5 ms·

Send Bitcoin to anyone with a Twitter account

45 points by mdelias 14y ago

billpg 14y ago
Interesting idea, but I think an awful lot of BTC will be hanging around going unclaimed because of random twitter users who have no idea what's going on. I wonder if the tipper can get unclaimed money back.
- tejaswiy 14y ago
  I believe the receiver needs to approve a transaction before the transfer happens. Atleast that's how reddittip works.
  - snitko 14y ago
    Yes, and they return the money if they remain unclaimed for a month or so.
    - myearwood2 14y ago
      Yes, we are also using this policy. Documentation about it will be coming shortly.
tejaswiy 14y ago
So, I'm a little confused. Why is it so hard to do this with paypal / credit cards and so easy with bitcoins? What sort of fraud do credit card companies have to deal with that bitcoin does not?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- Ntrails 14y ago
  I think gittip does paypal etc donations to twitter accounts - it's not that bitcoin is inherently easier I guess
  - jerguismi 14y ago
    Gittip has had its fair share of fraud. It is probably lots of hassle compared to the volumes they handle, which are fairly low. http://blog.gittip.com/post/35057426257/stolen-money-on-gittip-part-1 http://blog.gittip.com/post/35057426257/stolen-money-on-gitt...
- jerguismi 14y ago
  BItcoin "accounts" are not based on identities. Therefore it is very easy to accept and send payments, since there are no identities at all. No possibility for fraud, because there is only hard cash.
  - kiba 14y ago
    There can be a possibility of fraud, it's just that bitcoin doesn't care or know if it's fraud. If you want to care about fraud, you could use escrows and additional layers on top of bitcoin.
- kiba 14y ago
  Bitcoin is a lower abstraction than paypal and credit cards. It doesn't worry about fraud at all, or have a bottom line, or anything like that. Think of it as the US dollars. The cash in your hand doesn't care where it's go and what kind of business it helps facilitate. Credit companies can be politically pressured, worry about the bottom line, and block payments, and so on.
- lucb1e 14y ago
  Excellent, excellent question. The thing is that money can be faked (that's why we need to fill out all of our personal details on every payment form we ever see), but Bitcoins are cryptographically secured. You have to be aware of the risks if you want to be really secure, but at least you can be assured that Bitcoins are legitimate and not counterfeited.
  - rmc 14y ago
    Unless a software bug causes another fork.
- moxie 14y ago
  Any time you're in the position of moving money from one person to another with credit cards, you're in extreme risk. Your service becomes the perfect fraud target, because an attacker can essentially use your service to withdraw cash from stolen credit card numbers (set up two accounts, "tip" one from the other, repeat). Once the owner of the CC realizes that its been stolen, the CC company will issue a chargeback. If the money has already been withdrawn by the attacker, you lose. Chargebacks can happen three or four months from the date of the charge, so there's no way to effectively "hold" the charge for that long before allowing users to withdraw their money. BTC, on the other hand, is an irrevocable transaction.
  - tejaswiy 14y ago
    But still, stolen credit cards == compromised bitcoin private keys right?
    - Retric 14y ago
      compromised bi-coin private key ~= lost cash. If you look into it the only thing bit coins have going for them is pseudo anonymity. You can't use them for vending machines as you can revoke transactions in the short them and nobody want's to wait 20 minutes for there soda with the same problem showing up on any fast transaction. You also have no protection vs a lost wallet.
      - MacsHeadroom 14y ago
        The likelihood of people double-spending against vending machines is very low. There is no reason a well placed vending machine could not give out cheap items without verification. Sure, don't put your vending machine in the ghetto. But an upscale mall should be fine.
        diminoten 14y ago
        If I were the enterprising lawless sort, and bitcoin vending machines did let me double-spend, that's precisely what I would do.
- Groxx 14y ago
  Bitcoin is, at a very rough level, cash. If you give it to someone, you can't do any kind of automatic charge-back (lead pipes still work of course). You can't give the same cash to someone else (double-spending, easy with checks). You can't give someone cash you don't have (no debt / bounced checks). No transaction fee (technically. in practice, there may be none, or a very-tiny one compared to the amount transferred). No drivers license / social security number / home address required for either participant. Now imagine if you could send cash over the internet, to anyone. There are some extra tidbits (Bitcoin comes with a 'coin use history' essentially - all transactions are public knowledge, though the participants are anonymous. and other differences.), but that's basically the appeal.
