

The post Converting CoinJoined Coins to Cash appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

In these 2.5 years, the same kind of transition has taken place. There have always been programmers since Wasabi Wallet is a software, but the owners handled everything. Now, there’s a marketing team, a UI team, a research team and code team aside from the owners. Interestingly, this city has even grown large enough to require superpowered crime fighters. Wasabi Wallet’s superhero team has recently been formed under the name: The Powerpuff Team, and despite not being nearly as cute or even being girls, the differences are not that vast.

Where Did This Name Come From?

Initially, it was easy to compare the team to the Powerpuff Girls since there were three interns and well, they fought bugs as the Powerpuff Girls fight criminals. They review all codes and fix all the bugs that appear since most of the (core) developers don’t have the time to review all the code. Their job is to maintain all of the incoming Pull Requests and check on the Issues that come in by the users or the developers, debugging them if it’s possible and develop new features.

However, more people have since joined and the aliases grew to accommodate each member:

• Balázs is Bubbles
• Adam P is Blossom
• Rafe is Bell
• Yahiheb is Bliss
• Nopara is Professor Utonium
• David is the Mayor of Townsville

Nopara73, aptly named Professor Utonium (the Professor), was an integral part of the selection process and continues to work closely with the team. He has also started to organize power programming meetings – sessions open to anyone who wants to learn more about fixing bugs and implementing new features.

Balázs, who is also referred to as Bubbles, is the scrummaster, or the moderator for the everyday meetings and assigns tasks to everyone. He reveals that he loves the flexibility and diversity of the tasks they get to work on while Adam P, or Blossom, completes tasks as they come in. He admits that his role has completely surpassed what he could have imagined:

“I thought the company would be much more like a big company where you get your table/chair/code and you have to sit there for 8 hours to work and you can’t even get up for a smoke break.” ~ Adam P (Blossom)

Instead, he works alongside seniors at the company, who also happen to be incredibly reputable within the industry itself, all while also learning about Bitcoin.

“We have someone close who knows the codebase top to bottom and doesn’t let us do stupid things…and the coworkers are awesome. Arriving at the office every day is like coming home.” ~ Adam P (Blossom)

Like every superhero team, the powerpuff team admits that they are constantly met with challenges, sometimes leaving them stumped:

“The QR code implementation that we are working on right now has a lot of conditions that have to be met. We are not the first ones who are trying to implement this the right way. It’s a challenge, but that’s what this is all about.” ~ Balázs F. (Bubbles)

Although the team has just been formed, they already have a sense that they’re working on something much bigger than themselves. Every superhero, except perhaps Deadpool, carries some form of intrinsic altruism that compels them to continue their work day in and day out.

“I’m being a part of something that could change the world. The concept of Wasabi is really great and useful. It really is a big thing in every way, just like Bitcoin is, too. I just don’t have all the knowledge to feel like I am irreplaceable, yet. But one day, I will be.” ~ Balázs F. (Bubbles)

The company is going to keep growing and one day, we will be comparing it to the likes of Metropolis, Gotham or even Wakanda. Undoubtedly, Wasabi’s bug zapping team will continue to develop but also encounter more challenges as time progresses. Stay tuned for the upcoming adventures of Wasabi’s Powerpuff Team.

The post Working at Wasabi: The Powerpuff Team appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Max Hillebrand was recently featured on ‘What Bitcoin Did‘ with Peter McCormack. It’s an honor to be invited on one of (if not) the biggest Bitcoin podcasts. Not only do they discuss the general idea of Bitcoin privacy, but they also debate whether or not everyone needs financial sovereignty and the reasons to distrust 3rd party vendors.

Max also describes how he has completely converted to a Bitcoin only lifestyle and the realities of doing so. Although many of us have dreamed of cutting ties and living a life that is unbound by governments, borders or any of these controlling institutions, very few of us have the courage to truly take the plunge. Listen to find out how this hardcore Bitcoiner has put his money where his mouth is.

“For me, the guiding principle is to reduce the number of seconds that I hold fiat shitcoins.” ~ Max Hillebrand

The post Interview with Max Hillebrand on ‘What Bitcoin Did’ appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.

Enjoy the video guide to use your COLDCARD Wallet with your favorite desktop wallet, Wasabi Wallet.

The post Setting up a COLDCARD Wallet with Wasabi Wallet appeared first on Wasabi Wallet - Blog.