Tinkercoin: Buy a Small Amount of Bitcoin With a Credit Card

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For some people, the only reason they haven’t yet gotten involved with bitcoin surrounds the barriers to entry. Many aren’t nearly tech savvy enough to know where to go or how to get their hands on it. Not only that, but some just don’t feel comfortable providing identification or releasing personal information about themselves.

But a Canadian start-up called Tinkercoin is hoping to change that. The firm will allow users to purchase bitcoin using a credit card (VISA and MasterCard). And while that may sound find and dandy, we should not that there are some downfalls.

First, Tinkercoin will only sell you $20 worth of bitcoin. Once. So that means right off the bat you’ll be a one-time customer. Secondly, the service charges a flat-rate $5 fee (so you’ll get $20 worth of bitcoin for $25). Thirdly, the service requires a connection to Facebook account (so they can make sure you’re not coming back for more), which may come as a turn-off to some.

Users can set up their own wallet and specify the address they’d like Tinkercoin to deposit to, or the service will facilitate the creation of a wallet at Coinbase.

Tinkercoin serves essentially as a gateway into the bitcoinosphere, if you will. It’s almost like an ATM over the web, which in itself is a pretty cool concept. Whether or not the product becomes popular is something we’ll have to measure with time.

For now, the service is at a ‘limited launch’ phase — only able to guarantee bitcoins for the first 300 purchasers. You can check them out at Tinkercoin.com.