mootothemax 14y ago
I really like the idea, but think you need to work out how to make yourself look genuine to people who are receiving the tips. There are too many spam variants of "Free money! Claim it here!" which might make people cautious and never even try to claim. Work out how to solve this, and I think you'll be good to go!
- fredsted 14y ago
  Not to mention the e-mail address ends in @live.com. At least take the time to set up a proper e-mail address.
- myearwood2 14y ago
  That's very true . It's an issue I'm thinking about and working on . :)
  - kaoD 14y ago
    Just remind senders to notify receivers that they're going to get some money (or "a gift" at least).
- rplnt 14y ago
  Maybe that's the business side of the idea.
rolleiflex 14y ago
Interesting idea, but I'm feeling like you were trying to pass one by in the line: > ...a bitcointipper account will be automatically created for them.They can leave the bitcoins in their account or withdraw them to a bitcoin address . So if the user does not claim, you're not returning it, but presumably claiming it for yourself after a certain timeout. This doesn't sound very honest.
- myearwood2 14y ago
  HI, I'm the developer behind Bitcoin tipper. We WILL be returning unclaimed tips to the sender. Right now , we are trying to figure out how long to wait before returning the tip . The documentation about this will be posted shortly.
eterm 14y ago
The SPAM potential here is amazing. Now instead of follow-spamming someone you can tip someone 0.0000001 BTC with a nice spam message, and who could resist not picking up a tip?
- myearwood2 14y ago
  we are building a minimum tipping amount into the system to combat this issue . It will probably be around 0.05 USD.
myearwood2 14y ago
Hi guys, I'm the developer behind Bitcoin Tipper. Tips we receive that are unclaimed will return to the sender. right now,I'm still figuring out how long we should wait before returning the tips. There will be lots of improvements to the service coming, so stay tuned :)
- tlrobinson 14y ago
  Nice idea. It's going to be amusing if the value of Bitcoin skyrockets, and people look back at how much the Bitcoin tips they never claimed would be worth...
- billpg 14y ago
  Just wondering about the obvious "competitor" to your service, twitter users putting their bitcoin address on their user page, saving the fee your service charges. What benefits does your service offer over someone doing this?
  - myearwood2 14y ago
    You are right that the processes are fundamentally the same , but the Bitcoin Tipper streamlines the process and makes it much easier and more convenient. Doing it manually requires that you look up their bitcoin address, open up your bitcoin client ,and then send the bitcoins . with Bitcoin Tipper , you just need to send a single tweet . Because Bitcoin Tipper works through Twitter , it also has a social purpose. The person receiving the donation knows who gave it to them. Instead of seeing a Bitcoin address , they see a person. The person who giving the donation can publicly state ," I support this person and value their contribution " .
lojack 14y ago
Love the idea, a similar thing has been pretty active on reddit lately http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcointip http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcointip. The purpose is to reward people for meaningful comments and posts with more than just imaginary karma, but it also has an amazing side effect of building awareness for those who would otherwise never had exposure to bitcoin. Something about showing people how easy it is to transmit this currency over the internet is very powerful.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  The Reddit one is fun. They work on a freemium model- the basic service is free but you can pay for some fun additional functions. For example, you can "roll" to give a semi-random tip. My favorite extra function is that you can use "internets" to tip bitcents. "+5 internets verify" will send 0.05 BC to the recipient. Cracks me up.
ebbv 14y ago
This is crazy. This couldn't possibly work. Feel free to prove me wrong by sending your Bitcoins to @ebbv.
skore 14y ago
Minor nitpick: You have "Global Reach" on the frontpage. With an image above it that shows almost exclusively the Americas.
netmute 14y ago
A colleague of mine build something very similar a few months ago: https://twitcoin.net/ https://twitcoin.net/
myearwood2 14y ago
Due to the high number of signups, we will not be able to accept new users. To be notified when we will allow new users to join the system, follow us @bitcointipper .

