Gyft, a mobile gift card company, recently announced its plans to offer bitcoin transactions for its gift card providers. This way, they can ensure that their consumers are able to make purchases in a more secure digital way with the cryptocurrency.
The company made this announcement during the annual SXSW Conference, during which a conference panel discussed the real-world applications of bitcoin transactions. For now, the product offering is in its research and development stages. Gyft plans on using a technology to give gift tokens which can be transferred between peers and other digital wallets. This technology could also be applied to colored coins or bitcoin tokens still based on the blockchain.
Acceptance of Bitcoin Transactions
For Gyft CEO Adam Lingham, this would enable gift cards to change numbers and be less vulnerable to tampering or physical theft. According to him, this was the product’s radical innovation. Lingham is a known advocate of bitcoin transactions, even after failing to secure a spot in the Bitcoin Foundation board of directors in a couple of instances.
Gyft has been one of the earliest online merchants to accept bitcoin transactions. More and more companies are starting to bring bitcoin to mainstream acceptance these days, spanning from mobile top-up payments to casinos in Las Vegas.
Although the Gyft bitcoin gift card is still in development, Lingham has filed patents for the related technology. He emphasized that the blockchain or open ledger is the most important feature of the bitcoin, as this could help validate data and transactions between entities.
“One bitcoin could be used to issue thousands of gift cards for a value greater than what the bitcoin is,” he said. “We can use this technology to make sure that consumer gift cards are protected, that counterparty risk is managed and that it’s compliant.” He added that this could also limit potential fraud in the online market space.