Circle is Amazing
Here are four BIG reasons why:
- Circle lets customers use dollars for bitcoin purchases. (so customers can get discounts at places like Purse.io and Starbucks (through Fold).
- Circle charges NO fees to purchase or sell bitcoin (although there is a spread).
- Circle insures customer deposits (no worries about scam).
- Circle charges no fees to send or receive bitcoin.
This is a game changer. It means someone with no desire to hold bitcoins can participate in the bitcoin economy using dollars.
Take my dad for example. He has no interest on holding or using bitcoins. With a Circle account he doesn’t need to hold bitcoins but can use his dollars to make bitcoin purchases. This is great for people like me who want to create companies and software that only accept bitcoin, but realize bitcoin’s market share doesn’t make that feasible (without Circle) today.
Examples:
Last year I spent my bitcoins to support the ecosystem and merchants. However I would buy back my bitcoins to maintain the same amount of bitcoins. Not only was this inconvenient but it reset the purchase date on some of my bitcoin purchases for calculating capital gains.
So I stopped spending bitcoins. Although I still supported merchants like Overstock and Namecheap with my business. I use a credit card because it was (prior to Circle) more convenient.
Circle changes that. Now when I want to spend bitcoins I go to circle click buy then send the bitcoins to the address. It takes about as long as a PayPal checkout. Very smooth.
I’ve used this technique to send bitcoin to someone’s niece for her birthday, to buy a bear whale poster, and to fund a BTC Jam loan.
I did have one bad experience when trying to buy a Casascius coin. My Casascius purchase was not instant. It may have even taken a few days to complete (like Coinbase).
It is already amazing and it is just going to get better.
The experience will improve. Circle will figure out the instant buy issue I ran into. Soon Circle or someone else will have a browser extension simplifying the process to hitting the buy button.
Circle’s product is a critical piece of infrastructure that makes me think the coming bitcoin explosion is closer than we think.
If you haven’t used Circle check it out. Already have a bitcoin wallet? Check it out anyways. The experience is a preview of where the industry is heading.