45 points by mdelias 14y ago

Interesting idea, but I think an awful lot of BTC will be hanging around going unclaimed because of random twitter users who have no idea what's going on. I wonder if the tipper can get unclaimed money back.

tejaswiy 14y ago
I believe the receiver needs to approve a transaction before the transfer happens. Atleast that's how reddittip works.
- snitko 14y ago
  Yes, and they return the money if they remain unclaimed for a month or so.
  - myearwood2 14y ago
    Yes, we are also using this policy. Documentation about it will be coming shortly.

tejaswiy 14y ago

So, I'm a little confused. Why is it so hard to do this with paypal / credit cards and so easy with bitcoins? What sort of fraud do credit card companies have to deal with that bitcoin does not?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
Ntrails 14y ago
I think gittip does paypal etc donations to twitter accounts - it's not that bitcoin is inherently easier I guess
- jerguismi 14y ago
  Gittip has had its fair share of fraud. It is probably lots of hassle compared to the volumes they handle, which are fairly low. http://blog.gittip.com/post/35057426257/stolen-money-on-gittip-part-1 http://blog.gittip.com/post/35057426257/stolen-money-on-gitt...
jerguismi 14y ago
BItcoin "accounts" are not based on identities. Therefore it is very easy to accept and send payments, since there are no identities at all. No possibility for fraud, because there is only hard cash.
- kiba 14y ago
  There can be a possibility of fraud, it's just that bitcoin doesn't care or know if it's fraud. If you want to care about fraud, you could use escrows and additional layers on top of bitcoin.
kiba 14y ago
Bitcoin is a lower abstraction than paypal and credit cards. It doesn't worry about fraud at all, or have a bottom line, or anything like that. Think of it as the US dollars. The cash in your hand doesn't care where it's go and what kind of business it helps facilitate. Credit companies can be politically pressured, worry about the bottom line, and block payments, and so on.
lucb1e 14y ago
Excellent, excellent question. The thing is that money can be faked (that's why we need to fill out all of our personal details on every payment form we ever see), but Bitcoins are cryptographically secured. You have to be aware of the risks if you want to be really secure, but at least you can be assured that Bitcoins are legitimate and not counterfeited.
- rmc 14y ago
  Unless a software bug causes another fork.
moxie 14y ago
Any time you're in the position of moving money from one person to another with credit cards, you're in extreme risk. Your service becomes the perfect fraud target, because an attacker can essentially use your service to withdraw cash from stolen credit card numbers (set up two accounts, "tip" one from the other, repeat). Once the owner of the CC realizes that its been stolen, the CC company will issue a chargeback. If the money has already been withdrawn by the attacker, you lose. Chargebacks can happen three or four months from the date of the charge, so there's no way to effectively "hold" the charge for that long before allowing users to withdraw their money. BTC, on the other hand, is an irrevocable transaction.
- tejaswiy 14y ago
  But still, stolen credit cards == compromised bitcoin private keys right?
  - Retric 14y ago
    compromised bi-coin private key ~= lost cash. If you look into it the only thing bit coins have going for them is pseudo anonymity. You can't use them for vending machines as you can revoke transactions in the short them and nobody want's to wait 20 minutes for there soda with the same problem showing up on any fast transaction. You also have no protection vs a lost wallet.
    - MacsHeadroom 14y ago
      The likelihood of people double-spending against vending machines is very low. There is no reason a well placed vending machine could not give out cheap items without verification. Sure, don't put your vending machine in the ghetto. But an upscale mall should be fine.
      - diminoten 14y ago
        If I were the enterprising lawless sort, and bitcoin vending machines did let me double-spend, that's precisely what I would do.
Groxx 14y ago
Bitcoin is, at a very rough level, cash. If you give it to someone, you can't do any kind of automatic charge-back (lead pipes still work of course). You can't give the same cash to someone else (double-spending, easy with checks). You can't give someone cash you don't have (no debt / bounced checks). No transaction fee (technically. in practice, there may be none, or a very-tiny one compared to the amount transferred). No drivers license / social security number / home address required for either participant. Now imagine if you could send cash over the internet, to anyone. There are some extra tidbits (Bitcoin comes with a 'coin use history' essentially - all transactions are public knowledge, though the participants are anonymous. and other differences.), but that's basically the appeal.

mootothemax 14y ago

I really like the idea, but think you need to work out how to make yourself look genuine to people who are receiving the tips. There are too many spam variants of "Free money! Claim it here!" which might make people cautious and never even try to claim. Work out how to solve this, and I think you'll be good to go!

fredsted 14y ago
Not to mention the e-mail address ends in @live.com. At least take the time to set up a proper e-mail address.
myearwood2 14y ago
That's very true . It's an issue I'm thinking about and working on . :)
- kaoD 14y ago
  Just remind senders to notify receivers that they're going to get some money (or "a gift" at least).
rplnt 14y ago
Maybe that's the business side of the idea.

rolleiflex 14y ago

Interesting idea, but I'm feeling like you were trying to pass one by in the line: > ...a bitcointipper account will be automatically created for them.They can leave the bitcoins in their account or withdraw them to a bitcoin address . So if the user does not claim, you're not returning it, but presumably claiming it for yourself after a certain timeout. This doesn't sound very honest.

myearwood2 14y ago
HI, I'm the developer behind Bitcoin tipper. We WILL be returning unclaimed tips to the sender. Right now , we are trying to figure out how long to wait before returning the tip . The documentation about this will be posted shortly.

eterm 14y ago

The SPAM potential here is amazing. Now instead of follow-spamming someone you can tip someone 0.0000001 BTC with a nice spam message, and who could resist not picking up a tip?

myearwood2 14y ago
we are building a minimum tipping amount into the system to combat this issue . It will probably be around 0.05 USD.

myearwood2 14y ago

Hi guys, I'm the developer behind Bitcoin Tipper. Tips we receive that are unclaimed will return to the sender. right now,I'm still figuring out how long we should wait before returning the tips. There will be lots of improvements to the service coming, so stay tuned :)

tlrobinson 14y ago
Nice idea. It's going to be amusing if the value of Bitcoin skyrockets, and people look back at how much the Bitcoin tips they never claimed would be worth...
billpg 14y ago
Just wondering about the obvious "competitor" to your service, twitter users putting their bitcoin address on their user page, saving the fee your service charges. What benefits does your service offer over someone doing this?
- myearwood2 14y ago
  You are right that the processes are fundamentally the same , but the Bitcoin Tipper streamlines the process and makes it much easier and more convenient. Doing it manually requires that you look up their bitcoin address, open up your bitcoin client ,and then send the bitcoins . with Bitcoin Tipper , you just need to send a single tweet . Because Bitcoin Tipper works through Twitter , it also has a social purpose. The person receiving the donation knows who gave it to them. Instead of seeing a Bitcoin address , they see a person. The person who giving the donation can publicly state ," I support this person and value their contribution " .

lojack 14y ago

Love the idea, a similar thing has been pretty active on reddit lately http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcointip http://www.reddit.com/r/bitcointip. The purpose is to reward people for meaningful comments and posts with more than just imaginary karma, but it also has an amazing side effect of building awareness for those who would otherwise never had exposure to bitcoin. Something about showing people how easy it is to transmit this currency over the internet is very powerful.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
The Reddit one is fun. They work on a freemium model- the basic service is free but you can pay for some fun additional functions. For example, you can "roll" to give a semi-random tip. My favorite extra function is that you can use "internets" to tip bitcents. "+5 internets verify" will send 0.05 BC to the recipient. Cracks me up.

ebbv 14y ago

This is crazy. This couldn't possibly work. Feel free to prove me wrong by sending your Bitcoins to @ebbv.

skore 14y ago

Minor nitpick: You have "Global Reach" on the frontpage. With an image above it that shows almost exclusively the Americas.

netmute 14y ago

A colleague of mine build something very similar a few months ago: https://twitcoin.net/ https://twitcoin.net/

myearwood2 14y ago

Due to the high number of signups, we will not be able to accept new users. To be notified when we will allow new users to join the system, follow us @bitcointipper .